BRANDON
I’ve never been addicted to anything, so I didn’t realize how notoriously painful it is to go through withdrawal.
It’s been two weeks since Nikolai told me we were done—in a text—and I’m still not over the bursts of loneliness.
Two weeks and it’s getting worse, not better.
It’s not your common withdrawal, after all. Or maybe I’m just a newbie at this entire thing and don’t have the foggiest clue about how to handle these types of situations.
Sometimes, the pain and nausea get too much and I’m smothered by the black ink and have to purge it out.
Somehow.
Anyhow.
I’ve seen my blood more often than not in the past two weeks. The other day, I let it flow and flow until I lost consciousness in the bathroom. A part of me wished I’d never wake up.
A part of me prayed for it as I lay on the bathroom floor, my eyes blurred with moisture and my heart too tired to keep pumping life into my useless body.
My brain checked out and my thoughts came to terms with how utterly fucking tired I am.
Of myself.
Of everything.
I still am.
My brush ghosts over the canvas, adding strokes of warm colors, intertwining and mixing them until they match my hollow insides.
Art is the only thing that keeps me grounded. I don’t even go to practice anymore after I purposefully sprained my ankle.
I’m withdrawing from social circles with all sorts of excuses. Studies. Work. Pending deadlines.
I just don’t have the energy to deal with anyone or anything at the moment. But more alone time only pushes me toward bad habits.
Cutting and blood and fucking self-loathing.
I’m spiraling and I can’t stop it.
I’m falling and can’t hit the bottom.
My hand trembles and the plaster that I covered with my thick watch burns. The injury tingles and my blood pumps into the barely healing cut.
The doomsday feeling racks my brain and saliva floods the inside of my mouth.
Tick.
You’re so fucking weak.
Tick.
A disgrace.
Tick.
Fucking useless.
The brush falls from between my shaky fingers and hits the floor, leaving an orange stroke on the plastic.
I open the drawer to my right and grab my Swiss Army knife almost on autopilot. If I just open it one more time, no one will know.
If I just purge the black ink surrounding me, I won’t feel trapped in my own skin and it’ll be over.
Except that I repeated those same words the last five fucking times I did this. Five times in the span of two weeks. Five.
Bloody hell. I’m losing control.
And yet my fingers wrap around the handle and I remove my watch and then place it on the table. I peel off the plaster and stare at the dark-red skin. The last time I did this, the cut was so deep, I lost a lot of blood. I thought it’d never heal and I’d need stitches.
The skin mended itself back together again, fruitlessly hoping for closure, for healing, like a fucking masochist.
The first time I cut myself was by accident when I was shaving at seventeen. I watched the tiny droplet of blood rolling down my jaw and neck and felt an immense sense of relief.
It was the first time I looked at myself for a solid minute without feeling the need to smash the mirror.
So I became a bit careless with my shaving and cut myself here and there just to see more of my blood. The harder the blood flowed, the more the black ink receded.
But I didn’t do it often. I was extremely careful not to make my parents suspicious. So when Dad joked that maybe he should teach me how to shave again, I stopped doing those small nicks on my face and neck.
I started shaving down there and cutting between my thighs where no one could see. I would sit in the bathtub and watch the blood trickling out of me, close my eyes and suck in clean air.
After I started uni, I began cutting my wrist, but only in the exact same spot, drawing over the three lines that could be hidden by a watch.
But I didn’t let myself do that often, either. No more than once a month, maybe. When the nausea constricted my throat and I couldn’t breathe without gagging on the black ink.
When it hurts to the point I can’t exist within my own fucking skin.
The frequency hiked up in the past couple of weeks to the point that I can’t control it anymore.
When I was with Nikolai, I didn’t do it, because he was awfully perceptive. He could sense something was wrong with my hand and arm and kept asking about it for weeks. I kid you not, he would be like, “By the way, how did you hurt your hand? It looks serious.”
Considering all the sex, I didn’t dare cut my thighs, and the weird part is that I wasn’t really overwhelmed by the urge to see my blood.
It was manageable, until it wasn’t.
Until now, where I’m fantasizing about cutting my fucking wrist off.
“Hon…please. I’m so worried about you. Please talk to me. Tell me something. Anything.”
Mum’s words from earlier rush into the fog and I release a shaky exhale. I told her I loved her and then hung up, because I couldn’t deal with the pain in her voice.
Dad called me and I didn’t pick up, because hearing the concern in his voice would undo me. It scares me that I’m the disappointment who’s nothing like him in any shape or form. He might have been strict with Lan, but, really, that’s because he reminds him of his younger self.
I’m the fucking anomaly who only ever caused my parents’ concern. A fucking hurricane of disappointment and failed potential.
A vibration pulls me out of the trance and I blink twice, then reach for the phone with my injured hand, slightly trembling, my heart lodged in my throat.
Over the past couple of weeks, my coping method to get over the never-ending withdrawal was texting myself as if I were texting Nikolai.
I have enough pride to not contact him after he dumped me, but it didn’t hurt to send those texts to myself. Pretending it was him. At least, that way, I got to express what I felt in words.
Daft words like:
Why did you come into my life if you were going to leave?
Why did you make me addicted to you if you didn’t plan to stay?
If I say I’m sorry will you come back?
You were never a booty call. I don’t even do those. And I’m the fucking toy, not you.
I don’t even like running anymore. You ruined it like everything else. Fucking bastard. Fuck you.
I’m messed up, Nikolai. Extremely so. You should be glad to have dodged a bullet.
I hate myself. Why don’t you hate me, too?
Oh, right. You do now. Finally. Congrats on the wake-up call. Better late than never.
Are you back with Simon and your other friends with benefits? Did you find a replacement already?
That last thought often crams me down the black hole of my mind and I can’t shake it off, no matter how much I try to.
I’ve seen Nikolai in the fight club a couple of times, mainly because I can’t handle not looking at him anymore, but I always leave before he takes notice of me.
Just like I wrote those texts to myself instead of him.
But here’s the thing.
Last night, I got hammered with Remi, and when I came back to my room, I was on edge. So I went through Nikolai’s chaotic Instagram, which he fills with the most random nonsense.
It’s a habit I indulge in lately and it helps to quiet down the demons. At least, for a while.
Around ten thirty, which is when I usually go to the penthouse, he posted a picture of the telly on a scene from the nightly murder mysteries. The hashtags were #Watching #Alone
My heart revived from the ashes at that moment, but only for a fraction of a second before I saw all the comments from men and women thirsting over him and offering to accompany him. Including fucking Simon.
You can watch me, Daddy 😉
So remember the part where I was drunk? I wasn’t thinking straight, so I kind of texted him.
Me
Do you miss me?
I kept pacing my room back and forth, waiting for his reply. My mind, heart, and fucking body were a mess of epic proportions. I wanted to drive to the penthouse and see him.
I wanted to throw away whoever he’d invited to our space.
But I would’ve definitely gotten into an accident if I’d driven in that state, and while I couldn’t give two flying fucks about my life, I wouldn’t endanger other people’s lives.
He replied after a whole two minutes, even though he read it immediately.
Nikolai
Who’s this?
My heart plummeted and I stopped in the middle of my room, staring at the text as if it were a knife that had plunged itself into my chest and protruded through my back.
Maybe I read the post wrong. He’s already moved on and I’m the one stuck in this fucking prison of my own making.
Me
Wrong number. Sorry.
I was about to throw down my phone and indulge in my self-destructive hobby, but it vibrated in my hand.
He was calling me.
I swear I never felt so shaken up as when I swiped up and placed the phone to my ear.
“Why the fuck—” He inhaled sharply and I felt the vibration of his voice in my ear.
Then I stopped breathing altogether as if that would make me hear him better.
“It’s obviously not the wrong fucking number. What the fuck do you want from me, Brandon?” His tone warred with calm, but I could hear the agitation beneath it.
I smiled and closed my eyes briefly in relief as I listened to his breaths and soaked in his voice. He didn’t forget me or delete my number.
“You never call me by my full name,” I whispered. “I don’t like it when you do.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you like. I don’t give a fuck about you or how you’re doing. I told you we’re fucking done, so stay the fuck away from me.”
“But I don’t want to,” I threw his words back at him, too drunk to care about how desperate I sounded.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“I don’t want to. You obviously don’t want to, either, or you wouldn’t be talking to me. You’re that obsessed with me, huh?”
“I’m so over your bullshit.”
“Liar. You can’t stay away from me, Niko.” I used another one of his sentences. “You know you want me. No matter what I do, you come crawling back to me.”
He hung up then, and I cursed myself for the overconfident tone I used when, really, I just wanted to hear his voice, even angry and wrong. Even if he was calling me by my full name, it was still his voice that I’d spent way too long without.
Then I went to bed, imagining his strong arms encircling me and his chest beneath my head.