Depression: What Have I Done?

Welcome back to my #FridayFlash posts and thanks for coming.

If you're new to my stuff or you didn't remember, I'm doing a series for five weeks showing the five stages of grief, each one from the perspective of a different character.

The second stage is depression. This was one that I battled choosing a character for because so many of them could fit this at different times. In the end, I decided to go with the best known one: Jocelyn. This takes place immediately after the events in Of Course I Try (available from Decadent Publishing and other online retailers). If you're looking for backstory but don't want to buy, the final scene of OCIT was re-done from Max's point of view in The Cost of Love (my first #FridayFlash) on Danielle LaPaglia's blog

Depression:  What Have I Done?

I make it out the door and to my car before the shakes hit me. The keys tumble from my grasp as I try to put them in the ignition, clinking against the steering column before they fall onto the floorboards. Denial takes a breath and screams, “He’s not really dead!” But I know better—I felt his body disintegrate beneath my hands. I don’t get the luxury of pretending.

My eyes turn toward his house—a place that had been my refuge for when the rest of the world became too much.  More than the house though, he’d been my savior, my protector, my everything.

“Oh God, what have I done?”

The only bad thing Max had ever really done was hide the truth. He lied. And I hadn’t even given him a chance to explain himself.

The pain and horror choke me, sucking the life from my body more thoroughly than Max ever did. I claw at the door handle, wanting to go back inside, absurdly thinking I can take it back somehow. My body sags against the door, the glass cool on my cheek as I realize I have no right to go back in his home. I’ve betrayed everything it stood for.

I am alone…and it’s my fault.

A sob catches in my throat, I’m too weak to even cry. Light and color are leeched from the world with every breath, bathing me in darkness and despair. I stare at the house, willing it to come back to life, but knowing in my heart it can’t happen. I killed the only man I’ve ever loved, took the very life that gave everything in my life meaning.
With him gone, I want to die too.

Daylight comes and darkness falls, and still I sit and wait. Death is too good for me now.