Chapter 56

Some days were better than others.

Some days I could just get up and function, I would work out and go out and say hi to Mike and go to the library and hang out there reading for as long as I could until I made myself go home. I would go shopping, buying things that I didn't need yet had the money for even though I wasn't even employed, just to waste time, just so that they would end up unused in a pile in the foyer. I learned how to kill the day with tasks to keep myself busy and not think about them. I'd wear myself out a so much from working out that I would fall asleep instantly and didn't have to lie there and give myself the chance to be miserable. I didn't have the time to think about Amber in any more than a vague consideration, doing everything in my own power to not let it hurt me…but sometimes it was just so hard…

Like I said, some days were better than others, which inevitably meant that some could be worse, which was just really bad and terrible and hard to like through. It would make me feel like I'd been hit by a truck, aching. It was hard to breathe, painful to think. I would hyperventilate and get nose bleeds. Everything would be wrong, nothing would work out. I would go in Claudette's room and be on the floor in tears for hours at a time, trying to separate fiction from reality, trying to peel away the layers of what I wished would happen by some force of miracle and what was actually happening. Days like these were actually dangerous…if Mark hadn't called me on those nights I don't know what could've happened. Knowing myself I think I may have starved to death, forgetting what I was doing, not realizing that I was hungry, unaware of what was going on. I had falling into these states several times, once on the floor in Claudette's room, another time walking in circles around the apartment for hours. I also had sat in the corner of the dining room where Jake had gotten drunk and where I had gotten drunk that once, and also in the short hallway between the foyer and the door, staring at it, just waiting for Amber to come home as if she'd only gone out grocery shopping or something.

Mark knew when this was going on. He'd sense it from across the country or wherever he was and call me. The phone always interrupted my concentration on misery. Normally the conversations went like this:

Me: Hello?

Mark: Kane…it's Mark

Me: Oh…hi…

Mark: Are you okay?

Me: Not really…but I'll survive.

Mark: You didn't try anything stupid, did you?

Me: I don't…think so…I've just been hanging out. Chillin'. (I made such desperate attempts at humor, trying in vain to feel better)

Mark: Have you had dinner or anything?

Me: No.

Mark: Have you fed Jake?

Me: I was just about to, actually. (Every time I lied about him. I still don't know whether or not he detected it over the phone)

Mark: Are you sure you're okay?

Me: No… (at this point I'd get choked up)

Mark: Kane…clean up. Put on some music, feed Jake, have dinner…just relax, Kane. I don't want you to hurt yourself.

Me: I'm not hurting myself.

Mark: Kane…you haven't been eating and you're not taking care of yourself, you're hurting yourself. Calm down, don't forget to breathe.

Me: Okay…

Mark: You promise?

Me: Yeah…

Mark: I'm not joking. Do you swear? I'm not convinced.

Me: Yes. Yes, Mark, I swear.

Mark: Okay…I have to go. I'll come visit.

Every couple of weeks he would come by and check on me and spend a night or two. He always told me that he would and always kept his word. Every time we got off the phone I'd put on some kind of mellow music, even if it was really sad, and then would hunt out Jake. Ever since what had happened he'd seemed very timid around me. Even then he seemed like he didn't know what to do, hesitant. I'd pick him up and pet him, remembering the way Amber would do it…usually he'd calm down. But he never seemed genuinely happy. I didn't have the touch with him that Amber did.

I would feed him then. And make myself dinner, trying to put away my pounding headache, try to ignore the fact that I was eating alone, by myself, that no one else was at the table. And the food wasn't good. I burned everything, or it was undercooked, or wasn't seasoned right. Amber always made everything perfect. My culinary talent went as far as Hot Pockets and Ramen Noodles, I couldn't even make grilled cheese or eggs without fucking up. But I tried, I went in the kitchen and went through the groceries, enough for three people, and made dinner so that it would be enough for three people, and made the table with three places. I don't know why. I did it on impulse and it never made me more upset so I figured it didn't hurt. It just made me calmer.

All I would ever drink during dinner was soda and no ice. Coca Cola. I would buy bottles of it. More than I could ever need, and normally ended up throwing them out because they'd get too old. When I ate I tried to swallow my pain with my overcooked food, tried to put it away somewhere where I could keep it at bay and ignore it. I tried not to think, not to acknowledge, not to feel. I wanted to be dead on the inside, then nothing would've bothered me. Then I could go wrestle and be fine, and pass my time, and live for no reason. Live…I didn't know why I bothered.

Suicide was something that I thought about often. It became more of a dream, a fantasy, more than a desperate measure. I didn't think of suicide as miserable, as I had in the past, something that would just put an end to everything. I thought of it as something beautiful, lucid visions of a Heaven that I didn't think existed, of Claudette and Armand, of Amber…oh God of Amber…I wanted to join them there, wanted to love her again, not hate her for leaving me, wanted to play with my daughter instead of cursing her for being so weak, to be with my son instead of scolding him for never being born.

To die would have been fantastic. It was warmth, the same kind of warmth I remember feeling when I first met Amber, when we were first together and I was so excited and scared and in love. I was scared that she would hurt me, betray me like all the others, and yet…and yet I let my guard down, years later when I was finally broken in and trusted her, and she went and got murdered. I hated that. I felt screwed over, yet again, and not necessarily by her, but by some higher power, some God that I questioned who must've had a fucking twisted sense of humor. If I could've met the guy I would've spit in his face.

But whenever I considered actually committing the act, not just thought about it like it was some blissful playground but something filthier, like blood and gunpowder and ropes and blades and drugs, I would become suddenly frightened. Not of dying, I wasn't afraid of dying at all, but of my brother, of Raven and Saphrin. I would find some retrospect from their eyes and think about losing their two best friends. Amber had died and I had basically gone with her, but I was still alive. I knew that every day they would wish that I would give them a call or miraculously appear back on the road, that I would snap out of it. But if I were to just die…I felt horrible and didn't want to put them through that. And Mark…he was an unreadable factor. I didn't know what to think when it came to him, didn't know how he'd react. And I was afraid of him in that way.

There was one final thing that kept me alive, too…that detective. James. He called me now and then to ask me more questions, working on the case and trying to think of anything he could, though slowly things were losing interest. He never told me this, but I knew. There were no leads or traces, and unless there was a similar type of murder somewhere else they would have no grounds to decide the motive of the person. While I was terribly aggravated and angry from this I didn't really let it bring me down. I felt, somewhere in what was left of my heart, that I would find revenge someday. It was just a matter of when. I needed to be patient.

Saphrin called me now and then. She always seemed kind of distant from me. Even on good moments where we got along, ever since Amber died there had been some gap in our relationship. I didn't know if what had happened had taken a substantial amount of spark from her personality or if it was just when she talked to me, but she didn't seem the bubbly, funny Juggalette that I had once known.  I didn't know if Amber dying had hurt her happiness or just made it so that she couldn't talk to me without feeling pain. She only called because she had to, I could tell that she didn't really want to. It was a task, something that she felt her responsibility and both of us knew it but didn't change it. Raven, on the other hand, seemed almost heightened by what had happened. Not in a good way, but he'd become so much nicer, and so much more caring. He would call and mean every word he said when he said he missed my company, silently asking that I come back. He meant it when he said that he cared about me.

Maybe it was just me.

By early May I had lost a lot of weight…I had been working out a lot but at the same time not taking care of myself, not eating right, well, not eating at all, and I kept getting sick and not realizing it. I remember one specific day…it hurts my head just thinking about it.  I woke up on the couch, in rumpled clothes, waking suddenly as though strangled by a nightmare, just sitting up quickly and gasping for air, and seeing the pallid ceiling…it occurred to me then that our anniversary was coming up, in only days, and I scolded myself for completely forgetting as I stumbled up and ran around the apartment trying to get dressed. Everything was a mess, there were clothes all over, and dishes, and books. I left Claudette's room as it was, and didn't touch Amber's things, but everything else was strewn about at random.

I put on my mask and smeared a mess of greasepaint over my eyes, shoving credit cards in my pockets and rushing out of the apartment, angry at myself for forgetting. It was chilly out, but I didn't care. I didn't care about anything just then, except that I was an idiot, that I needed to hurry because Amber would be home and get pissed off at me for not having her presents. Strange. I mean seriously- what kind of a husband was I anyway? I wake up late on our wedding anniversary and don't even have a present for my wife? Oh Christ she was gonna be mad at me. I was breathing really heavily, exhausting myself from running down the stairs in the building and down the street, also strained by the cold in the air. All around people were staring. I wanted to kill them, smear their brains on the fucking brick walls of the buildings. Bastards, staring at me. Staring at me because I was different, I wasn't like them and I wasn't some conservative American with a perfect family. And they were right- No, I wasn't. I wasn't like them at all. I had long hair and I hated them and my wife probably hated me cause I was so bad at being a husband that I forgot our anniversary.

Of course…I know better now. Obviously they were staring because there was some seven foot tall guy in a mask running around like a psycho. I don't blame them. I would've stared, too.

There was a clothing store several blocks from where I was, which was my target. Clothes and jewelry and all that, and I wanted to shower her with presents. I had to, I didn't want to risk losing her. I could only imagine her having these beautiful presents for me and coming home with boxfuls of gifts, and then me looking up at her like some stupid animal so that she would slap me and take our children and storm out of the house. I would never see her again, she'd be so angry. I didn't want that, and I had to hurry before they came home.

I hated all the people that stared at me as I rushed by, wanted to kill them all. I did my best to ignore them as I hurried to the store, almost diving in through the doors. The smell almost knocked me off my feet, the scent of mixed perfumes. It reminded me of the divas' locker room, that Amber and Saphrin were offered if they wanted to use it but always just used one with me, Mark, and Raven. It made me think of being on the road, being part of our little group, which would never be the same. Never the same because I'd forgotten about our anniversary and she would never want to see my face again. I stormed through the store to the women's section, madly searching through racks of blouses and dresses and skirts looking for things that she would like, taking anything that I thought would look nice on her and hanging them over my forearm as I searched for more.

In my possession by the time I was ready to leave were five shirts, two pairs of pants, three bras, three skirts, a few pairs of stockings that I thought she'd like. I looked up at the huge clock on the wall and knew I'd have to hurry. But in fear that I would be late I made it up by rushing over to the children's section, taking a small box of barrettes and a new pair of white little sneakers and a pink overall dress. Claudette would've looked adorable in it. I was going to buy some things for Armand but figured that he was too small to fit in any of the clothes in the store, which only supported toddlers.

Near the front of the store I dumped the heap of clothes on the counter to pay for them. The cashier was a guy, maybe in his early twenties, who looked sort of horrified, with a look of recognition in his eyes. I shook my head impatiently as I took the credit card out of my wallet. I knew he recognized me from wrestling.

"Yeah, yeah I know Amber's gonna be pissed," I scolded, "so hurry the fuck up! You're being too slow!" What I didn't realize then was that he recognized me as Amber's widower, put together that I was buying a ton of women's clothes and clothes for children. I just thought that he knew our anniversary and was worried for me the way I was worried for myself. I tapped my foot impatiently as he slipped the clothes into the thing cardboard boxes and bagged them, as he accepted my card and let me leave. As I was pushing through the doors I saw that he'd left his post at the register and was speaking with one of the managers, pointing at me. They started walking towards me and I ran, full throttle at least half the length it took to the apartment. Had I been taking care of myself I probably wouldn't have gotten exhausted to easily. I had been in excellent shape, but that wasn't the case anymore.

Once I got to the apartment I rushed into our bedroom before Amber could spot the presents, and dragged out the huge box of wrapping paper that she kept under the bed. I had never been good at wrapping gifts. As I struggled with it I called out to Amber, she was making lunch for us in the kitchen. I could hear the pans rattling around and smelled the food.

"I'll be there in a sec, I just gotta take care of something," I called to her, not wanting her to get pissed at me. I heard Claudette crying from the living room. "Hey Amber can you take care of her? I'm really sorry I've gotta wrap these presents that I bought for you!" I said, and heard her footsteps leave the kitchen, seconds later hearing Claudette calm down a little, and Amber singing to her. "Is everything okay?" I asked, wrestling with the tape and the paper and getting exceedingly frustrated.

"Yeah, she just fell down," Amber said back to me. Her voice was so beautiful. It actually almost made me hard to just hear her speaking.

"Oh, okay," I said. I finished up wrapping the presents, not bothering to wrap the ones for Claudette as I shoved all the stuff back in the box and back under the bed. I loaded my arms with the gifts and walked out into the foyer, just missing Amber as she went back into the kitchen. I put all the stuff down on the couch. Claudette was wearing a purple dress with white socks, no shoes, and had her hair combed around her face. She smiled up at me, sitting down on the floor in front of the TV and watching cartoons. Her smile was huge, her tiny square teeth bright. There were still some remnants of tears, crystals on her eyelashes, bringing out how green her eyes were. I sighed in ecstasy and knelt beside her, picking her up and hugging her. She hugged me back around my neck. She was so small…

"Daddeee…" she said. She always said that to me. I laughed a little bit and put her back down.

"Hello lovely," I said to her, and stood up. I heard Amber humming in the kitchen, and frying food. I heard the slaps of Jake's feet on the floor and his quacks of approval. I walked to join her.

Amber…

Amber.

She was standing over the stove, hair wet and vibrant, and I could smell Punky Colour hair dye, that fruity smell that nearly knocks you out every time you open a can. I could tell that she'd just redyed it. She was wearing really tight blue jeans, and a plain white t-shirt. Very simple. It showed off her body, and the small bulge that was forming over her abs. I couldn't help my ear-to-ear smile as I hugged her from behind, and she let her head fall back against my chest.

"Happy anniversary," she said to me. I leaned down over her and kissed her temple.

"You too," I felt my heart flutter, felt the wetness of her hair on my cheek, smelled the scent so strongly. "I love you, Amber. More than you'll ever know."

She laughed. "Well then, you too," she told me, stealing my response. "So didja get me a present?" she was laughing, and sautéing onions and peppers, grabbing the pan and flipping them around a little.

"Of course I did. Did you get me something?"

"Sure," she laughed, putting down the pan and turning around to face me. She leaned in against my body. "You're really not much use if you aren't going to spoil me with gifts, you know," she said. I could tell that she was joking, which made me feel better. I knew that she wouldn't care if I'd been late in buying her things. I wrapped my arms around her, over her shoulders, my hands resting on her back.

"You're so beautiful," I told her.

"Well you're certainly the one of compliments today, aren't you?" she put one of her hands on my shoulder. "Thank you, my darling. You're quite beautiful yourself."

I let out a soft note of laughter under my breath, kissing her again, on the forehead. We just stared at each other for a moment until she slipped away, turning back to the stove.

"Can you please get me a bowl?" she asked sweetly. I said nothing in response, only turned away from her, crossing the room and opening one of the cabinets. I grabbed a serving bowl for her, closing the cabinet as I turned back around.

"What do you need it f-" my words stopped when she was gone. No one was there, not Amber, not the smell of her hair dye, not the pan on the stove with the onions and peppers and not any of her spices on the counter. My head was slammed with an unbearable pain and I stumbled backwards, the bowl slipping from my hands and falling onto the floor, breaking into a handful of pieces. I stepped right over them and into the living room, the television off, Claudette gone, purple dress and green eyes and all. The poorly wrapped boxes were still in a pile on the couch. I bit the back of my knuckles and started to cry.

"Amber??" I said softly. The silence killed me. "Amber?" I said again, loud. I fell down onto the floor. "Amber!! Amber were are you!? Come back!" I screamed, sobbing. I ripped off my mask and threw it across the room, hearing the soft sound as it hit a large mirror that covered one of the walls. I lifted my head to see it landed on top of the television, folded over, dead. I stood up, the tears stopping but those that had fallen still on my face, walking over and picking up my mask. I stared down at it in my hands for a few minutes until just throwing it on the floor. It wasn't doing anything for me. My head snapped up to look at my reflection, the greasepaint not only smeared from being applied but running from the tears. Black tears.

My fist had contacted and broken the glass before I'd even realized it. Now the cracks gave my face different planes, so that it didn't line up right. So that I screamed and punched it again, making it quite like a spider web.

I had imagined Amber being there. I was stupid. I had forgotten our anniversary until the last second and therefore become just another stereotypical man. I was an idiot. Amber talked about me with her friends, probably. Made fun of me and talked about how much she couldn't stand me, how I was only good for sex, how I was ugly. That was why she wasn't at the apartment, because she didn't want to be near me. She was in Vermont with our kids, having just a jolly time and swimming in the fact that I wasn't there with her. Probably celebrating it with some guy, with some other wrestler. It could've been anyone that she wanted to fuck around with behind my back, Hunter, Jeff, Steve, Paul…how should I have known? But I loved her so much…

That was the only reason she wasn't there. She thought I didn't love her. If I loved her I would've been planning our day, May 10, for weeks now, not just hours. My face broke out in sweat. I remembered the birth of our relationship. She had really loved me. I needed her to love me like that again. I was going to prove to her that I still loved her, that my negligence was just a mistake, that from then on we could be happy together. I ran to our room, grabbing a backpack from the closet and shoving in a handful of CD's, a portable Discman, my wallet. I also ran into the bathroom to clean up my hand, noticing the few lasting marks on my arms from weeks before. For a moment I didn't remember why they were there, and searched my mind, then realized that I was wasting time. I didn't bother getting the presents and just ran out of the apartment and down the street, hailing a taxi to bring me to the airport.

With my credit cards and ID I was able to plant myself on a flight to Boston within the hour, first class because normal planes are so damn small. Well…small for someone of my size.

I checked through security, only bringing my one bag, very easily, rushing over to the gate and tapping my foot the whole time I waited. I turned down their offered bagged lunch for the four-hour flight and just got on the plane as soon as I could, curling away from everyone else there, happy that no one was in the seat next to me as I stared out the window. The take off made me anxious, the way the plane speeds up so goddamn fast and then just lifts off the ground. You can feel yourself fall down into the seat as it lifts, and then watch everything just get smaller and smaller, until cars look like tiny ants on the highway, and then to the point where the only vehicles you can make out is just barely if you look hard enough, a sixteen-wheeler that looks quite like a flea. Once we were fully in the air I closed the cover on the window and dug through the bag for the Discman, then through the CD's to see what I'd randomly taken. They were mostly all mixes, thrown in there with a Bella Morte disc, also David Bowie, Pantera, Tool…she had such a strange taste in music. I shared it, but she was the one who went out and bought all the craziness. Of the mixes, I found one that belonged to Saphrin and chose that one, because I wanted to keep my mind off Amber for the moment. It would've made me nervous and I was already anxious on the plane. I wanted to just be calm, so settled down listening to a mix from various artist on Psychopathic Records.

In listening to a variation of rap and rock, strange beats and heavy riffs, I fell asleep.

When I woke up one of the flight attendants had her hand on my shoulder and was shaking me, telling me that we'd be landing soon and would I please turn off the Discman. I nodded, and looked away from her because she was looking away from me, and just stared out the window. It wasn't quite night yet, but getting dark. Everything was becoming some shade of blue, and I made out all the lights beneath getting bigger and brighter as we landed.

 Because I didn't have any bags to pick up I was able to skip all the baggage claim bullshit and just run outside to the taxi. It was chilly out, and drizzling. I knew that the cab fare was going to be monstrous but honestly I didn't care, and it was good because he had a credit card reader. I didn't even want to know how much it was costing me, didn't really care. I just kept listening to music and turned away from the driver, not wanting him to stare at me or be afraid of me. I just wanted him to leave me alone, drive me to my house.

It's funny with the CD I was listening to, the one that Saphrin made. Some of it was so obnoxious and funny and made me actually crack a smile, but at the same time, some of it was so serious that I almost started to cry. It showed that the artists (on that particular CD only Insane Clown Posse and Twiztid), had some smart side to them that they didn't reveal to everyone when they talked about serial killing and sex and pot. But then…then there was that occasional serious song. Nothing's Left. How Many Times. Rendition of Reality. I'm Alright. Those few random songs that were so powerful…after I heard I'm Alright I changed the CD, not wanting to hear it anymore. I searched around in the bag to see what other CDs I'd taken, ones that I hadn't seen on the plane. Third Eye Blind. VNV Nation. Nine Inch Nails. The Aquabats. Amber was so strange, in such a pretty way. It made me smile. I chose to listen to Bella Morte.

 Random selection chose for me the song Away. The beginning sounded so hollow, so mechanical, then just blended into something sad. Regretful. Grieving. "I remember your smile still though you're far away. I remember the tears on your face though the reasons fade…" the background vocals reminded me of Amber. On the highway I stared at all the signs, anticipating our arrival at the house.

The piano line in the song was so simple and so melancholy. It made a lump form in my throat, reminding me that it was highly possible that my marriage was over. I loved Amber. I didn't want to lose her. I wanted the driver to go faster so that I would be there in that less time, maybe the quicker I got there the less angry she would be? I didn't know. I didn't know and that scared me, and so I turned the volume higher on the headphones and pushed the repeat button, trying to calm myself down.

I handed the driver one of my credit cards once he'd pulled into our driveway. I didn't look to see how much the fare was, it made me squeamish just thinking about how much money I'd just spent. He handed it back to me and looked at me quizzically as I stepped out of the car, and I glared at him, slamming the door shut and reaching into my pocket to turn the music off.

"And at night our stars burn as long as before," the song sang at me as I turned it off. The cab sped off once I had stepped out of the driveway and onto the walkway that curled up over the lawn. The grass was overgrown, neglected. I figured tomorrow I would mow it for Amber, make the house look nice. We hadn't been there in a long time, after all.

I took the Discman out of my pocket and stuffed it in the backpack, only then looking up to see the police tape that was slung around the porch rail. I turned frantically around to look for the taxi, wanting to get back in and go back to the airport, or anywhere away from the house, to find Mark. Mark. I wanted Mark. For some reason he was the only person I could think of just then, and wanted him to protect me. Sometimes it felt like we were kids again, when I was always hiding behind him. Always making him defend me.

My stomach fell. I just stood there, staring up at the house. It was fully dark now, I saw everything in a kind of dark blue light. I heard music in my head, Breña, so strongly that I thought it was actually playing. But when I shook my head furiously to myself it all stopped.

Now I had to relive this all again. My eyes sprung tears as I realized that all day I'd been hallucinating, as I began to slowly walk up the steps onto the porch.

I saw my reflection in the pane of glass on the door. My hair was a mess, greasepaint lessened to the point where it just looked like smeary eye shadow. No wonder the driver looked at me funny. My hands were shaking as I reached into my pocket for keys, finding the single one on the ring that hadn't been touched in months, that I'd always pretended hadn't been there when I looked. I stuck it in the keyhole, unknowing of how many times police had been in and out of there, but the door was still locked. I was grateful for that much. My hands barely functioned as I unlocked the door, opening it slowly and stepping inside, hesitant to close the door behind me.

Everything was dark for a moment. I liked it that way. I didn't want to see…because I remembered then that I had never gotten around to hiring people to clean the place up. I'd gotten a couple numbers from James once on the phone to tell me to call to get everything cleaned up, but I was so upset that I never wanted to deal with that responsibility, so never had anything even touched. The only people that had been there since what happened, were Mark to get my clothes that one night, and police.

I really didn't want to, or need to, see what was left there. But I felt so scared. I didn't know what I was scared of really, but I just felt it tickling in my spine and in my limbs, like something was there. And it was, I just couldn't see it. If it had been any night of my Perfect Time it wouldn't mean a fucking thing, but now…now wasn't like all the times we'd gotten home in the middle of the night to have the house pitch black. But now…I felt it eating in my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut as I reached over to flip the light switch.

Everything was still and black still. The muscles in my face hurt from tensing it so much. Slowly I opened them, the tears falling as I did so.

I saw blood.

Brown, old stains on the once white carpet. My heart caught in my throat and I looked up. Not all the knocked over furniture had been picked up, though some of it moved. One of the end tables still lay on the floor, glass of a vase scattered around it, mingling with dead flowers. A lamp laid on it's side, dust and cobwebs collecting in the shade. I felt my knees going weak and began to shake violently as I saw all the dried, brown stains that covered the floor. Even the handprint on the wall was still there, and the stain from when I'd vomited, as I felt I would do again.

This time I was able to run outside.

The meticulous drizzle that had been falling all day there had turned into something harder, and didn't quite pour but rained more steadily as I fell down the front steps onto my knees, holding my stomach with one hand and the hair out of my face with the other. When it was all over with I slowly turned back, staring up as the house loomed over me, the light pouring through the open front door. I just stared at the stains on the wall.

My reflection wraps and pulls me under. Healing waters to be bathed in Breña. Guides me safely in worlds I've never been to. Heal me, heal me, my dear Breña.

I heard it in my head and started to crying, biting down on my lip and wobbling up to my feet. The rain and the tears both mixed on my face as I made my way back up into the house, not wanting to see it again but unable to keep myself from it. I couldn't tell if it was bravery or masochism. The sound of rain was all that I was really hearing, but I swore the song was playing. It was laced into my brain.

From standing there so long I was drenched, and starting to shiver. I wanted to be somewhere else. I wanted to be in that goddamned apartment, just not there. Not THERE. Of all fucking places. I tugged at my hair.

"What the fuck were you THINKING, Kane??" I screamed at myself. And no one answered. It was so quiet and alone, and I was so shaken into the brutal truth that I couldn't even imagine that Amber was inside.

So vulnerable but it's all right. Heal me, heal me, my dear Breña.

The doorway was laughing at me. Amber was laughing at me. Claudette. Armand. Paul. My parents.

It was everything in my life that I'd failed to stick up for myself against. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I wasn't going to let it get to me.

My stomach was churning but I willed myself not to be sick again as I took the steps, walking slowly, eyes locked on the faded stains. I wanted Mark to be there with me again, but brushed it off. I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to do this on my own.

I had to keep my mouth clenched shut tightly and kept biting my lip to keep from vomiting. There wasn't even anything left in my system, but the movements were all there. The gagging and whatnot. But I knew what I needed to do as, for the second time, I stepped into the house, and now closed the door behind me. I felt locked in and stifled, going over the motions as I'd gone through them that night.

The living room was mostly untouched from that night. A patch of carpet was missing from between a large smear of blood. I breathed deeply as I stared at it, and the wooden floor beneath which seemed damaged, as the blood had seeped through and messed it up. It took all my will to walk into the dining room.

Flaming June was there, calming, so sleepy looking and peaceful, yet with the jagged holes of the arrows right beside it. The arrows were gone though, as was the bowgun from the floor. The chairs that had been knocked over were now in place, and the lace tablecloth was rumbled and dirty. I knew that the people who'd been in my house must've used it somehow. Part of it was even ripped, with a small dent in the polished surface beneath it, which I touched lightly. It made me a little mad for some reason, until I realized that a dent in the table, of all the mess in the house, was the least of my problems. I turned to walk into the kitchen and saw the series of handprints on the wall.

Masochism. Bravery. Curiosity. What's the difference?

I reached up slowly and placed my hand over the one that was morbidly painted on the wall. My own hand was so much bigger.

And this, I realized, was how I was going to remember her. This, by this stupid little torturous handprint I was going to remember how small she was, how pretty. She wasn't really that small. I just remembered her that way. Everyone was small to me, though, right?

With Amber that was special. Everyone was small in an indifferent kind of way. Amber's size was pretty. Small, not like the average person, small like Tinkerbell. Small and pretty like Tinkerbell, who was beautiful and cute and everyone loved. Who I loved.

My hand curled into a fist and drew back, punching the wall right next to the print so that the drywall crumbled in, as did part of the fingers. The chalky powder stayed on my knuckles, which were already wounded from destroying the mirror in the apartment. I cringed as I looked down at it, the small cuts reopening. I was suddenly angry at her.

"Fuck you," I whispered, smearing my own blood over hers. "Fuck you for leaving me, Amber."

I let out a sigh, holding the sides of my head, trying to place the blame on the prick who'd done this to her and not so much Amber herself. I couldn't focus it, though. All I could think about was a body, and how it worked, how she'd managed to dial 911 right before she died and let them trace the call to her house. Why couldn't she have said a name? Grabbed a weapon? Gotten up?

Her size, her weakness, made me angry with her.  And angry at myself. The hatred for her dissolved when I remembered that it was my fault, too. If I'd only been home…

So it was my fault as much as hers, as much as the fucker who'd done this. It was all equal. It was my bloody handprint on the wall, my huge disgusting smeared stain on the kitchen floor where she'd died, not just hers. As soon as I reached into the doorway and turned the light on I saw the kitchen floor and stared at it for a moment before I actually went into the room, scared as hell to go in there, not knowing what my reaction would be.

My footsteps were slow as I entered, slowly lifting my legs, slowly breathing, slowly turning to pass around the island of counters. The stain on the floor was huge, what had been a pool of her blood, not to mention the other fluids that her body had discarded once she'd died. Some of it was a light pink color, very light. Most of it was brown. Parts were almost black. I remembered the night I'd found her like that, only three months earlier. It seemed like it had been years.

I relived it.

Again I dropped to my knees, my fingertips tracing the edges of the blood, long gone, just a shadow of what it had been. I closed my eyes, seeing it again, out of body. Falling to my knees right in the blood, grabbing onto her, calling out her name as I sobbed, holding her body against mine. Breña playing the background, from the car that had been parked on the lawn.

Show me lonely and show me openings to lead me closer to you, my dear Breña.

In my life I don't think I'd ever cried so much, falling back against the counters, sobbing, absolutely wailing, my voice coming out in strangled barks. The only times I could think of crying that hard were the fits I'd had in the nights following what had happened. Even in the bouts of depression that I'd gotten since then, I never truly cried. I was too dead to cry that much.

"So vulnerable," I mumbled to myself, screaming and crying, not even like a child but like something more, all the desperation and misery in the world that could be grasped. And it wasn't just Amber and my children that I was crying over, it was everything. Every single fucking stupid thing that I'd gone through since the moment I'd been conceived. The fire, my face, my mom dying, Paul abusing me, Mark abusing me, everyone abusing me…

It really wasn't any fair. Everything that I ever loved, ever cared for the slightest bit, was taken the hell away from me. "But it's all right," I said, choking. "Opening to heal…opening to heal…my dear Breña…"

I couldn't fucking take it anymore. I hated goddamn life, hated that God or whatever was controlling it had such a fucked up sense of humor, hated that I wasn't strong enough to deal with it, hated that everything I gave a shit about had to be ruined. Destroyed. I hated it more than anyone will ever know.

My original plan while I'd been outside vomiting was that I was just quickly going to go into the house and grab the phone and call Mark, because I knew he'd come to my rescue. But now I just sat there, sobbing, not wanting to talk to him because I remembered all the things we'd done to each other. I just wanted to be alone, wanted to be with what I had left of Amber- a fucking blood stain.

After a couple of hours, when the rain had turned to pouring and it had also started thundering, I calmed down, and sat there in a daze for another period of time. I had to slowly come down from the sobbing, letting my breathing come back to normal, every now and then crying a little bit, only not as hard. It's a process, to come down from that. Because I would calm down a little and then think of how often we'd have breakfast in the kitchen and cry a lot. Then I would calm down and the way my body was trying to slow down reminded me of coming down from an orgasm, which made me cry, but not as much. Then I would calm down and think of Armand and cry a little bit…it was a cycle that took me a few hours to completely go through.

By the time I was finished with all of that it was around two-thirty in the morning. I was exhausted, but knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep. I decided I'd stick around until maybe noon and call Mark then, and ask him to come get me.

There was no food in the house, really. Some non-perishable canned soup and stuff, other than that, not much. A bottle of spoiled milk was in the refrigerator, which was bothering no one at the moment cause it was sealed and I didn't dare touch it. There was always water, though. So I drank that, trying to get back into my system all the tears that I'd lost. I felt dehydrated.

It really got to me that the dishes weren't done. All the people that had been in the house had thrown out the food that Amber had been cooking, probably because it was rotting, but had never bother doing the dishes. I don't see why they would, but still. It bothered me. Little things like that bothered me. The dishes not being done, and Amber's shoes being kicked off in the living room, which I'd seen on the way in. Just kicked off as if she was going to slip them back on and leave.

And she'd kicked off her shoes that day and never knew that she'd never use them again.

I let out a sigh, my head swelling, feeling like I was going to black out for a moment. I let out all the energy and tried not to cry, told myself not to because I was exhausted and wasn't going to get anywhere. I just tipped back the glass of water and felt it just come right back up into my eyes. They felt so wet to me, and everything was blurry. I hated feeling so miserable.

So maybe it wasn't masochism, because I didn't want to be miserable. I wanted to just be calm. For that reason I walked through the house, closing Claudette's door so that I wouldn't have to look in and remember what I'd found there. I went into a den in the house, a room with a fireplace that we'd set up as another living room, because I didn't want to be among all the blood, or with our things in the bedroom.

There was an unused pile of Duraflame logs piled up next to the hearth. I decided to light a fire, figuring that it might calm me down, and because I was bored, and because there was nothing else to do. As I lit it I imagined Mark, lighting the house on fire. I tried to imagine what was going through his head as he did it. I couldn't.

Once it was going I sat back and grabbed my backpack, taking the Discman back on and just listening to the Bella Morte CD, Where Shadows Lie. I sat back against the wall, the fireplace to my left, only a few feet away from me so that I strongly felt the heat. It soothed my body, actually. And the music filled me. Something about it made me feel much calmer.

For the better part of an hour the CD was playing. I got to the second to last track and remembered what was going on, the rest of the time able to just zone out. The song Winter was playing, so slow, so cold, so sad. I closed my eyes, refusing to cry.

"Her chamber waits through timeless days for her lost warmth and her voice. And the haunting way she moves against the wind in such silence. Set blue skies aflame, for in the dark I hear her name. Forget the steel of fragile hope. Let the tapers burn throughout this night."

I thought of that night…that night with Amber when I confessed my fire theory. That perhaps it could give my face back, my mother back, my happiness back. I thought that maybe it would bring her back, too.

I crawled over so that I was sitting in front of the fire, facing it. "As so the blue dawn sets, strewn with white clouds in the sky, and our eyes meet through the haze, of distant years and fallow dreams. When you hear the ghostly winds calling soft just close your eyes. When you hear the thunder roll through the past just hold me near…"

My memory was so vivid of the fire. In the pause in the song I thought of it, like a movie, when you see it once and then go for months with hearing nothing of it. It eats away at you, you yearn to see it again. I was so sick and tired. All I wanted to do was feel again. All I wanted. I wanted Mark, I wanted Amber, I wanted our children. I wanted to feel. Because that feeling, that strong pain and burning and heat…it just wasn't clear enough in my head.

The end segment of the song truly haunted me. Eerie, sad, loud music boxes who's notes banged in my ears, pierced them. A moment of truth came over me. I knew what I needed to do. I remembered Saphrin, and how she'd been so sad for me, and how I'd listened to that CD of hers.

I ripped the headphones from my ears and stomped back into the kitchen, grabbing out a marker and a notepad from one of the drawers. Also a knife. I started writing as I was walking back to the den, my handwriting wobbling from it, then stopped and stood there leaning against the refrigerator to finish it because I go so obsessed with the idea.

I thought of that song I'd heard on the plane and in the cab. By Twiztid. I'm Alright. I knew that Saphrin would understand as I scribbled out what I remembered from the lyrics.

"If you're reading this, then I finally did it. I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye- there was no time. Understand, I was stressed. Living day to day was hard, and I gave it my best. But there was nothing left for me in this world to convince me to stay now I'm long gone away. Don't you do that, don't you start with tears just remember all the time we spent over the years. Never cry, never think bad of me. What's done is done and that's the way it had to be. I need you to be strong for me. Say a prayer every day in my memory. I'm sure it's helping me to earn my feathers to get some wings and a halo and a harp and angelic things. And even though I'm gone, and out of sight, don't you worry about me. I'm alright."

I knew she would understand. And for some reason I felt it was important for her to hear that, to know that I cared about her. When I passed my bedroom in the hallway I saw my suitcase on the corner, the one I used when I was wrestling.

Amber had loved my wrestling costume. I remembered our kiss. I remembered the time Mark had set me on fire in an inferno match. On impulse I stepped into the room and dropped what I was carrying onto our unmade bed, making a straight line for the bag and tearing it open. My eyes were assaulted with bright red that I hadn't worn in so long. My costume, and an extra mask, and the glove and gauntlet. And my boots were there too, in the bottom, with my knee pads. I didn't think twice as I stripped down my clothes and redressed in the wrestling gear, pulling on the mask as a finishing touch before I grabbed the knife and my note and went back into the den.

When I think about it now, I really don't know what the fuck I was doing.

At the time I knew, and had a perfect grasp. I knew perfectly well that I was tired of all the bullshit in my life and I was going to put an end to that, and make everyone stop taking everything away from me. I was sick and goddamn tired of it and I didn't see why I needed to put up with that. It was MY life, MINE that was getting all stamped on and I didn't see why I needed to be alive. It was fucking sadistic for Mark or Raven or Saphrin to want me to stay with them. So I wasn't.

With the knife I cut my left arm, the one that didn't have the sleeve. Deep, serious wounds. I wasn't playing anymore. I wasn't cutting myself to vent. All those people who call suicide a cry for help could've gone and fucked themselves. I was goddamn serious this time.

When the pain became too much for me I dropped the knife, and fell down, my blood all over my stomach. I stared at it, satisfied with what I'd done. Then I looked to the flames.

Staring hard enough made my eyes hurt. The brightness, the heat, the memories. I saw my mother, saw my bouncy, playful little daughter and my beautiful wife. And I saw myself. I saw myself as a child, playing, being happy. Happy. And then having it all stolen.

I was tired of all that shit.

I wanted to feel. To feel something other than misery. I needed to know that I wasn't just a wreck of a man, that there was actually a soul inside me. I wanted Amber back. I thought the fire could give it back to me when I reached in and tried to grab her hand.

The pain didn't register at all as the glove caught fire. It burned away at the leather, and at my skin, and I didn't even care. When I realized that I was on fire I slowly pulled my hand out, just staring at it, feeling nothing as the flames climbed up my arm. It didn't hurt, it didn't burn. It just made me sleepy.

All that blood, and the flames. The smoke. I felt light headed.

This time, the song in my head wasn't Breña. It was The Background.

"Everything is quiet since you're not around. And I live in numbness now in the background…"

As I passed out I could've sworn that it was Mark who was singing it.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry for not updating for months..if I got more reviews it would be quicker. Hint hint. :P :P :P

And for anyone I confused- TRUST ME- when this story is over, you'll fucking KNOW! :P