I came here to die.
I didn't know it at the time, but the universe told me to come here so I could die in peace.
Well, not in peace.
But not in quiet either, I suppose. The birds chirp, the leaves rustle, the wind whistles. Nature's music waxes and wanes.
And I lay here and wait to die.
Something will come. An epiphany. Something to put it all into perspective and answer all those unanswerable questions. And then I can shoot myself in the mouth.
Time passes by here, keeping a comfortable distance so I don't have to think about how many days it's been.
I came here to die, I think. But when I decided to come here, I thought I just needed time. I thought I needed space. Distance.
If I could step back, and let it all go, if I could see it all like it didn't happen to me, like it happened to someone else, then maybe I could make sense of it. My whole life. All of it.
I feel like it's important to finally understand before I die. Because I've spent so much time avoiding the thoughts, trying not to remember. I've spent my whole life running away from it all, steering clear of the things that might make me remember.
It's one thing Paul always tried to get me to talk about.
My mom. My childhood, my early adulthood. He would ask, but I didn't want to think about it. I shut him out, purposefully. There was a big heavy door in my brain that I pushed hard against. Keeping it shut tight was an impossibility. Keeping it shut at all was exhausting, and it was constantly trying to swing open wide and drown me in tar.
Tar.
The taste of cigarettes brings back memories of her, leaned up against the counter in the kitchen nook, blowing smoke up at the ceiling. A particularly difficult day at work had made her harder and colder than usual. An unwelcome but not unexpected change. Even so young, I never expected an ounce of kindness from her. If she were alive today, she would call me ungrateful for that. Or maybe she'd congratulate me on learning the lesson she always claimed life was trying to teach; You can't trust anyone but yourself.
The taste of cigarettes brings back memories of him, too, sitting underneath streetlights in early-Autumn chill, the sweet pink and orange lights of dusk tinging his hair to the color of wildfire.
He was beautiful.
Even now, I want, so badly, to reach across the bed and feel him here. I don't think that will ever go away, no matter how many times I fall in love again. No matter how many days pass, no matter how easy it gets to live through each day, the memory of him will never fade, and the longing will never completely go away.
I hear the door in the living room swing open, and two sets of footsteps walk inside. A muffled conversation fades to silence as they walk into the middle of the great room.
With a hum of amusement, I wonder if someone's come to kill me.
I get up, acknowledging the groan of the floorboards, taking the shotgun from behind the door and walking down the hallway with my finger ready to slip onto the trigger.
"Laura, I think someone's in- WOAH! WOAH WOAH WOAH!! HEY!!"
"Who the fuck are you?" I shout over the sudden eruption of panic.
"There's no reason to shoot, calm down, there's no need for the gun. Calm down, please, please," a woman pleads.
A baby starts-
Wait, a baby?
I immediately drop the shotgun, throwing my hands up and apologizing, stumbling over my words and my own feet. "I'm so fucking sorry, oh my god. I'm so sorry, I didn't know you had a baby with you. Oh, my god."
"What did you think it was, an empty basinet?" Asks the man, shouting angrily.
"I didn't think anything. I heard two people come into my house and I'm BLIND."
"Your house!?" He roars, stomping towards me. "Who the fuck are YOU?"
"Yes, my house. I'm None Of Your Fucking Business, who the fuck are you?"
"Nick, please, the baby-"
"No, Laura, this fucking vagrant has been sleeping and eating and shitting in my fucking great-grandfather's cabin."
"Vagrant!?" Without realizing, my arm shoots out and I feel my hand clamp down around his throat, lifting up. He's surprisingly heavy and I feel my entire body tense so as to keep both my feet on the rickety old wooden floor.
"PUT HIM DOWN!! PLEASE!"
It only takes a second for the weight to become too much, and my arm gives out. I hear him collapse to the floor, coughing and wheezing.
"Oh, god, Nick... Oh, god..." The woman sobs.
"Get out of my house. Clearly you're in the wrong place, this cabin belonged to my mother," I tell them, leaning down and picking up the shotgun from where I dropped it.
"No, we aren't in the wrong place. This was my family's cabin. The street is my last name. It's been in the family for generations."
The street name?
Jones St.?
"Nick Jones?" I take a step back. "Like, Nicolas."
"Right." He replies, smugly. He seems to think he's gotten through to me. In a way, he has, but probably not how he thinks.
"Nicolas Jones."
"Yeah...?" Hesitation. A hint of fear. Does he think I'm a long-lost rival of some kind?
No. I don't know him because our bloodlines crossed generations ago, sparking a vicious feud, no. I know him because he's my-
"Brother."
"What?"