Page 41 of Lessons In Grey

October 9th, 2021

Icouldn’t remember the last time I had slept more than an hour at a time.

Everything was blurring together into existence and non-existence. I could see things but I couldn’t hear them. It was strange. For instance, right now, I was only half positive that I was bleeding out on the bathroom floor, the other half of me was sure I was listening to Rags talk about how every time a person was born, the dust of their afterbirth drifted up into space, creating new galaxies.

I blinked slowly, the world blurring between he and the white bathroom floor, covered in blood.

I was lying on my side, my head resting on the floor, both arms outstretched before me. My right one holding a bloodied razor blade, the other covered in lines pouring blood onto the pristinetiles.

Shit.

Those two pills Cam had given me, I had no idea what they were, but they fogged my brain up more than I had ever experienced before. My limbs were floaty, but I felt chains wrapping around my throat, my hips, my ankles, pinning me to the ground.

The cuts were too deep.

Rags smiled, continuing on with his spiel, unaware of me lying in a pool of my own blood.

The dried tears cut trenches into my skin, and I couldn’t actually remember crying. Or picking up the blade. Or laying down.

He had talked about collapsing galaxies once, it was our favorite topic. Space. Stars. All things truly unknown. That’s where I was, floating through them as they shattered within themselves.

I felt as if my heart was beating too slow and too fast at the same time. Was this what dying felt like?

Was I dying?

Did I want to die?

Had I meant to do any of this?

I blinked heavily and looked across my bathroom floor, finding my phone within reaching distance. Why was it in here? I wasn’t going to call the police, not if what my hand had done to me was what I truly wanted.

Was it?

What did I want?

What was the end goal here?

Each breath felt spicy and sharp, but the floor felt round, soft, warm. Maybe I had already died. Maybe when I stood up, it would be my ghost stepping out of this body. I’d become the things that haunted me.

I reached for my phone and found his number. I hadprogrammed it in last week. I had put it under ‘Grey’.

Grey like the lines drawn between us.

Grey like my mind whenever I was near him.

Grey like the world had been until I had seen him standing outside that gas station what felt like a different life ago. A different me.

No, I was the same me. Maybe worse. Maybe much worse.

I hit the call button, watching the green come to life, leaving behind a bloodied fingerprint on my screen.

“Malachi,” I heard him grumble, half asleep, his voice crackling and hoarse.

Fuck. Something under my skin warmed. I could have listened to that voice for the rest of my days.

I swallowed, my tongue dry, my mind exhausted. “Tell me something brilliant,” I mumbled.

He was quiet a moment. “Emily,” he said on a breath, his voice caressing every letter of my name. A dark, melodic piano melody or the song of a cello, low and haunting. I could feel the notes of it drift over my skin like fingers. Fuck.