237 Ks Zero Fs Chapter 19
After he was discharged, Conor didn’t go back to the U.S.
He brought a sleeping bag and moved directly into the hallway of my old Victorian apartment building. His frostbitten right hand was wrapped in bandages. The space where his ring finger should have been was empty.
I didn’t chase him away. Didn’t look at him either.
He slept in that hallway for a week.
Every day when I left, he would sit up and offer me a cup of coffee he’d kept warm on the radiator.
I never took it. He’d set it on the floor. After I was gone, he’d silently pick up the cold cup and take it away.
The eighth day, when I opened the door, he wasn’t there.
I found out later that London police had issued him a harassment warning and forcibly deported him back to the U.S.
After returning to Seattle, he didn’t set foot outside that dark apartment for three straight months.
He locked himself in a room with the curtains drawn tight every day. Slept surrounded by empty Jack Daniel’s bottles. Woke up and drank more whiskey. Drank until he blacked out and collapsed on the floor.
He couldn’t accept this ending—being completely and utterly erased. He relied on massive alcohol intake to forcibly shut down the alarm bells blaring in his head.
But eventually, he made a horrifying discovery. I must have hated him too much. Too much to even spare a phantom for his dreams.
He was starting to forget the exact spot of the mole on my left cheek.
He broke completely.
Besides guzzling whiskey like water every day, he just clung to that suitcase full of my old clothes. Like a mental patient, sniffing the perfume scent that had long since faded.
The apartment reeked of sour stench and alcohol.
Late one night, Conor dragged himself up in a stupor. He yanked open the fridge. The only edible thing inside was a ribeye steak he’d bought three months ago.
The meat was green and fuzzy with mold.
But he couldn’t bring himself to throw it out. He just stared at it blankly. Then his stomach seized violently. He collapsed in front of the toilet and vomited uncontrollably.
At first it was just bile. Then it was dark red clots of blood.
Mouthful after mouthful of fresh blood splattered across the white tiles.
Conor had no strength left to get up. He lay limp on the cold floor like a pile of filth.
In a daze, he thought that dying like this from organ failure wouldn’t be so bad. If he was dead, he wouldn’t have to endure this flaying, bone-deep torment of regret day and night anymore.
“Maya…”
“I miss you… I know I was wrong…”
“I miss you so much…”
He stared at the mold stains on the ceiling, blood trailing from the corner of his mouth. He kept murmuring with what was left of his breath.
Until his throat burned raw and couldn’t produce a single sound. Until the darkness swallowed everything.