Chapter 19: Repeated History

I hummed softly to myself as I entered the house. I had been out for a walk while Cliff was out doing whatever Cliff did. The fresh air made me feel better.

After I got home the other day, I laid down on my bed. It surprised me when a tear dripped down my face, and I wiped it away. Cliff came in, so I pretended to be sleeping. Of course, I was just avoiding him. Eventually, sleep did come, and I drempt of Ida. It left me with a foul feeling in the morning.

Ida was Ida, and even though I had just met her, I wanted her. I felt like I needed her. Of course she was attracted to Cliff. He would attract her, wouldn’t he? I said I would just be friends, but I was sure even Juliet could tell that that was bullshit, but maybe I was wrong. If Juliet could tell, Ida could tell, and so could Cliff. However, Cliff wouldn’t even make a move at her if he was aware that she was an object to my eye, so maybe it wasn’t quite so obvious.

I felt out of a loop. I had brought Ida here. I had. She didn’t, and neither did Cliff, yet now they were together. At least they were last night. I expected Cliff to sleep with her, but they hadn’t last night, so I figured he was aware that she was an attraction to me. Yet it was contradicting, because of the other events of last night. I looked at it like a middle ground. I didn’t have her because Cliff did. Cliff didn’t have her, not completely, because he had not slept with her, and that was all he was concerned with. It was a middle ground, and it was almost torture.

I did my best to stay out of the cycle, so I went down to the beach and around town. I saw Samantha, and even talked to her for a minute. She clearly still felt bad about all that had happened, and that made me feel a little more depressed. I was emotionally on edge again, but when wasn’t I? Ida had pushed me on thinner ice than before, and I wasn’t sure where the breaking point was. I had found it when I found Samantha and Cliff, but that was a different story. The only way to find the breaking point was through trial and error. Of course, this wouldn’t be my doing. I was sure something would happen soon that would push me just a little further. Further and further until suddenly, I was off the edge. The ice shattered. I would break, and I would crash.

The humming died quickly, and was replaced by a loud depressive sigh. I made an effort to my room, but ended up laying down with my face into the couch cushion. I tried to calm myself, and try and relieve some of the tension that was building. Then, a feeling came over me. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t even want to live. I wanted to be gone into blackness. I wanted to be in nothingness. It was what always happened in depression.

Suddenly, I was lazy. I was too lazy to even head toward my room. I was too lazy to do anything, and I just wanted a cool and tranquil nothingness. That was how depression worked.

Sometimes, it was funny. You never really knew what was going on inside, but you always felt like a lead brick. You felt useless. You felt like a broken bird, or a lace-less shoe. You felt like a defect, and you didn’t want to do anything. Everything always felt like a waste. Everything felt cold and unforgiving. Everything was a shadow of what it used to be. Depressions was where you were able to see the bad in people. When you’re up in the light, you see the good in them, and everyone seems like angels. Yet you can’t stand in the light without having shadows. It was these shadows that crowded around you and made the darkness. It was the doing of others that slowly drug you into depression.

For example, it was the defects of Cliff, or Cliff’s shadows, that drug me down. It was Cliff’s ability to attract anyone and not care about consequences. It was Ida’s shadow ability to do whatever she did.

Down in the shadows, all those ugly faces showed themselves. It seemed like everyone was an enemy. Everywhere, you just wanted to hide your face. You just want to find the strength to get through it and pull yourself into the light. You know you can do it, but the shadows hold you down like lead bricks. It was a cruel world.

In the shadows, you could see your own bad side. I could see my defects down in depression. Suddenly, I hated myself again. I looked, and I saw some out of shape kid, who wasn’t a vegetarian for any sort of logical reason other than his friend was as well. Suddenly, I was just some stupid reject with a weird haircut that was died an ugly and creepy black color. I could see every shadow of me, and every inch of light was covered.

Down in depression, everything was a shadow, and you felt like that was the way things were. You felt like things were pointless, and you felt like it was futile to try and rise again. You wanted a death.

And sometimes the light switched directions, and it threw you into it unexpectedly. That was where I got my bird idea, and Ida got her idea. You could be in the shadows, and suddenly be up in the light. It was a ride that was as unpredictable as it was cruel. Depression could change courses quicky, and that’s why it could be so deadly at times.

You could be on top of a mountain, and then all the sudden in a pit. You could have a quick drop. One sufficient enough in emotionally scarring you forever. One that could even induce self-inflicted death.

All of these feelings were just a taste of what true depression was like. This was a moderate area. I knew what true depression was. It was the area where nothing was holding you back from death. I had never known it truly, but I had been close.

I pulled myself up and made my way to my room. There was a noise across the hall. It was a giggling, and the rocking of a bed. Cliff was home. I didn’t have to guess who he had brought home tonight. I was sure I knew. Just to prove my theory, I leaned my head against the door.

“Oh! Ida!”

Theory confirmed. This was repeated history from what happened with Samantha. I shouldn’t have even come to the house. I should have seen it coming.

I let the tear drip down my face and stop at my chin. I wished desperately for a different body. I longed for my mother and father, and again for my dead brother. I wanted to trade places with him. I wanted to be in the ground. I made my way into the bathroom and took out scissors.

Fuck this stupid hair. Fuck it all.

I chopped a bit off.

Fuck Ida.

Another bit.

Fuck Cliff. He was always man-whoring around. It was sick and immoral.

A huge chunk came out. I gripped another chunk and pulled hard.

Fuck life.

The hair ripped out without the scissors, and I winced under it’s pain. Tears began to stream down my face, and blood started from my scalp. I lifted up my shirt and tried to flex. A small trace of abdominal muscles were showing in little packs.

Fuck them. I had worked for them, but they were just another part of life, and they were repulsive anyway.

Repulsive like I was.

I cut another chunk, and another, and another, and another.

No more lying to myself. No more.

Another chunk was cut short. I took out clippers and put on the head that read ½ an inch. Perfect.

The buzzing began. I hoped that they would hear it.

Fuck everything. It was over. I had ruined my chances with Ida. For some odd reason, that was what I was concerned about. Ida. It was her that had sent me over the edge officially. I was breaking now. Yet it was more slowly than it had been with Samantha. I was controlling it.

Tears streamed down my face. My whole body and the floor below was plastered in greasy black hair.

Slowly, I walked out of the bathroom. The noise had not ceased. I lumbered my way to my room, and threw myself onto the bed. I could just imagine Cliff leaning over her thrusting. I could just imagine her loving every second of it. I knew exactly what would happen.

She would tell him to call. He wouldn’t.

Though Cliff told the truth, I was sure he lied to women. I was sure of it, other wise no one would ever go with him. I was surprised they still did with the reputation he had collected. Yet I was sure at that point he would tell Ida that he would call her. He wouldn’t.

I suddenly saw a shadow of Cliff. He wasn’t a truth teller. He was a fucking scam. His whole “always tell the truth” bullshit was just some way to make up for what happened between him and his fiancé. Yet it was fake. He was a liar just as I was. He just didn’t want to show it, especially not in front of me. I was probably the only human he was honest with.

Was he even honest with me?

Next, she would call me, and ask about him.

I’d been called by ex-one nighters of Cliff’s before. Most of the time I just bullshitted some excuse. Cliff never told me to do so, so that was how he managed to seem like he told the truth. He never told me that he was lying to the girls, but wasn’t it obvious?

Did I even know Cliff? Did I even know anything about him? Who was he truly?

Then, she’d come crying to me. She’d be back. In fact, I could call her in the morning and she’d be crying over him. Then she’d come crawling back to me.

She deserved to be torn apart by him.

There was a large question forming in my mind: How could I have been so stupid about Cliff?

There was no logical way that he could have just had sex with all those girls and then told them, “oh, I’m not going to call you. I was just using you.” He had to have lied to every single one of them. He had managed to fool me into thinking that he didn’t lie, and he managed to fool himself that he had changed because of his fiancé. It was a lie, though. Cliff was exactly who he was before he had met her, and she had not changed him for the better in any way at all. In fact, he might have been changed for the worse. Cliff was just a liar.

This was a shadow that I wished I had seen in the light. It was a deep shadow that had taken me long to find, but I had found it.

I cried and cried and cried. I cried for Cliff’s lies. I cried for the girls he had deceived. I cried for Ida. Even if she deserved it, I didn’t want to see her get hurt, because I knew I liked her. The tears drenched my pillow, and I reached for my hair, until I found that there was none to tug on in frustration.

Tear after tear after tear fell. Then, the noise in Cliff’s room ceased. After forty-five minutes of pure torture, they both headed out of Cliff’s room, and down the hallway. I heard the door slam shut.

Sleep consumed me, and I tried my best to stay awake. I knew Ida would be in my dreams, and that was something that frightened me. In my dreams, we would be together. Of course, that was an illusion, and would make me feel even worse once I woke up and entered the real world. Still, it climbed over me, and I eventually fell into her arms, and fell into sleep.