Nothing bothers me here, not in this abyss. Worries, stress, reality. All are gone. Far from me, far from here.
I can’t feel.
I can’t think.
I don’t need to.
Still, even though it’s perfect here, and black and void, something isn’t right. I know that. It niggles at me, bothering me, like an itch. I scratch at it, at the thought, and I realize that it bothers me because I shouldn’t be here.
This is an old familiar place, a place I haven’t visited in a long time.
Oblivion.
How did I get here?
What the fuck happened?
I furrow my brow and try to think…
My brain is foggy. It takes me a few minutes, then a few minutes more, to remember.
I’m in my bedroom. Mila isn’t here.
But drugs are. That’s what I need right now. It’s driving me. The urge to inhale, to burn.
I want to burn.
I open a box.
25
Chapter Twenty-Four
The boy is easy.
Today, I called him over to the mail truck and gave him two pieces of candy, and asked where his mother was. She was in the kitchen making lemonade.
The boy took me in, and I hand delivered her mail.
She was surprised, but pleasantly so. She said she’d never had anyone take the trouble. She gave me a glass of lemonade, and we went outside and sat in the shade while the boy kicked a ball on the lawn.
I could live like this.
I can tolerate the boy.
The woman’s name is Susanna, and it suits her. She is like a blue sky and sunny day, and she smells like sweet honeysuckle.
I imagined that I was licking her skin today, and I must’ve lost myself in the fantasy. She noticed, and asked if I was ok.
I had to excuse myself.
I beat off in the mail-truck thinking about her.
Soon, soon. It will be her.
The journal entry makes me sick to my stomach.
I let him into our home? I was swayed by two pieces of candy? God.