His alarm went off signalling the worst part of his day. Waking up. He groaned and turned his alarm off. This part was always the hardest. Getting out of bed and starting the day always felt impossible.

He stumbled downstairs, dressed in his uniform ready to begin his shift at the police station. He saw his roommate, Tyler laying on the couch completely naked, beer bottles sprung out around him and Matt felt an immense sense of pity. He didn't understand why they were still friends. He didn't understand why any of them were still friends really. They had grown up together and had been close but they were all so different now. Matt supposed they had chosen each other as family when they needed it most and still felt that moral responsibility to take care of each other.

"Hey, Ty, you should wake up bro."

Tyler groaned in response and tried to shrug Matt's hand off.

"Come on man, wake up, take a shower, get ready for work."

"I work at night asshole, now fuck off."

Matt didn't want to leave him like this but it was pointless arguing with him now. He was a raging alcoholic and always lost his temper whenever he drank and of course he worked at a nightclub. It was like having a child work at a candy store. But Matt had just gotten used to it by now and he couldn't risk being late to work. He'd already called off and came in late too many times, he couldn't get away with it much more.

"Ok, well try to take care of yourself, I'll be back later."


"Hey Matt!"

"Hey Lena, Care.." He nodded to each one in turn and set down the usual sandwich and soda they always got for lunch. It was tradition for the three of them to meet up during their lunch breaks which all conveniently happened to be at the same time.

"How are you Matty?" Elena asked gently.

"Good." Lie.

Elena smiled at him before taking a bite of her sandwich. Elena didn't deserve to be stuck with them. She was too good, too pure, and he was always his fakest with her, not wanting to drag her down into his darkness. She had always been gentle with all of them and never lost her light. Matt was pretty sure she was a big reason he got through the day. No, he wasn't in love with her. Yes, he loved her, probably a little more than the others, but he had had his two great loves and Elena was more family to him than anything. She had a simple life and no big troubles, her family had died when she was younger, but she was raised by her loving Aunt Jenna in one of the nicer houses in the neighborhood. At twenty two and naturally beautiful Matt was pretty sure she was still a virgin. She had few and fleeting boyfriends in the past and she was to self concious for no reason to go very far with them. In Matt's eyes that just made her all the more pure.

"Thanks for paying." Caroline said, not looking up from her phone.

"Yeah, no problem."

Caroline was the exact opposite of Elena. She was more the type of girl that would be expected to be in their ragtag group. She always wore the tightest and skimpiest outfits she could and threw herself at any guy that gave her the time of day, which happened to be very many. She was beautiful too but in a much different way than Elena. Caroline looked like someone who had just walked out of a magazine and lived in a step up from a dumpster so she could buy clothes to make her look like money. She could be bitchy and she could be shallow but Matt had known her too long to know that those words didn't define her. She was confident and held her head high. Despite sleeping with multiple men a night and shopping till she nearly dropped, she always put her one year old daughter first. Care was a hardworking and an amazing single mother. She didn't let petty things or petty problems get in her way and knew what she wanted. Matt admire that.

The trio continued to eat their lunch making small talk that no one really cared about, except maybe Elena, she cared almost too much about how everyone is.

Matt tried to stay involved with their petty conversation but he couldn't help think about all the times they had lunch here before. He had loved their food then, loved any food in general, but now, it kind of scared him, how all food, even his old favorites tasted like cardboard. He wasn't too surprised though. These days it felt like he was looking at life through a black and white filter.

Matt wondered for a second what Elena would do if he told her how he really felt. How it was hard to breathe sometimes because he just felt this pressure on his chest. How he hated talking about Caroline's daughter because it reminded him of what he had but didn't have anymore. How he hated talking about his living situation since it had been so perfect before and now it was cheap. What would she think if he said he barely got through the night which was why just talking exhausted him? If he explained how he was drowning and wanted to be saved, he really did, but he was just too tired to swim.

They finished their lunch, said goodbye, and headed their separate ways.


Matt groaned and rubbed his back. He had been having aches for a little while now and as a police officer they really interfered with his job. He was out again and had turned down another extra shift due to this pain and decided he would try to get away early in order to try and get some sleep. Sleep had become his favorite thing recently and there had been days he had called off work in order just to enjoy it a little longer because although sleep was always what he was striving for and despite the fact that he always felt tired, getting to sleep seemed like an impossible task.

"Donovan, can I talk with you for a sec?"

"Sure." Matt smiled.

He walked with the chief in silence to the main office.

"Sit down." His voice wasn't stern, but… sad?

"Yes, sir."

"Donovan you're a great guy, you know that right?"

"Yeah, sure." Lie.

"Well that's why it kills me to do this. But I have to."

Matt had stopped really listening. He started to think about why he joined the force in the first place and he suddenly felt as if he were up in some high altitude.

"You call off too often and I know that they're for good reasons, but we haven't been able to do as much as we can when we're down one man."

Matt wondered if he'd ever be able to solve the case he had signed up for or if he would retire before he even got the chance to get a suspect.

"Even when you do work, you're distracted. You can't focus on the task and that can hurt. We are dealing with serious cases here."

He wanted to cry out when another back ache washed over him like a tidal wave, hitting him hard.

"So I really am sorry, Donovan, but we're gonna have to let you go. This is your two week notice, we expect you to still behave to the best of your ability and have your things from your office packed up before your last day."

"What?" Matt asked, realizing he had gotten distracted.

"Matt, you're fired. I'm sorry. Two weeks."

"Why?!" Fear rose in his voice. Him and Tyler both paid the rent but he was the main provider. He needed this job even though he hated it.

"I just told you why." The chief said, exasperated.

"Ok."

"Donovan, I really am sorry."

"Yeah, no, I'm sorry." He gave him a smile then left the office.


"Hey, bro." Tyler said as Matt walked through the door.

"Hey." Matt uttered in response. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone, not that he ever was, but now especially he just wanted to be alone in his room.

He opened his door and crashed down on the bad, grabbing the picture before. He knew what he should be doing was looking for a new job, but he was tired, he didn't have the energy, he just wanted to go to sleep. He looked at the picture and began to cry.

His family had been beautiful and they had made him so happy. His wife, Penny, light and delicate but with a fierce personality was his first true love. She had cute short brown hair that always made him laugh when it bobbed up and down as she ranted. Her green eyes sparkled for him, he had noticed, and he assumed his eyes did the same. He didn't deserve her. He really didn't. They were a partnership and were supposed to work together and protect each other, but he had failed her. He had failed them both.

Their daughter, Fiona, was the most beautiful, adorable, sweetest, and intelligent six year old he had ever met. She was his second true love. God, did he love her. She was the epitome of a daddy's girl, right down to her looks. She had has dark blue eyes along with long, almost bleach blonde hair. She had a goofy smile that always made him smile in return and had her mother's pout that brought him to his knees. She had him wrapped around her finger along with her mom and from the moment she was born he vowed to never let any darkness touch her. But of course, he wasn't able to keep her safe.

He had been selfish with them and neither of them deserved that. He should've let them go, pushed them as far away from his destructiveness before it was too late. But he was stupid, and head over heels, and he made himself believe that maybe he had done something right to have both of them in his life. Maybe he would be able to love them and keep them safe without hurting them. Lie. They had both died horrific deaths because of him. Because he hadn't been able to protect them well enough. He hadn't shown God that he was worthy of them and that he really truly loved them and because of that God took them away.

Matt turned to his side as sobs overtook him. He wrapped the photo in his comforting and protective embrace, as if by loving them and protecting them now could bring them back. Without them he'd never be happy. Not truly. He'll never get over it or feel better and as hard as he tried, he just couldn't see that light at the end of the tunnel.


Again his alarm went off.

Again he managed to get up.

Again he went to work.

Again he had lunch with Care and Elena.

Again he came back home and tried to go to sleep.

His life was a cycle that he felt stuck on. It was the same motions every day. He felt like a prisoner in his own head, watching a perfectly normal life go on around him, living through it, while being stuck in his own head that covered him in darkness like a blanket. He was never quite sure of his emotions anymore. He couldn't tell if he felt nothing or angry or sad or depressed or everything. The only thing he really knew for sure was that he was so tired.

Often he wondered what the point was. Nobody was left to really miss him. He had his friends like Elena and Care and Ty, but they would mourn and get over him like how normal grief was supposed to go. They wouldn't be like him, drowning in mourning and not being able to move on, or more specifically, not wanting to.

That was another reason he felt a new found hateness for himself. He had done his mourning. Went through the five stages of grief. He hadn't been able to believe that they were gone for the longest time, he had been pissed at himself for letting them slip through his fingers and losing them, he had even tried to reach out to a few, his father even, and even accepted that they were dead and there was nothing he could do about it. So why couldn't he move on with his life now? It's not like he wouldn't be able to do it. He could easily find a new job, one that he would enjoy and focus on it. He had enough money saved up to even possibly move out and get his own place. He had friends all around him and his dad, his only family left, did his best to visit him every once in awhile. He could go to a bar with Ty or even a club and meet some new people. Hell, he could even ask Bonnie or Care if one of them would like to go on a casual coffee date, just to have some single female interaction. But he did none of those things. What did he do instead? Curl up in a ball on his bed, holding on old memory, sobbing, drowning.

Sometimes, thinking about ways to end it brought him peace, even sleep on rare occasions. His favorite scenario was drowning himself. Going to the falls, tying a heavy rock around his chest, holding his picture in his hand, and just drowning. It seemed poetic in a way. He was metaphorically dying since he had lost his loves so why wouldn't he end himself by literal drowning?

He liked this idea so much he had even done research on it. He found that although drowning was scary, it wasn't painful. It didn't hurt and it could be quick. All you had to do was take in a lungful and that's it. You'd just fall asleep.

He had done some swimming in high school, nothing huge, but he had always found it calming under the water. Like it was his own little world and even still alive it felt as though he had slipped away. There was no noise, nothing weighing you down. It was just simple and quiet. He could easily do it, he knew he could.

But just like moving on, he never did it. Maybe it was because he wanted himself to suffer. He wanted to feel the harsh pain of leaving them behind, he didn't want to move on feeling as if that would mean he stopped loving them and didn't feel guilt eating away at him constantly.

It was now 1:30 in the morning. He felt a headache coming on and groaned. He just wanted to sleep.

This wasn't how their lives were supposed to be.