Jack wipes the blood and tears cocktail off his face with the back of his hand. She's gone. She really is gone. Now what? He replays all of Charlotte's words and advice over and over. She sees good in him; he can be good. How can I be good without you?
He thinks back to Bobby, how good Bobby made him feel. Having a friend wasn't all bad. He could find some sort of security in a friend. Bobby might not want anything to do with him now though, it's been years. Jack picks himself up and searches for his phone anyway.
He finds it swallowed by his sofa; it had been days since he'd been on it. He squints at it, barely making out any words on the screen. He finds a fuzzy contact list and manages to find Bobby's number. He holds the phone to his ear and listens to the ring. It might not even be him anymore, Jack thinks, he might have got a new number after all this time. The call goes to voicemail and Jack hears a familiar voice, "Hey, it's Bob, tell me what you want here, and I'll see if it's worth getting back to you." A smile itches Jack's lips.
"Uh, hey, Bob. It's Jack. I know I'm probably the last person you expect to hear from, but I thought it would be good to catch up. I'm sorry for all the bullshit, bro, hope this is worth getting back to me for." He hangs up, thinking that was easier than he thought it would be.
He throws his phone back over to the sofa and limps into his bedroom and flumps on the bed. He looks down at the scattered contents of his relationship and feels lost. Lost for what to do now, to do next, to do about the past, to do about the future. Hopefully Bobby will get back to him and help give him some guidance. Being a good person can't be hard, so many people do it, it must be easy, right?
He glances down at the old journal entries Charlotte had written, seeing glimpses of the awful things he'd said and done to her. Who was he kidding, nothing will be fixed. Nothing will be the same or get better, he'd screwed everything and everyone up. Jack had never thought about suicide before, but is it all it's cracked up to be? No more suffering, no pain, no more hurting others, no more fucking everything up, it sounds pretty good compared to this bullshit of a life.
Jack sits there, slumped, pain pulsing all over his body. What is a life without Charlotte going to be like? Gloomy, dull, pointless. Nothing seems to appeal to Jack anymore. He will never get to see her again, but what if he dies too? There's clearly something after death, Charlotte had said so, she had seen it. She had forgiven him and forgiven herself, found peace. So, why can't Jack do that too? Bobby won't get back to me, he thinks, he'll probably change his number after he hears that message. For the first time in Jack's life, he is alone, and doesn't want to go and find someone else to cure his boredom. He isn't bored, he's broken. He's alone and no one will ever care about him again. No one will ever care like Charlotte cared, it was his one shot, and he blew it. Jack's chest gets heavier, his head gets louder. This has to end. This can't go on anymore. I can't hurt anyone else. I don't deserve to be alive.
Jack leans over the kitchen counter with the Stanley knife in his hand. The same one that took Charlotte's life. How do you even do it? He hovers the blade over his wrist, leaning it one way and then to the other, no angle looking quite right to him. Do you cut across, or downwards? How hard do you press? How deep does it have to go? Jack takes it over to the sofa and sits down with it still hanging over his wrist. His other hand sweating nonstop as well as his brow. Fuck, how did Charlotte do this? This is scary as hell! The thought of Charlotte hurting herself all over again brings a burning rage inside Jack. He gets so angry at himself he raises the blade just above his head and brings it firing down, with such terrible precision it pierces the middle of his forearm.
"ARGH!" He drops the knife and clutches his arm, blood trickling through his fingers and down his hand in a mess.
"I can't even kill myself right!" he yells.
Just then, his front door comes flying open, rattling at the hinges. Jack jumps up and spins around. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.
YOU ARE READING
The Dead and the Broken
General FictionNew and improved version now available at Amazon! "If there's evil in anyone, if it exists at all, that's what that boy is made of." Jack, thus far, has glided through life by his own rules and has successfully kept out of consequences' reach, no m...
