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Blackmail

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"If you don't go back to him, he's going to kill himself."

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!

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What do I do? What can I do? Everything's happening so fast, trees flashing by darkly on a road that I've driven so many times and yet now is foreign to me. With those words, everything's different, everything's changed, nothing will ever be the fucking same again.

Will he? Won't he? What do I want?

Do I go back when I hurt this much? The pain of separation cannot be as bad as learning to breathe again, that learning to live. But how can I live when I have someone else's blood on my hands?

I jerk the steering wheel, skidding and weaving, back and forth across the road. I know there might be other cars coming the other way, other cars behind me, but nothing seems real, nothing is under control. I'm not even in control of myself, heart pounding, palms sweaty, underarms slick with excretions of the body.

My hair itches at the back of my neck, breath raking through my throat. Tight, too tight. I can't breathe, I still can't fucking breathe. I tried to escape him and I still can't fucking breathe.

Drive, drive on. It's going to be okay.

But it's not going to be okay, not if he fucking offs himself. What does that mean then? Will they come for me? Is there a paper with my name on it? Is it as bad as if I wielded the knife myself or tightened the noose, to have someone else's blood on my hands?

I want to go, I want to be free.

He'll kill himself if I go.

But I still want to, I don't want to be here. My headlights swing and judder across the road, cutting through shadows. Yet I can't shine their light on my life, slice through the noise to expose the crux of everything that I am, everything that I ever wanted to be.

It's not real, it doesn't feel real. I'm supposed to be there, in my place, the good girlfriend. But I don't feel very good there and I don't feel very good as I try to run, phone pinging, blowing up with texts.

There it goes, it's ringing again. It's him, it's always him, I know it's him. I don't want it to be him.

The university lies behind, the first place I ran to, but I don't know where I'm going now, country roads weaving and winding back and forth, leading me. Yet like with so many other things I don't know where they're leading me, turning me about, leading me astray. No one has led me right in recent years to play so just why should I expect a road to do any better by me?

Maybe it's all my fault? Maybe it's because I did something? I must have done something to deserve this, none of it makes sense otherwise. I want it all to make sense, some kind of reason lying behind it, though there is nothing, only blankness, emptiness.

I pull over. I don't know where I am. With gravel under my tyres, the car does not stop as quickly as I expect it too, juddering and jerking me forward.

"Fuck."

Another message. Why do I look? Why do I torture myself like this? Oh, that's why - I don't want to be responsible. And just who would want to be responsible? How can I possibly be responsible for someone killing themselves - and even so when they haven't even done it yet?

I read it. He says that I have to go back to him, that he's going to kill himself this time if I don't say I'm sorry. I don't know why a friend is saying this to me, a supposed friend, someone who should be...what, exactly? I don't know but it doesn't seem right, there's something wrong in this, the toxicity that sank in long ago, creeping and cloying, all without my notice.

He says I have to go back to my ex. I didn't manage to run very far. The blood trails trickled on, nipping at my heels, staining my footprints. They were always going to be able to track me down.

My heart pounds, reality tilting askew. I don't even know where I am anymore, why I am anymore. There doesn't seem any point in living.

How ironic is that me fleeing from my death leads to him rushing to his own? I don't even know if I fucking believe it anymore. I've heard it so many times but what sort of person does that make me if I don't answer a cry for help?

A bitch, that's what.

The engine rumbles, the car is in motion. I don't even feel like I'm driving but I am. I have to keep driving, getting back to him, making that connection. That's if I don't want blood on my hands.

His blood on my hands.

Control does not come in a closed fist but a message on the screen. I cry or don't cry. It really doesn't matter anymore. He can't see that. And I'm good at putting on a face.

I don't want his blood on my hands.

I sign in to the computer and I see his blood on my hands. It drips and pools, sinking between the keys, and I force down my revulsion, the bile in the back of my throat.

It's not real, it's not there.

Not yet, it isn't.

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But it could be. If I don't do the right thing. It's all down to me, only me, always me.

It'll stop the blood from staining my hands.

I wanted to be there for you. But you tore me down until there was nothing left. And, still, you demanded more.

Maybe it was always my fault for not being able to give that more. I'll never know.

A message on the screen, put there by my own fingers. I hate myself for it.

Okay, I'm here.

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But I don't want to be.

Maybe it'll end up being my blood on my hands.

No one will care.