Trigger warning: suicide ideation
ll
Two years later
My phone vibrates on the oak desk behind me and I turn to pick it up. Elena. I sigh and answer.
"Christian!" She shrieks, "What on earth has gotten into you? This is the third submissive you've cut ties with in the last six months. I just received a very distressing call from Natalie."
"Yes, well, her existence was distressing me when her job was to do the very opposite." I reply flatly.
"Honestly, I don't understand what's gotten into you. I find you the cream of the crop and you throw it out like expired cheese." Her tone is full of disappointment just like my mood.
She sighs and hums. "Darling, you know you can talk to me. I'm always here for you."
I know that but I don't even know what it is that's gotten into me. This feeling, it just grows stronger. Whatever respite I seek isn't enough.
"Maybe we should revisit our previous arrangement? Now that Linc is out of the picture, those limitations I had are no longer in play…" she purrs, no doubt to entice me. "I know what you need and how you like it," her voice gets darker in seduction.
My eyes roll so hard that I actually hear them clank around and it's painful. Getting my ass kicked by Linc when he walked in on us and the general idea of sticking my cock into her makes me want to retch and my body shivers. Now that's expired cheese. Every other month she'll try to reignite what is now a pile of ash. I can't even imagine anything pleasurable when it comes to her. I guess that beatdown from Linc was good for something after all, had that not have happened, we'd still be physically engaged in some way.
"Elena, let that shit stay six feet under," I mutter and she laughs it off like she always does when I shoot her down. It's a defense mechanism, I've noticed. If things don't go her way, she laughs it off to undermine the seriousness of her suggestion. The louder and grating her laugh, the more offended she truly is.
I end the call without saying goodbye and look back on the sky turning into a darker shade of blue and the city lights getting sharper and brighter into focus.
The days are getting grayer and the air is stale. Everything around me is cold and muted, a sickly shade of decay. But money is coming in and I'm winning.
After all, isn't that what I wanted? To win? To not be chained down, rule the world and have it at my feet? I've got it all but…
…the high isn't as fruitful as I thought it would be. I've lately been wondering what is it all for? I have enough money to last me a lifetime if I decided to quit right now. Should I go on a vacation? What would that achieve?
Do all 22 year old's feel this disillusioned or am I a rare breed?
Breed. Now that's a notion.
Born into an abyss only to remain in it. The darkness is comfortable and it's all I've ever known. After staring at myself in vivid detail I've realized what a grand deception life is.
I look out and take in the Seattle skyline from my office window. Most of the building is empty. People have gone home to their loved ones or to have a social life beyond the limitless expectations I have of them within these four walls that envelope these twenty floors.
Grace called thrice this week and I have not returned a single message. Carrick's still pissed about Harvard but has been making an effort to come around. Elliot messages me everyday and I respond with short sentences every other day. There are 6 missed facetime calls from Mia. I have nothing to say and no bandwidth to listen. I feel like a blackhole that's withering away within itself.
Grace and Carrick deserve a better son. Elliot and Mia deserve a better brother. Two relationships that were handed to me on a silver platter but rejected and kept at arm's length.
Perhaps I am ungrateful. It seems to be the only label that feels appropriate to associate with. I have what most will qualify as everything… yet I am living proof that everything does not mean peace.
If the abyss is where I came from and I'm going back to then why prolong the inevitable with this lengthy and uneventful intermission that is life?
I can feel Taylor's eyes on me. He's assessing me from a distance. I follow a strict routine and this evening I've chosen to deviate from it by taking a walk by the water near the Great Wheel. I run along here in the mornings but have never experienced it at night. The breeze is gentle with the smell of the water leaving little room for anything else. The water is as black as the night.
Maybe I can take the Grace out and disappear. The farther I get away from everything the better I might feel. It'll be a quiet affair, slipping away back into the arms of mother nature.
Mother.
One who birthed me and one who raised me and I suppose one who's back I stand on. I can't save either of them. One I couldn't save from her addictions and pain, one I won't be able to save from her eventual heartbreak and one will implode upon herself and take whoever is left down with her. I'm such a disappointment to women in any form.
Some tourists pass me with their selfie sticks in hand, taking pictures and making memories of this trip they're on. I don't even have any pictures on my phone. I'm not sure if I've ever even opened the camera app. Mia and Elliot always force me into pictures and selfies and I smile in memory of that. They've been good to me but they'll be better off without me.
"Excuse me, sir?" a woman with an accent addresses me, I look down at her in slight irritation at being interrupted from my solitude when it's simply an elderly asian woman with a warm smile and phone in hand. I give her a polite smile and see Taylor in my periphery walking towards us but I wave him off, "picture, can you please?" She hands me her phone and points to her husband and a few more family members. I see a young couple and two little children getting into formation for a group photo. I hear murmurings of Japanese as they shuffle around to finally stand and smile. I feel my lips mirror that same expression and take a few landscape shots of them. She walks over and thanks me profusely before taking her phone from me and heading to their next destination.
The family trip to Ireland comes to mind where I was pissed as hell to be away from Elena for two weeks. I never smiled in any of those pictures and remained polite but painfully aloof. It was the first time I had gone without sex for more than four days since I had started with her. And in instances where I was still stateside but far from Seattle, she'd call me and provide me with relief of some sort but I highly doubt she would've been able to justify long international calls.
Idly wondering on my walk back towards Escala, I resolve that Elena would eventually be fine. In fact, she is already fine. I'm no longer weighed down by any idealistic notion that what we had was special. She was a bored and neglected housewife and I was a walking hard-on barreling towards self-destruction. Sex was the only intersection between us that provided a respite from whatever issues we were dealing with. She saved me and I have repaid her. Over and over. One could even argue that I've done a shit more than Linc ever did for her.
The only debt I cannot repay is to the Grey's and Trevelyan's. I suppose some debts must remain unpaid and that is a burden that will heavy my coffin when the time comes. Unless, I make it so there isn't even a need for that.
I'm too comfortable in my morbidity.
Walking up Post Alley, I pass by the infamous gum wall as people take pictures of it. Some people are too comfortable spreading their germs and touching petri dishes of disease. I quickly power through and find myself under the open sky again The darkness I look up towards isn't so sinister when seen through a haze of glowing artificiality that cradles it.
A couple walking hand in hand and laughing catches my interest for a few moments. I don't stare at them but I listen. He's making fun of her and she's laughing, she's not offended. She tells him she only allows him this because she loves him and they share a kiss.
Love is for fools.
But if that's the case then why the hell are there so many books on the subject? What is art and literature littered with notions of it? Why is every single person around me, down to my bodyguard, falling for this ruse? Hell, even my COO is madly in love with someone. Why is every song I've listened to about this very idea?
Is the whole world mad?
And I'm just one of the very few who knows the truth?
But then there's Mom and Dad. Grandpa and Grandma. Madly in love and obsessed with each other. It's disgusting but the truth all the same.
Why am I wasting my time thinking about this?
Seattle is dimming down, there are barely any people around the closer I get to Escala. A bus comes to a stop, and let's passengers out and I see an the suicide prevention hotline number printed on the side of it.
You are not alone. You matter, are the words written out in bold.
What a load of shit.
The sound of the last note fades into the air. I can almost see it travel… at least I imagine I can and start before it slips from my consciousness completely.
I play the piece again, Transcription by Bach. It's kept me company on many lonely nights. If only these walls could talk, what would they say?
He played the damn thing over and over again. He never laughed, never smiled. He was irritated all the time. He fucked women and never talked to them, only at them. The warm bodies that occupied this space never stick around for long. Never a speck of dust floated in the air. Cookies were never baked. It was always cold.
I open the balcony windows and stand at the precipice of the great height before me. How would I like to go? In my sleep I suppose. For once, I'd like to not feel any pain or the affliction of a nightmare. Restful sleep that leads to the eternal abyss. What happens to those who have no soul or a barely beating heart? I take out my phone and email Taylor that I won't be going into work tomorrow. I'm taking the Grace out… alone.
The words from earlier float through my mind. I am alone in every sense of the word. I don't know how to be a son or a brother, what hope do I have of being a friend. I've barely been a friend to Elena, everything about us has been transactional. Every relationship in my life has had a purpose and obligation. If I'm not paying off an emotional debt then I'm paying a salary.
From what I've read and seen, friendships don't have that. They just are. At least I hope that's the case.
But I don't have that level of trust to give or capacity to receive.
I take my phone out of my pocket again and open the browser to search for the suicide prevention hotline number. I've never been a betting man but I'm going to indulge in a game of chance as a last hurrah of sorts to see what it's all about.
I click on the number and I'm instantly connected to an automated voice that spouts out information.
Are you in emotional distress or suicidal crisis?
I'm in a crisis I suppose but nothing dire. I remain mute as the voice talks about options for veterans. Then in order to connect me to a crisis center in my area, I hold as the music plays… they have fucking music playing? I'm confused and underwhelmed all of a sudden. At least they could have chosen better music.
A woman answers, she sounds so young. "Hello."
I panic. It's real. I don't answer, what the fuck do I say?
"Is anyone there?" Her voice is sweet and gentle. I swallow and inhale sharply but I'm physically unable to say anything. "You can say anything you'd like… this is a judgment free zone. I just want to know that you're okay first." She adds and there's a sincerity in her voice that threatens my carefully crafted bravado.
"I'm here." I answer quietly.
"Okay, are you alone?"
"Yes." Completely. I close my eyes and my insides start to burn.
She asks me what I realize are routine questions to gauge whether or not I'm in distress or in need of immediate medical assistance. I assure her I'm not. There's silence from my end again. I don't know what I want to say. My mind is numb and everything is distorted. Her voice is the clearest thing I hear and I'd rather just focus on that but conversation generally requires back and forth, I realize.
"It feels odd to talk to someone who's name I'm not allowed to know and vice versa." I say, suddenly wanting to be known and to exist.
She replies and I hear the smile in her voice. "It's to protect you. These calls are recorded for training purposes as well but perhaps you can choose a color to associate with?"
"Grey."
"Any particular reason why?"
It's my name and well, it's all that I ever feel. Desolate and devoid of color. But I deflect with another truth, "It rained today where I am and it reflects my mood."
"It rained here too."
"You're in Seattle?" I ask hopefully, she giggles and my heart flutters before she confirms she's in Washington State but nothing beyond that.
"Well, then I'm steel. Just another shade of gray, like you."
A/N: Writing DLMH Christian makes my brain spin off into tangents and what ifs, so here we are. Eager to hear what you think!