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I need more wine.
En route to the kitchen for the bottle of Rosé, I stopped in the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. Dark bags below my eyes made me appear especially tired. Apparently, being thirty-two meant being so dead on the inside you couldn’t even feel your own pain any longer. Between that, the Paxil, and the booze, I was set to weather any storm, wasn’t I?
I slid open a drawer, reaching for the Tylenol. Cradling the bottle in my hand, I walked toward a mahogany record player in the living area. I popped in one of those albums with a slow melody that I hoped would soothe my soul. “Falling Away with You” by Muse filled the space.
Mindlessly dropping the Tylenol to the floor, I staggered toward the kitchen.
I grabbed the wine from my fridge and opened the bottle with a corkscrew sitting on the counter. Not even bothering to rummage around for a paper cup, I rested the lip of the bottle against my mouth and rocked my head back for a big as fuck swig. Slammed the bottle onto the tabletop and stumbled to the music player.
I rediscovered the bottle of Tylenol on the rug and stared.You could overdose on Tylenol, couldn’t you?I imagined swallowing enough pills that my liver would shut down for good. The perfect medicine for an internal ache that refused to dissipate no matter how many changes I made in my life. No amount of wine or Paxil cured the eternal ache inside my chest.
There were no tears left to give to anything in my life. Instead, they sat there behind my eyes, emptily threatening to make an appearance. Though I knew they never would.
The rain continued to beat against the skylight. The benefit of being a homeowner. Listening to the goddamn rain against your own goddamn skylight. I swooped down, plucked the bottle of Tylenol from the ground, and readied my hand, eager to force a toxic level of pills into my system. No longer the coward who couldn’t do suicide the right way.
A deep sleep. That was what I needed most.
Death had never come for me before.
But today could be different if I really wanted it to be. Without hesitation, I dumped a pile of white pills into my empty palm. I almost heard something inside my head say…do it already.
I brought my hand to my mouth.
A louder voice stopped me in my tracks.
“Stay.”
The soft words hit the back of my neck. For an instant, the logical side of my brain wondered if Dave had returned. But the tone of the voice was unmistakable. Softer and kinder than any firm word I’d ever heard out of Dave’s mouth.
I let the bottle and the pills fall to the floor.
“Jamie,” I breathed, voice full of choked hope. Relief flushed through my body as I exhaled. A warm vibration draped across my arms. Heat danced along the back of my neck right below my hair which hung in a ponytail. The enchantingly slow song continued to fill the room.
A halo of light formed around my body.
A faint vision of Jamie’s arms graced mine while we swayed to the music, my back pressed up against his stomach. We swayed to the beat in sync with one another. Love filled my insides in a way I couldn’t even fathom, and I kept my eyes open, a part of me knowing I’d wake up any moment from this drunken hallucination.
However unreal, he was here with me—for the moment, anyway.
Taking advantage of his fictitious presence, I said the first thing that came to mind.
“We left so many things unsaid.”
“I know,” he whispered. “Believe me, I know.”
We swayed to the beat, his fingers tracing along the back of my hand, as if we had never been away from each other. I started to wonder if I had taken the pills. If, somehow, I hadn’t remembered. If, somehow, I was on my way to heaven, his arms wrapped around me. It certainly felt less tense than it had just moments ago.
“Why are you here?” I asked softly.
“To tell you I’m here with you. Always.” His words floated into the air, hanging there. I hoped they’d stay as much as I hoped he’d stay here with me, locked in this embrace for eternity. “So that we would finally get to dance again. And hold each other during a rainstorm.”
“All the rain. And we never did get to that back in school, did we?”
“Not once.”
I spun around, taking the chance that this would all be in my mind. That no one would be here with me. I needed to see him. As I pivoted around and leaned into his chest, I noticed the glow around his face and behind his head. Blond hair highlighted by the illumination. His smile matched the yearbook photo, and I found myself wondering yet again if the hidden problems still remained. Those issues lurking at the essence of a person.
We rested our foreheads against one another.
