Driving back to my house, the wounds of the day still fresh, I lit up another
cigarette, my first and now, my only,
love. I opened the window in the brisk-alright, cold-
February air, and let the music coming through the radio mingle with it. The band sang songs of love lost, and I stopped paying attention to it a few seconds into the second chrous. ]I didn't need someone else's pain to amplify my own].
As I pulled into my parents' driveway, my headlights reflected on the
freshly falling snow. I walked to the doorway, fumbling in my
pants for the keys, and felt a few flakes fall on the back of my neck, where my coat didn't quite reach up to my hairline. My hand halfway to the lock, I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the
winter take my
body heat.
A deep breath stolen, and then back to
reality. Up in my room, my old room where I'd lived for nineteen years, and then returned to recently, I stripped to my boxers and plopped on my bed. Before I knew it, I was
asleep...
Waking up, I was entangled in my blankets, with
the sunlight streaming in and illuminating the small pile of clothes from the night before. Slightly disoriented, I sat up and took a drink from a
water bottle from some bygone
era that was sitting next to my bed. My mouth tasted of
cigarettes, and when I went to the bathroom to look in the mirror
I saw a smear of her lipstick next to my lips. All of yesterday came flooding back. I gripped the sink. Vaguely wished I had just remembered it all night; now it felt
brand new, the pain resurfaced just as strong as last night.
Fuck.
Getting in the
shower, I rethought my plans. I used to have
grandoise ideas of going to college, getting a nice job, partying all night. Getting
married. A
cynical smile crossed my face. Don't get me wrong: this breakup
fucking sucked. But it was only the most recent event in a
downward spiral that had been going on for a while. One that I had no intention of stopping, not now. I had quit school in a fit of rage,
anger with the path I was taking. I had gotten fired from my job, the fucking
office shit that it was.
I had stopped caring months before, coming in smelling of
alcohol and
cheap bars, fresh from an hour and a half earlier, as I caught a
cab directly to work so I wouldn't be late. I gave my boss
the finger when he laid me off. Called him every name in the book. Not because I was angry with having lost the job,
per se. He was just the
slimeball that I could project my hate onto. Little
prick. Thought I was going to hit him; he had called
security. Naturally I made my exit as spectacular as possible, considering he thought it appropriate to treat me like some random thug, instead of
the programmer who had sacrificed countless weekends to the company's godforsaken altar.
I had tried the path that
society wanted me to take, and had failed spectacularly. Now was the
time to try my own path...