For the first time, I’m actually glad my mom cares more about her work than me. I’m glad she isn’t here, and I don’t want her to come in the future either. She’s always been like this, work above everything else, even her own children. I remember being resentful about that growing up but now I can’t even remember what that feels like.
“I know you’re hurting, Jules. I’ve never seen you so broken before, but I can’t let you keep living this way. I miss your light, your smile…” He trails off and I block out the rest of whatever he is saying. If I listen, then I’ll start to feel something, and I can’t bear to feel anything but nothingness.
“I’m worried about you,” he admits, his voice soft, somehow that one single statement caresses a response out of me.
“Don’t be. I’m fine.”
“You are not fine, Jules, you need to talk to someone, that’s the only way you will pull through this. The longer you hold this in, the harder it’s going to get. Every day that passes, you only inflict more pain on yourself.”
I tell myself he doesn’t understand, he doesn’t understand that if I let myself feel anything at all, it will just get worse. I can’t open my eyes to reality…I can’t say the things I need to say. I can’t let my damn heart feel the emotions swirling deep inside me because if I do, everything I’ve been holding back will rush out of me. It will drown me, sweeping me under the current, pulling me down, invading every pore of my body until there is nothing left.
“I’m very close to losing it, Jules. You’re like a daughter to me, but I can only help you if you let me. Sebastian has been keeping me in the loop about everything. I’m managing Remington’s break down, and he’s managing yours, but we’re all suffering here.”
The mere mention of his name makes me shudder. No. I clench my teeth. I will not feel anything. I will not let him break down my walls. I will protect myself.
“I want to take a shower,” I say, already pushing up and off the bed. I can’t stay here, I can’t listen to him and risk him saying something that will open up the floodgates of hell.
“If it helps any, he’s hurting too. He asks me to put him out of his misery every night and I tell him he dug his own hole, that he did this to himself.”
I don’t care. I don’t care. I tell myself as I stomp to the shower and lock the door behind me, refusing to let his words affect me. I turn on the shower, but I don’t get in. I just sit on the toilet hoping that he’ll leave and won’t want to talk to me again. The sound of the water drowns out the noises inside my head, and after awhile I hear nothing, nothing but the steady beat of my heart, and the inhaling of air into my lungs.
Don’t want to feel, think, I don’t want anything. I sit until I forget that he was even here at all and I’m back to being a ghost…a ghost, that’s how I feel. I’m in this world, with people carrying on with their lives around me. I can see them smiling and laughing, but the emotions can’t reach me, nothing can. I’m so cut off from reality that it’s like I’m here, but I’m not. Not completely anyway.
Part of me is just gone, floating in space, or maybe I’m just broken, so broken that there isn’t any fixing me, and strangely I like myself like this. I don’t know which one is true, maybe I’m a little bit of both, but all I know is that I can’t imagine ever being whole again.
Time will never heal my wounds.
Chapter Twenty-One
Remington
Walking into the same office they questioned me in the last time, I feel a sliver of anxiety. When I enter the room and look up, I realize that there is a big change. There are actual police officers in here this time instead of just the campus security. They’re not wearing uniforms, but I can see the badge and gun attached to the belt from where I’m standing.
Most would be shitting their pants right now, but the constant guilt, grief, and anger consuming me leave little room for anything else. I don’t have the energy for any other feeling, and I don’t really care what’s going to happen to me anyway.
I deserve whatever punishment is served.
“Mr. Miller, please have a seat,” one of them greets me. “I’m Detective Garcia and this is my partner, Detective Stevens.” His voice is monotone and his face emotionless, unlike his partner who looks like he’s about to jump me. I take a seat in the hard metal chair and Detective Garcia starts talking again.