Despite our short time together, everything was so much better with Erin in our lives. I started to feel like a person again, like I was whole or at least someday could be.
Jackson took it all in stride when I told him I’d ruined things with Erin as we drove away from the reception. How I’d told her about my night terrors and that sometimes I thought about dying by my own hand.
I’d never told Jackson that I was sometimes suicidal. He looked hurt, worried, but he hadn’t looked surprised. No doubt he wasn’t. He knew me better than my own parents, better than any other friends I’d had in the past.
He reassured me that none of it was my fault, that I hadn’t asked for PTSD. Somehow I would have felt better if he’d been furious, screamed at me, punched me. Jackson telling me it was okay, that we’d get by was too painful.
“Will you be alright?” he asked when we got to my place.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not going to do anything, okay? I swear.”
I could tell he wanted to believe me.
“I’m just going to clean my house, okay?”
Jackson knew I liked to clean whenever I felt dirty inside. My therapist told me it was part of my OCD and perfectly normal as long as I didn’t overdo it.
“Okay,” he relented. He gave me a hug, reassuring me it would all be okay, and then headed home.
Once inside, I headed straight for the cleaning products I kept under the sink, not even bothering to change out of my suit.
I started with the bathroom, scrubbing the toilet until the porcelain shined. Next came the shower. Every inch of grout on the shower wall got bleached and scoured with toothbrush. By the time I finished cleaning the sink, the walls, and the floor, I was tired. I moved on to the kitchen, making the faucet sparkle and clearing away every crumb and speck of dust.
It was just before dawn by the time I finished cleaning every room. I kept my place clean, so a complete scrub down of my house didn’t take as long as it would have other places.
I stripped down to my underwear and climbed under the covers, drifting off to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
As soon as I woke up, I snatched my phone from my nightstand, hoping against hope that Erin called. The only message I had was from Jackson, asking me to get ahold of him once I woke up. I told him I was awake and then opened the text thread I had with Erin.
My brain went on autopilot as I wrote her, begging her to reconsider, asking her to just talk to me. My thumb hovered over the send button. I closed my eyes and pressed it.
It was just past two in the afternoon, and I knew I needed to get up. Taking my boxers off, I headed for the shower, turning the water as hot as I could stand to help soothe my aching muscles. It helped a little, but it didn’t make my heart feel any better.
Once I was clean, I mechanically made a pot of coffee, drinking the entire thing. I sat in the living room with the lights off until it was time to get ready and go to the club for the night.
Jackson and I didn’t speak much while we worked at our desks. I saw that he looked at his phone, hoping for a message from Erin, just as much as I did.
The next night passed the same way. And the next, and the next. I felt completely numb inside and struggled to find joy in anything.
After a week, Jackson set me up with a woman who often frequented the Dungeon. I took her into one of the rooms and proceeded to do everything she asked me to, but my heart wasn’t in it. When I jerked myself off, cumming all over her face, it felt perfunctory.
I refused the other dates Jackson tried to set me up on after that, noticing that he hadn’t gone out with anyone himself. The Dungeon reminded me too much of Erin and I didn’t even want to go down there.
Eventually, it all got to be too much. An idea popped into my head and, refusing to second-guess it, I bought a plane ticket for home. New York City.
Without a word to anyone, I was gone.
Erin
The morning after the wedding, I packed up my things from the hotel and headed home. Greer and John were already off on their honeymoon in Hawaii, so just Hanna and Sascha remained in the suite. They saw how somber I was, randomly bursting into tears, but they didn’t say anything. They just hugged me and reassured me they were here for me when I was ready to talk.