I wanted to shake my best friend the way I wanted to shake my past self.
She was confused because I was confused. There was a part of me screaming to die. There was a part of me gently begging to come back. The voices were so loud I couldn't hear my own.
And so, on September 11th for uncanny and cruel irony, exactly 191 days after Daniel's death, she was destined to make the same fateful mistake that I had. She chose to listen to the demons inside me instead of the other half of her tattoo.
At the beginning of this series, I said the demise of my friendship was my own fault.
I can't blame her for making a decision that when push comes to shove, I also made towards Daniel.
For someone who tragically lost the love of her life, I hope it carries full weight when I say that I am about to recount the events of one of the most painful nights of my life.
Day 191 2:57 P.M.
The plan is to see her later tonight. My heart is sinking at the waiting. I think this is goodbye for us.
I met you on your driveway that night; a place I had only walked to a thousand times before during my youth.
I would get the next few moments to plead my case. She was so angry, just as I had been. The level of irony between us was just uncanny. When I saw her it was like looking in the mirror of my worst mistakes.
Please don't make the same mistakes I did, I will plead into the reflection.
I tried to explain the voices in my head. I tried so desperately to accept full punishment fitting of a crime. I mustered up all my strength to try to get you to see even a slither of what you used to find redeemable in me. Causing you pain caused me suffering. I didn't want to hurt you. I wanted to set you free.
But she didn't understand why I wouldn't just get help.
"Because I want to die," I said in complete despair.
We will just stare at each other in silence; both in complete disbelief. How could we end up here? How could the mightiest have fallen?
Then, your mother will come out and say three little words, "How are you?"
To which I'll shyly say, "Drive safe."
She will ask me two more times, slightly annoyed and I will gently say the same two words. I refused to ever answer that question. If you ask me, "how are you?," my honest, authentic and genuine answer would be, "Daniel is dead. Please fucking kill me." I would only ever either reply with the most gruesome, vile proclamation of suicidal ideation or simply ignore the question. I found it a middle ground to simply evade.
This will unleash the wrath of god level rage in a mother who finds out her child has been seriously hurt.
She will tell me that her daughter has gracefully carried her own pain in her heart without ever treating someone as cruelly as I have. The mother of the girl that I loved so dearly was telling me I was every bit as selfish, ugly and disgusting as the deepest corners of my mind. There's no going back from that.
At first, I dropped my head attempting to conceal my tears that were waiting to flood out. But I remember distinctly wanting to look up at her mom to remember every painful, excruciating detail.
This is exactly what the darkness inside of me had wanted. There's less to tie me here. It'll be easier to die now.
That night will be the last time she says, "I love you," and I think if maybe I had just mustered up enough strength to say it back in that one moment, maybe we'd still be friends.
Instead I'll say, "I'm sorry."
I meant, "I'm sorry you feel anything for me."
I screamed so loud the whole car ride home. I was yelping in pure agony. Pleading for Daniel. I needed him more than ever.
With tear filled eyes and every vessel inside of me broken, I still have no idea how I made it home. I had never come closer to killing myself than I did that night.
I didn't think my heart could break anymore.
And that my friends, is how I ended my friendship of eight years in less than eight short months.
To be continued....
Always with love,
Audacious Fool