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I gulp.
Fashion. I like it. It has always been a familiar addiction that I feed on regularly. Why does this closet in particular feel so empty? It isn’t any bigger than the one I have at home. Maybe it is the unfamiliarity. Yes. Yes, that’s it. It is unfamiliar.
I clutch the hem of my towel while reaching for something simplistic. Boyfriend jeans with gashes on the knees and thighs and a crop top that hangs comfortably off me. Now with fresh eyes, I take in the bedroom. The sheets have already been changed—probably while I was in the shower—and the music has changed now. I recognize Beethoven and Jeno Jando’s “Moonlight.” I played it when I was a young teen. It’s Brantley’s favorite.
The four-post bed is on the left side of the room, diagonally to the door, and perfect for the aesthetic of the bedroom. There’s a fireplace at the foot, large windows that hide behind lavish lace curtains, a simplistic office desk, the ZZ plant—convenient since it’s literally the one plant you can’t kill—and a small bar fridge.
Modest, yet candidly elaborate. Everything feels strategically placed for style. What is this place?
I know that once I leave this room and go downstairs, everything is going to start changing. In the back of my mind, I know that.
But I open the door anyway, with that infamous gaping hole in my chest throbbing. The hole that I’m not interested in refilling anytime soon. I guess I don’t know much about who I am. I still don’t know if I died, or if my body is stuck in a hospital and I’m playing in the third realm of life. I feel like a ping-pong ball, being whacked back and forth between the human realm and this—this place of uncertainty. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m dead and I don’t know it yet.
You’re not going to like this journey. Not one bit. I’m going to bend you, twist you, and break you until you’re begging for an exit.
But that’s the way it has to be.
Fog swam around my legs so thick I couldn’t see my feet. It had begun to rise higher and higher, starting at my ankles to now above my knees. There was an archway made from twisted ivy that clawed its way over metal. Dead flowers wilted over crusted leaves, though I was sure they once looked beautiful.
Just not here.
Not now.
And probably not ever again.
I took the steps toward the arch, even though everything inside of me was fighting it. I knew I shouldn’t follow. As a young boy, I knew it. Well, I wasn’t young anymore. I had responsibilities. A need to fight. To live. To bleed. But I knew the hollow darkness that looked back at me from the other side held no promises of me ever returning, but what was the point? What did I have to lose?
Them? No. I didn’t have them. I had nothing to lose.
I took the step through oblivion and found out I did have one more thing to lose.
My mind.
So, we’re going to start this from the begi