Murdoc stared after the figure disappearing into the distance. He knew that if he had been a better person, he would have gone after her. She was obviously a wreck, but the feeling of immobility from the night before had returned. He stood still with his shoulders slumped, like a crumbling copper statue that had turned green from many years of relentless weathering. When Cameron was out of sight and he realized there was nothing he could do anymore, he found himself able to move again. He dazedly stroked the prickly stubble on his face and began the walk back to Kong, head swimming with troubled thoughts. She had told him she loved him, words that no one had said genuinely in a long time, if at all. He had been caught off guard, not only by her sincerity, but because of the fact that anyone had managed to care about him at all.
He couldn't determine his own feelings, however. Murdoc knew that he felt somewhat guilty for having let her run off in her emotionally unstable state, but he didn't know how he felt about her, and that was the problem. He knew that declarations of love were supposed to be returned, not responded to with silence, but Murdoc had not been able to say it back, presuming without hesitation that it would have been a lie. After suppressing emotion of any kind for his entire life, he sometimes found himself unable to differentiate between certain feelings. Sometimes he couldn't tell between feeling sad and angry. Often, if he felt sad, he would simply beat up 2D or trash his Winnebago, having confused the feeling for anger. Love and lust, however, were two emotions that he constantly tried to keep separate, knowing the damage that could be caused by muddling the two. He really didn't know how he felt about Cameron. He enjoyed being with her, sometimes even when they weren't having sex, but he could never see himself planning a future with her, or changing his bad habits to please her if she asked. And that was love, right? Murdoc thought. As far as he knew, love was something that made you want to be a better person, to live a pure and wholesome life, something that he would never do. A person had to be able to love someone unconditionally and unselfishly. He didn't think he had in him.
Murdoc had a deep-seated feeling that if he stopped numbing his thoughts and feelings with alcohol, he would finally have a chance to sort them out. They would come rushing out like the air from a popped balloon. Maybe then he would be able to figure out how he felt about Cameron, not to mention the other people in his life. If he just took the time to think, uninterrupted and unintoxicated maybe he could get his shit straight. But Murdoc wasn't willing to stop drinking, sensing deep down that if he ceased his constant state of drunkenness and took a good look at himself, he wouldn't like what he saw. Large drops of rain had started to fall, plastering Murdoc's black hair against his forehead. He pushed it out of his eyes. He knew that Cameron was walking home in the same rain, probably feeling more miserable than him. He wished that he could have taken her back to Kong with him, to put her into his bed and make her okay. He wanted to hold her hand and kiss her goodnight. Maybe he loved her, probably he didn't. But he sure as hell cared about her.
/
Cameron half ran, half stumbled back to her apartment. Rain was falling and drenching her but she didn't seem to notice, or at least she didn't seem to care. Everything felt surreal. She felt detached from her body. The feet slapping the pavement were not hers, the sopping wet hair that hung limply from her head was not hers, the tears rolling down her face were not hers, the sharp pain in her chest was not hers. She cut across a street, a honking car missing her by an inch. She was past caring, though. If she were to be hit she wasn't sure she would mind too much. And for that matter, neither would anyone else.
She kept running. So many thoughts were whizzing through her mind that they jumbled together, making it seem as though she wasn't thinking about anything at all. She kept her eyes straight ahead, focusing all of her attention on not falling down, which she found increasingly difficult to do. Soon, her apartment appeared in front of her. She tried to quicken her pace, falling to the ground but quickly getting back up again, not noticing the blood which had begun oozing out of her left knee. Finally, she reached the side entrance door of her building, slamming it shut behind her and scrambling up the stairs.
It wasn't until she was in her room that she realized what she had been rushing to: her stash. She vaguely knew what she was about to do, but was unconcerned by the consequences. She was already on risky ground with the amount of pills she'd taken in the past few hours. She crushed more, almost sobbing in relief when she felt the familiar burn shooting up her nostrils. She did two lines, then three, then four. She kept going until she had emptied the bag, rolling onto her mattress and sprawling herself out. Tingling immediately started to spread through her arms and legs and her core began to feel warm. She lay for a few minutes, hypnotic repose washing over her. She shut off her brain, needing a break from the churning thoughts that had painfully occupied her head. The comfortable warmth gradually turned into searing heat, however, and she began to sweat.
She took off her jacket, throwing it onto the floor and getting off the mattress to go to the bathroom. She peed then washed her hands, splashing cold water on her face, trying to get her body temperature down to normal. She knew that she'd taken too many pills. She'd known even before she took them. Her breaths began coming to her in short gasps, her airways feeling tight and constrictive. She exhaled shakily, swaying back to her mattress and lying down. Cameron wasn't sure if she'd actually meant to overdose, or merely numb the pain. Either way, the sleepiness was becoming impossible to fight, and she knew her fate was more or less sealed. If she could find the strength to call out, maybe someone would hear her. But she wasn't sure that she would have called for help even if she could. Somewhere along the line, death had lost its intimidation. It was, after all, just sleep. Peaceful, dreamless slumber, free from the cruelty and pain of the world. Away from her cold-hearted family and the man who didn't love her. She unresistingly gave herself up to the darkness, her own mortality. I guess now I can find out what happens…
This wasn't how Cameron thought she would die. Being someone who contemplated death a lot, she had a number of scenarios sketched out in her head of how she might go. Lying sad and alone from a drug overdose before she had even turned 18 was not one of them. Life was funny that way, she thought drowsily with a sad smile. If she had the energy, she might have laughed at the irony of her situation: a pill-junkie teen from a religious family overdosing because she'd fallen in love with the man she was fucking. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rocked slowly back and forth, trying to comfort herself.
She thought of her family. They probably would never know what happened to her, as she doubted her death would be significant enough to make it into the papers. They would have told her it was a sin to kill herself if they'd had the chance, that she would never make it to heaven that way. Her parents wouldn't have held her in their arms and told her how much they loved her. They wouldn't have told her that she had so much to live for and that she was a bright and beautiful young girl and all those empty things that she still would have needed to hear. She wondered who Phil from the diner would replace her with. She hoped whoever it was would remember to check under the tables for gum every evening. If you let it dry on and pile up, it was even harder to get off. She thought about Murdoc, who had once been with her on this very mattress. She hoped he had gotten home without getting too wet, and that he was safe and warm in his bed. Maybe he's thinking about me too, she thought sleepily. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Probably not. It made her sad that she would never see him again, but the fact that it wouldn't make him sad made it easier to let go of herself, to pass into oblivion. The tingling in her arms and legs had gone, and she wasn't sure that she could feel them anymore. Or any part of her body, for that matter. Every time she blinked, it was increasingly difficult to pull her eyelids back up.
Though she couldn't see it, all of the colour had left her face and was replaced by a sickly grey. Beneath her closed eyelids, only the whites of her eyes were visible. Soon, she slipped out of consciousness. She didn't wake up.
/
A/N: Probably going to end the story soon. I might write one or two more chapters.