- T h e - S p i r a l s - E n d -
Many have considered me thoughtless and egotistical. Rigid with structure. Rigid in tone. Rigid in existence.
I am a thoughtful person. I like to consider where I would be in a year…or five. In an overly contemplative mood, ten years is also a possibility.
Would I have won the lottery, if I was to ever play. Would I have a family, if I allowed myself to open up to someone. Will I be six feet under, if I do not change my ways.
At this particular moment, ten years seems too steep. Five, I even consider an excursion at this point. A year would be amicable. Six months would be reasonable, where as three months would be heaven.
I am fast approaching my twelfth month of this downward spiral and let me tell you, it has had one heck of a dizzying effect. For instance, right now, I can see two of me.
Do not laugh for 'tis is true.
I have the agonisingly painful reflection I see in the somewhat cloudy mirror. The reality of what I have become clear in front of me, despite the blurry eyed vision I have become accustomed to.
I shall not sugar-coat it for you. I look like death, warmed up.
Eyes sunken and hauntingly dark. Face paler than Dracula himself. Hair lifeless and hanging in disarray. To be brutally honest, I could pass as a living skeleton if I felt so inclined to publicize myself in such a way.
But I would not give her the satisfaction of seeing me in that state.
You ask who the her is I refer to.
Well, I would tell you to look over my shoulder and you could see for yourself. Although, I shall not instruct you to do so, as the last person I told the very same thing to, looked at me as if I walked out of an asylum and then she proceeded to call for help.
The crazy bitch thought I was going to attack her.
I wasn't but she wouldn't leave me the hell alone. I just needed proof or confirmation, if you will, that I was not seeing things. I'm not. I know I'm not. I'm pretty certain crazy bitch and she are in cahoots. Trying to make me think I'm going mad. I 'tis not mad. Oh no, sir'ry.
I thought I already told you who she was. I have not? Hmm, my mind is not what it once was.
Well, if you promise not to scream for help, glance over my shoulder. See her?
Don't give me that look. Try again.
Now, listen carefully for I shall only regard her once.
She would be the second version of me I can see. A reflection of my past. Of who I use to be. Funny how I loathe her more than my present reflection. Might be due to her being the cause of this never ending spiral.
She doesn't care though. I know she would do it all again. Leaning against the door-frame as if she's better than me. Her less fragile arms wrapped condescendingly around her healthier sized body. The ever present smirk more prominent in this light.
I hate her.
Sure, it's probably mutual but I am not one to pick at bones.
"I hate you."
I thought she needed to hear it. I mean, it's a warm welcome when someone is honest with you. Everyone is always preaching on about the virtue of honesty. Maybe this could be my saving grace.
Maybe then four months would be more tolerable than I originally thought.
She doesn't seem to care for my opinion. It only seems to humour her. See, that smirk, it's morphing at a snail-like pace into a sneer. She's now stood behind me. Her face a vast comparison to my own.
She never speaks. I don't appear to be worthy to hear her voice.
Instead a hand is brought up to brush under her nose.
You know when someone does something, say...check their breath and you immediately have that self-conscience urge to do the same. I'm having one of those moments.
So, I keep a firm eye on her and wipe my index finger a long the bottom of my nose. I wasn't expecting to find anything but…
I have to glance down.
White.
Snow is white. It makes me smile. Memories of igloos and tunnels. Freezing asses and hot chocolate.
If only she was more like the person I…or we were back then. Now that would be fun.
Speaking of which, she has vanished.
Don't worry your little sadistic head over it. She'll be back to taunt me. She always is.
It's getting a tad hot in this tiny bathroom though. I've found from past experience that cold water helps. So, I shall take my tank top off and soak it in the cool liquid. Do not laugh at me. I have no plan to search for a towel when my body feels like a furnace.
Claustrophobia.
You know, it's one reason why five months appears to be more bearable. Anyone in their right mind doesn't logically want to be in a box, six feet below the earth.
This bathroom, however, is quickly becoming a 'me-sized' box.
Placing the sopping wet tank top back on is my master plan and you know, it works. I shiver in response to the contact. The cold is working it's way through the material, cooling my heated skin.
Time to exit the box and enter a larger one.
I need air and my solution to such a need; windows. A creation taken for granted by so many. I should know, I was once such a fool.
I fall rather graciously, if I do say so myself, on top of the mattress. The cool night air wrapping my wet top continually, causing another shiver to take a hold of my body.
I can finally breath a little easier.
Although my lungs feel as though they have no room to expand and the oxygen I seem to get in does not last as long as one would hope.
Creaking of floorboards? I have not heard such a sound in some time. You see, I have become what they call a recluse of sorts. I mean I still venture out for the essentials but only when I am cloaked in darkness.
There is that creak again.
If I was in a more coherent state I would investigate the obvious intrusion. Although, an intruder would not generally knock on my door. Unless they are in fact a polite intruder.
My head is feeling somewhat heavier and I can't help but let it loll in the direction of my bedroom door as it is slowly pushed open at a tentative speed. Blurry vision once again hinders me, as I try to form an ounce of knowledge as to who the silhouette could be.
They step into the darkened room and carefully move towards me, minding the varied items lining the floor in a chaotic mess.
I recognise the scent and I want to claw my way back into the 'me-sized' box I so desperately wanted to escape from minutes before.
"What have you done?"
The voice washes over every fibre of my being, causing more pain and conflict than I have felt in the past eleven months, twenty-three days, nine hours, forty-five minutes and nineteen seconds. Give or take a few seconds. Actually minuets would be more truthful.
I'm finding my chest constricting horrendously and even in my current state of sudden nausea, I am well aware of what brought me to this point.
She, over there in the corner with that smug look on her face, broke their trust. Condemned me to my life of solitude. Of self-depreciation. Of self-induced harm.
I told you of how people saw me as thoughtless and egotistical.
I am neither. Or not in the context they use.
I did not shut myself away in the hope to prove I held no remorse for heractions. Nor did I not speak to prove she had been justified and unselfish.
No.
I closed off the world for the person, who was currently running into the too small of a bathroom, looking for the towel I had not planned on searching for. I closed the world off as she had so greedily demolished theirs.
Once again, I feel as though a furnace has taken place of my body. The heat has to have dried my previously sopping wet top.
I hear running water and a cry of my name followed by a plea for me to stay awake.
My breathing is becoming strenuous and the nausea does not seem to want to pass as I so wish it would.
She's still smirking, moving closer and closer to me.
She does not reach me though, as I am being pulled and gripped onto. The short distance to the claustrophobic bathroom does nothing to settle my stomach and my head lolls onto a shoulder I was once welcomed to cry on.
That was before she destroyed what we had. Almost a year ago when worlds fell apart and friendships were now merely remnants of the once was.
When white and snow were childhood memories.
When love and lost were things yet to be discovered.
When silence and despair were considered imaginable.
One regrettable mistake changed the course of two life's and those that they touched. Now, as I'm placed in a bathtub with a spray of freezing water beating down on my tired body, I need to know why this sliver of forgiveness is being shown on someone who is not worthy.
My eyes are not focused but I am certain that my rescuer, my once best friend, is crying.
"Peyton. Come on, Peyton. Stay with me." she coaxes, as if I was eight again. I can only imagine what we must look like to the observing eye, as she was now sat with me in freezing water, showing mercy to the undeserving. Brunette hair probably slick to her face. Red rimmed eyes and trembling lips.
Is it sadistic of me to picture such an image?
She is approaching me again, a haunting grin taking a firm hold of her expression. Even at this moment, with my heavy breaths, burning tears and dizzying sickness there is no regret. No relent in the humoured stare. No sympathy for the pain caused.
She does not waver in her conviction.
I will not in mine.
With heavy breaths and my eyes trained on hers, I mutter the only thing I have been able to get past my dry lips in the past eleven months, twenty-three days, nine hours, fifty minutes and fifty-eight seconds.
Give or take a few minuets.
"I hate you."
The thing about a downward spiral is, you can only go down so long before yourself or the spiral ends.
So firstly, 'Hi' to anyone reading.
Secondly, I apologise if this was somewhat confusing, lol. I, too, feel the same way!
For those waiting for the next chapter of All Our Vice, I also apologise. It's in progress. Sadly, I'm going through not-liking-what-I'm-writing phase but I'm working on it! I'll try to have something half-decent up for you guys soon.
About this one; well let me know what you think. I kinda started typing and it ended up in this depress-vest but as always, I would very much like your opinion.
Catch you all later!