Going Nowhere Fast

29.Even More Hell

What is and what isn't real?

Am I real?

Am I fake?

Do I even deserve to live?

None of those questioned even seemed to matter at this point. My reality became so depressing that my actual depression couldn't keep up.

It had been hours since Brian had shacked me to the wall in the church basement. It was dark out by that point. The basement had a creepy vibe to it. I mean it was a basement..

My thoughts would run wild and then I wouldn't think at all. There was no in-between. I wondered if anyone had figured out that I was missing. Probably not, but it whatever.

My ass had grown numb from the concrete that I had been sitting on for the majority of the day. I wish that he would've at least given me one last joint. Brian didn't smoke though. He was always really lame about it too. The kid was willing to sin or whatever by fucking murdering me yet he wouldn't touch a joint. What a fucking piss-baby.

I sighed and leaned up against the wall. I focused in on my breathing. Each breath felt as useless as the next. There was no escaping. I had acquired like twelve different scrapes and bruises from my earlier attempts and I didn't want to fuck myself up so bad that they would've had to have had a closed-casket funeral. I was not about to let that happen. I always imagined my funeral to be my shining moment, honestly.

I could picture my shit family standing around my casket crying shit like, 'He was too young," or 'I didn't get to say goodbye,' meanwhile, those bitches were conspiring to set my own mother against me. My family shouldn't make me want to die more than my depression does. I realized that my family was Karen. My family was Nip-Naps and my new-found, caring mom. My family was Scarlet. She cared about me more than anyone had ever even tried to before in my whole life. Even Elijah and Riley never bothered to ask when I came to school with puffy eyes. They never talked to me about why I was wearing long-sleeves in middle of summer. I joked about being sad all of the time. They never got the punchline. They had their things too, grant it, and it wasn't their job to get me help. But they threw me out the moment I was labeled trash by everyone else. They were supposed to be there for me. They knew me and what I was going through. I told them and I thought they understood, but they threw me out.

---

I wasn't sure how much time had passed by that point. I had passed out earlier from my migraine. I thought I heard knocking on the door but I was too unconscious to respond. My growing dehydration had me slipping in and out of consciousness. I was starting to feel very sick. I felt like I might have ruined my one chance for help.

I wasn't sure how much more of this I could take. I realized the universe didn't want me to exist two kidnappings ago. I tried to make time pass in my mind by thinking of what my funeral would be like. I stopped quickly after because I realized no one actually gave a shit about me in my time living. I could count on one hand the number of people who would've actually deserved to go to my funeral. Everyone else could go fuck themselves with their identical, three-dollar sympathy cards they're planning on giving to my mom at my funeral.

I was so tired of living. I was so tired of my fate belonging to everyone but me. Everyone I met seemed to only take their other problems out on me.

Scarlet didn't though. If anything, I took out my feelings on her.

I started to feel really guilty and it made me want to die even more than Brian wanted to kill me.

I realized then that I had to get better. I needed to start going to more therapy. If I made it out of there..

I wondered if it were Scarlet knocking on the door earlier. I thought the knock was going to lead to Brian finally coming in to end me, but it wasn't him.

I had no idea what was happening with him. Usually I'd be fine with my murderer showing up late to my murder, but this was starting to feel rude.

My thoughts slipped to a strange, hallucinogenic type state where I imagined Karen busting in through the door and having like flying powers or something. I imagined Scarlet running in after in a super hero suit.

My love for Scarlet had grown exponentially over the whole experience that we had together. I didn't notice it at first but I completely enamored with her. She treated me like a person worth caring about. No one ever express interest in me the way she did. Her sense of humor was pretty kick-ass and she was wise. She always thought ahead and knew exactly what to do. My expedition mostly went to shit when we parted ways.

It was funny to think of what the kids at school would've thought of me strolling back in after being man-hunted by authorities with Scarlet Grant at my side. No one would probably give that much of a shit because, it's high-schoolers, but I was pretty sure having people think I was interesting and mysterious would've been better than everyone thinking I was a sexual predator. It was a pretty cruel twist of fate that I had to suffer from both ends of that shitty shit. Maybe if people knew what had happened to me, it would help them realize why I would never do that to another person. It hurt me so bad to know people thought I did that.

I felt a tear slide down my cheek. It must've been the last ounce of water inside of me because after that, everything went black.