Page 254 of Breathe Like Hell

GET THE FUCK OVER IT.

She hadn’t even been talking to me, and I still could barely contain myself.

To me, every other problem was stupid.

I had zero empathy.

I kicked a rock down the sidewalk in front of me, and every time it skittered to the side, or I didn’t kick it perfectly, I became angrier. My heart was beating really hard. I kicked it again, watching it bounce into the grass. Then I stomped over and grabbed it, throwing it straight down onto the sidewalk as hard as I could. A piece of the rock chipped off, but I didn’t feel better at all.

I continued walking, leaving campus behind, wishing I could shatter the entire Earth with my rage. My heart was about to explode out of my chest, my pulse getting uneven and shaky. I focused my eyes on the sidewalk, walking and walking and walking. If I only thought about moving my legs, maybe I could breathe again.

Eventually, I reached a bus stop along a route that would take me closer to my trailer, and I waited there.

I grabbed the metal pole the sign was on top of and squeezed it, pressing my fingers against the small circles cut into the metal until their edges hurt my skin. The bus pulled up, and I climbed on, dropping myself into a window seat.

My leg wouldn’t stop bouncing for the entire bus ride, and I kept biting my tongue so I wouldn’t cry. It felt like my chest was being crushed by a heavy weight.

Once we got to my stop, I practically ran off the bus. I didn’t even thank the driver. I needed to be home before my grief swallowed every piece of me, before it grabbed my ankle and yanked me down beneath its waves, fast and hard.

I walked as quickly as I could along the crumbling streets, almost breaking into a jog as my eyes stung and my nose ran. Everything was bubbling up inside of me, threatening to spill over any second, overwhelming me until my head was spinning.

I just need to make it home.

Hold it together until then.

I was running now, boots thudding on the pavement, graduation gown billowing in the wind, hair tangling behind me, hand still gripping Micah’s dissertation and my diploma and my graduation cap. But I wasn’t going to make it. I tried to run faster, my vision blurring with my tears, but I was breaking apart at the seams.

Finally, a sob burst out of my chest, my entire body shutting down.

I fell to my knees in the gravel, sobbing until I couldn’t breathe, my fingers pressed to sharp rocks, tears and snot pouring down my face.

I couldn’t catch my breath, no matter how hard I tried. Every time I inhaled, it hurt more and more and more. I coughed and choked and cried on my hands and knees on the side of the road, feeling like the entire world had been ripped out from under me. Like I was in complete freefall, and I was realizing all over again that he was gone.

I couldn’t believe that he’d died.

Micah was dead.

It took my breath away and my head was spinning because how the fuck was that real? How had I been going through my life all these months with him gone? How had so much time passed already? None of it felt real.

I screamed and sobbed as the world crumbled around me.

And I couldn’t fathom how I would ever be okay.

He wasn’t on vacation. He wasn’t busy grading reports. He wasn’t just not speaking to me.

He was gone and I was never going to see him again.

Ever.

The weight of immortality pushed down on me, crushing my lungs, bending and breaking my ribs until they punctured my heart. My heart which had stayed soft through my transformation. When everything else became strong and able to heal quickly and able to function well, my heart remained needy and fragile and sad.

I thought about his kitchen table and how I would never see him sitting there again, already working on his laptop when I came down for breakfast, or doing the same thing late at night. How the fuck was that possible?

Why did time keep passing? How?

I wished it would just fucking stop forever.

Someday in the future it would be five years since he’d died. Ten.