Myka offers a small wave as the car drives away from you. You raise your hand in reply and it takes everything you've got. It's made of lead. As is your whole body, or else you'd run after her with ease. You'd run along the window, bang on it, beg Pete to stop. You'd open the door and pull her out, take her in your arms and kiss her. Kiss her like you'd kiss no other, like it's the first kiss, the only kiss that matters. Because it would be.
But you don't do that. Instead you watch her go with a heavy arm and a heavy mind.
You feel like falling to your knees on the grass, like standing upright takes to much strength that you don't have. You don't do that either, you can't allow yourself to fall apart.
It feels like your throat is filling up, your breath come fast and shallow. You can not breath, you are being buried alive and it makes you want to scratch with your fingernails over the skin. Break it. Tear open your entire throat and pull out all the dirt that is blocking it. All the shit you've done. All the things you've said and all the things you never did.
You want to be clean of it, cleansed. But you never will be, it's in every part of you, every lousy fiber. It's the lead that weighs you down. It's all the lives on your conscious, all the blood on your hands, all the pain you've caused. It's killing you slowly, smothering you. Christina, Wolcott, and so many others, what a life you've lead. And at the very top there's Myka, pushing it all down further into you.
Myka, with her face broken in a false smile.
Myka, her eyes begging. Begging for you to beg her to stay. Begging for you to say the words you both desperately need to hear but never will.
It's better this way, that is what you tell yourself when she hugs you goodbye. It's better this way, because your love is a curse. Your presence is a death sentence and Myka deserves better. Myka deserves the world, even if it doesn't always deserve her.
No one deserves you. Not Myka, not the Warehouse, not Adelaide. You said you'd stay here, but that was a lie that you might have even believed yourself. You know you can not keep her safe if you stay, but can not bear to say goodbye, so you sneak out like a coward pretending to be brave.
It's better this way, that is what you tell yourself when you pack your bag in silence. When you walk into the night it swallows you up completely, and for a second you share a thought with everyone who has ever met you.
Oh, how easily you take to darkness.