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It’s as if an impenetrable wall has slammed down between me and them, and the Chinese takeout left abandoned on the table, barely eaten, and the empty chair that no longer feels strange anymore. A wall not unlike the one in my head that is currently quaking, crumbling under the shifting pressure.
It’s a joke.
All of this is a fucking joke.
I don’t wake up forgetting anymore.
Izzy’s absence is no longer this glaring hole in our lives, but a toxic sludge that has moved in and contaminated every aspect of our lives, making what once was, the oddity. And this, the norm.
And it’s stupid. It’s all so fucking stupid.
The hallway shrinks to a slit. The stairs disappear from under my feet. I’m practically floating into my room. Flying.
My door slams behind me, and fingers that no longer belong to me reach around to lock it.
I find myself crashing to my knees in front of my nightstand.
A drawer opens.
Reality shivers around me.
I’m staring into the dull glint of a razor, and my mouth is open in a silent scream, my jaw stretched so wide, I don’t know how I don’t snap something. The world is shaking. Blood is roaring in my ears.
I hunch over, and the razor tumbles to the floor between my knees. White fingers dig into the rug, turning red around the nail beds. I push and I push, desperate to feel something, anything.
The blade taunts me.
Beckons me.
It’s been years…
For him, for him, always for him…
I squeeze my eyes shut and curl forward into a tight ball, knees digging into my chest, and my head bowed to the ground like I’m in prayer.
“Izzy,” I whisper thickly in a voice I don’t even recognize. It pours out of me from some deep, untouched place.
“Izzy, Izzy, Izzy.”
It becomes a chant—choked, yet hiss-like, until it’s all running together in a constant stream until once more I’m screaming soundlessly at the floor, fists clenched so tight I feel a sting in my palms where my blunt nails push against the skin.
Bleed. Bleed it out.
Release it.
Let it all go.
Time loses all meaning, but I’m vaguely aware of someone at some point knocking on my door. How I manage a response I have no idea.
“I’m fine,” I call out, falling back on my ass. And it scares me how believable it sounds, even to my own ears.
Whoever it is hesitates, lingering—Dad probably. I picture him standing there with his head bowed to the door, hand splayed against the wood as he fights with himself.
Let it go, please let it go, I beg silently.
And a moment later, he does. His footsteps retreat, and I swallow, blow out a breath, and tip my head back, staring blankly, numbly up at my star-smattered ceiling, wishing on plastic that is about as gracious as what’s in the sky.
Later, I snap out of my heavy fog when my door creaks open.
