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He hands me a piece of paper. It looks like it’s been ripped out of something, and I decide it’s a journal page.
It’s yellowed with age, and it’s written in faded blue ink pen in a masculine scrawl. It’s Leroy Ellison’s journal.
One page.
Today, I watched the house for an hour before I crept to the window and looked in. The father isn’t home from work yet. He neglects them terribly. Always gone, comes home late. He’s addicted to work, I think. The boy is rambunctious. He’s always into something, and she chases behind him. Wherever he goes, she follows. I’m not sure that I would want him to come after I take her. We shall see.
She’s a good mother, though. I admire that about her. If I don’t take him, she’d resent me. I don’t want that. It’s a quandary.
Jesus.
My breath leaves my body as I read the words.
He’d observed our home for quite some time before he’d broken in and forced himself on my mother. God only knows for how long.
She’s a good mother, though.
Those words, even though they’re from a psychopath, warm my numb heart. Even a psychopath could see her love for me. He doesn’t have feelings. Yet he recognized hers. That’s how strong they were.
She loved me so much she died protecting me.
It’s something I thought I’d dealt with, but the magnitude of that overwhelms me now. If it hadn’t been for me, if I hadn’t rushed out of that closet to “save” her, she’d still be alive. She’d still be smiling. She’d still be here.
But she’s not.
And it’s my fault.
I swallow hard. Then I get up, cross the room, and open the next box two hours earlier than I am supposed. I inject the heroin.
The pain disappears.
Hazy warm comfort replaces it.
The blackness, the void, it sucks me in. There is no pain in the abyss.
It doesn’t last long enough though, for barely an hour. So I open the next box early, too. It’s also heroine. I’m thankful for that. I press the plunger and close my eyes.
The pain, the emotion, the consciousness, all disappear into nothing.
I close my eyes.
* * *
I open my eyes.
I blink. My eyes are dry so I blink again. Then again.
I am flat on my back, I think.
I must be, because I think I’m staring at a ceiling. There’s a light above me. It comes in and then out of focus.
It’s hard to say, bec
ause I feel like I’m floating. Through space, through water, through something. Something murky, yet I can’t touch it. I stretch out a hand. It comes back with nothing. Just air.
I’m the perfect temperature. Not hot, not cold.
There is no pain. That’s the most blessed thing. My leg doesn’t hurt. My ribs don’t hurt. My heart doesn’t hurt. Not anymore.
