Beneath the Surface
Lorraine's thoughts while she's taking her ice baths.
She slides under the icy water. Her skin starts to numb. Her chest constricts. Her heart rate slows, and she wonders if this is what it feels like to die. Her lungs express discomfort and a longing for fresh air. She lets the stale air inside them slowly bubble out of her mouth, but she does not surface. This must be what it feels like, she decides. She cannot feel her toes, her fingers. She must look like Spyglass did in the canal, glassy-eyed, unmoving. I want to be dead, she thinks, without warning. She is suddenly acutely aware of how much her body wants to live. Her lungs scream for air. Black spots dot her vision.
She sits up suddenly, gasping for breath. She pulls her knees into her chest and wraps her arms around the rim of the tub. She tilts her head back and takes deep, shaky breaths. I do not want to die, she thinks clearly. "I do not want to die," she whispers aloud to give her words more emphasis, more truth. She still feels the truth of I want to be dead and it scares her more than she cares to admit.
She steps out of the tub slowly. Her body is bruised, scarred, numb. She pours herself a glass of Stoli as she thinks of Delphine, of James, of how every person she ever deemed worthy of being close to her is now six feet deep.
"I do not want to die," she says aloud, "but I want to be dead."
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