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“Why did I want to jump?”
“It’s not a simple answer, Sunny…just come back from the edge of the cliff and I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”
And somehow, with this admission my obsession with death begins to make sense, like an invocation traversing the fabric of time and space.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve wanted to die,” I realize. The words stumble out of me as if already formed before I even understand what I’m saying—like a spell I’m trying to conjure with the simple cadence of my speech.
Byzantine looks as pained as before but still responds. “No little sun, you’ve had lifetimes of this feeling. And…” his voice cracks, almost choking on what he’s about to say next, “I’ve lost you many times because of it.”
My throat tightens, making it hard to swallow but I push through.
“Tell me,” I rasp.
He looks defeated when he glances at me but finally speaks, “There was a lifetime you overdosed on barbiturates because we couldn’t have a baby, another where you jumped from our balcony, one where you drank yourself to death...” His eyes are brimming with tears, his throat bobbing with emotion and now I wish I never heard any of this.
To know the truth, is to drag a blade in an already open and bleeding wound.
“There’s a lifetime where you slit your wrist but somehow survived—” he hedges and I can’t take anymore of it.
“Stop,” I croak as the world begins to close in on me. I can’t even tell what emotions barrel into me as I hear him speak his last words but it suffocates me nonetheless as I struggle to breathe, my lips trembling while I try to make sense of it all.
If I had to put a name to the feeling currently clawing its way inside of me—it would be despair.
Immediate and complete desolation. Suddenly, the urge to jump off this cliff is the only thing that makes any real sense.
But that’s the irony isn’t it?
No matter what I do, I can’t evade this. No matter how many lives I cut short by my own hand, I’m sentenced to this feeling. Destined to feel like this forever.
And that—thatmakes me want to fucking die.
For at least I would have some respite before having to do it all over again. The hole inside me grows deeper and darker the more the realization breaks over me, like a wave—I’m drowning.
How can I find the strength to even continue on like this? To stomach the pain, the grief, the sadness.
When will this end?
My vision blurs, my feet so close to the edge, it would be so easy to just let go. I continue to stare at Byzantine through the tears welling up, unwilling to admit how much this hurts. How much simply existing hurts. And how I haven’t stopped hurting. Not knowing if it will ever stop. And all I’ve ever wanted was for it tostop.
Instead of voicing any of it, I turn my attention back to him and ask something I should have asked much earlier.
“How do you even know it was me?”
He studies my expression for a few seconds, his gaze so open, the mask he usually hides underneath cracked and discarded, and what I see behind it almost takes my breath away.
“Because I’ve loved you for lifetimes, Sunny. No matter what happens—whatever you do, I always find you.”
The wind whips at my hair, the waves still crashing in a powerful cadence below and my heart follows along with it. I stare at Byzantine, his words echoing softly in my head while I let it all sink in. That’s when my subconscious slips in and reminds me of what River told me in my dream last night.
He’s been waiting lifetimes for this moment.
And this only makes me want to cry even harder, but somehow I find my voice, my lips quivering as I part them to speak, “Do you? Love me?”
His fearful expression falls and morphs into something much more tender, but his body stays wound tight.
“I can’t remember a time I didn’t love you, little sun,” he confesses.
My body quakes alongside the shock of what Byzantine just admitted—it’s all too much. My mind can’t fully process all the conflicting thoughts and emotions warring inside of me. I can feel myself slowly spiral, the edge of my vision darkening with the anxiety eating me alive.
