The way she’d treated Tristan had infuriated me, but I’d still felt for her. Always, even now.
In the end, that initial response was the most fleeting of things. More than anything else, I pitied her. We all had a breaking point, and life had landed too many solid blows for her to survive, too many tragedies for her poor mind to handle.
When I spoke at her funeral, it felt like the past repeating itself, though Tristan and I were the only attendees for this one.
Suicides were a touchy thing.
“I know she wasn’t perfect. I know well how flawed she was, but she was a loving woman. She loved with her whole heart, and when that whole heart was broken, she left us.”
I spoke directly to Tristan. “She loved you. I know she did. She was blinded by her grief, but I know that, in her lucid moments, she adored you, and felt pride that you were her son.
“I’m no authority on the universe. I know little about God, or the stars, or the afterlife, but I do know this: somewhere her soul still survives, watching over you. Somewhere they all survive. Jared, our son, your mother.
“My relationship with Leticia was brief but powerful. I felt like she loved me, no, I know she did, and it meant a lot to me. No matter how selfish it was, her death shouldn’t have more meaning than her life, so let’s remember her for the way that she loved, not the way that she died.”
Tristan met my stare and nodded, his eyes shiny, his jaw trembling. He was suffering, but I’d said the right thing. I was gratified, that even in the black cloud his mind had become, I could bring him some little bit of relief.
As terrible as the tragedy of Leticia had been, it served a desperate purpose for me, at least.
It was as though the fog had been lifted from my brain, and I could think again. I was still hurting, my heart still aching with all of the loss, but I began to attempt to live again.
To wake, to move, to try taking small steps in the right direction. I was alone in that path.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DANIKA
Tristan’s decline was steady and sure after that.
Every tragedy, every hardship, seemed to suck him just a little bit deeper into the grip of his own personal hell.
It felt like every slip up, every relapse, was pulling us down, until the weight of all of our failures was dragging us under.
At first, we were drowning together, but my will to survive was too strong to let that continue forever.
My hold on him became weaker and weaker, and eventually, every finger broken, my hands opened, and I let him go.
No one could say I didn’t fight for him. No one could say I didn’t lose.
I strode into his apartment, annoyed and frustrated, and disappointed. They were all feelings I’d become accustomed to where Tristan was concerned.
He’d stood me up again. We were supposed to meet for dinner two hours ago.
He was by himself, sprawled out on his sofa.
I saw that he was playing with a little black wristband, the kind Jared used to wear, and that we’d given out at his funeral. I wasn’t surprised.
I was, however, angry. My fear, my desperation, my need to help him, all seemed to be channeling itself into a bitter anger these days. That anger kept me up at night.
I was trying to be there for him, but who was there for me?
His eyes were glazed, and pointing up at the ceiling.
“I get why you’re doing this. Don’t think I don’t. The pain is so harsh that you’ll take anything to numb it. It’s so bad that you’d be willing to lose everything else in your life, if that pain would just go with it.”
He was silent, turning that little band in his hands, over and over.
That silence told me everything.
“Do you not understand how far gone you are? Or do you just not care anymore?”
Silence.
“It should tell you something that I’ve already had to think about what your black wrist band will be, when you follow him.”
He stopped twirling it for a brief moment, then resumed the movement, still silent.
“I’ve decided it will be a deck of cards. Does that seem appropriate to you? You have veto powers, of course, since it’s your funeral I’m talking about.” My voice broke on the word funeral.
He sighed, finally moving his eyes from the ceiling to my face, looking awfully annoyed for someone who was high as a kite.
“You think he would want this? For you to follow him? Jared doesn’t need you to do that, Tristan. Leticia doesn’t need you where she went. Our baby,” I gasped. I had to stop and compose myself before continuing. I still couldn’t talk about our lost little angel without breaking down. “Our baby doesn’t need you to follow him. Certainly there’s nothing you can do for him now. But I need things from you. I’m right here, and I’m asking you to stop chasing these ghosts, and start living again, with me.”
“You don’t need me. You don’t need anybody, Danika. You’re stronger than all of us, and you’re better off without me.”
“Don’t start on that. I’m just going to tell you one thing, and then I’ll leave you to it. This is it, Tristan. This is the last warning. I find you like this again, I’m done. You wanted an ultimatum. You got one.”
I went home, my shoulders slumped from the weight on them.
I lay down on my bed and did not get back up.
Not for hours.
Not for days.
What was left of a woman when she gave a man everything?
The answer was easy.
Impossible to deny, even for me.
Nothing.
Nothing was left of her.
Had I given too much? Was there enough of me left to even try to move on from this?
Is this what had happened to my mother? I wondered, feeling some bit of sympathy for her for the first time in years. Had some man broken her spirit, so much so, she had become a shell of a woman without him? Would I let myself turn into some apathetic ghost of a woman?
No, I thought furiously. I was stronger than her. I would struggle untill the end. Even if I could see now what it would take for me to become like her, it didn’t mean I had to. There was one undeniable quality that I had known about myself since I was a very tiny, unloved child.
I was a survivor.
And so, I had to try to move on from this.
TRISTAN
She was at my apartment, slamming around in my kitchen. She was pissed at me again.
She’d brought me a cup of coffee, and I sipped on it while I listened to her venting her frustration at my kitchen. I winced as I heard something break.
The thought suddenly occurred to me that our separations weren’t doing this to her.
She seemed harried, yes, stressed out and busy, of course, but the pain in her eyes, the rage, came not from my absence, but from my presence.
That killed me.
A light suddenly went on.
It wasn’t a spotlight, but a floodlight, illuminating everything I didn’t want to see, every dark, sinister corner of my pitiful existence. The facts were the light, and I’d been ignoring the facts for way too long.
My life was cursed. People I loved, people close to me, who depended on me, had died, and I was responsible. As far as I was concerned, every single one of those deaths had been preventable, and I had failed to prevent them.
I had no future. This had been clear to me for a while now.