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Time stood still for a moment, but the memory was relentless. It played out in front of me like it did anytime someone mentioned this tattoo. Maybe that was why I got it to begin with. I needed the punishment of it.
He must have noticed something was off about me. Rubbing the back of his fingers along my cheek, he questioned, “Where did you go?”
Those words were all I needed to shake off the daze and step away from him. “Those weren’t the rules, and since you won’t give me your Venmo, I’ll get it from someone else.”
“I already told you—I don’t want your money.”
“There’s a lot of things we don’t want in life, Jameson, but money is never one of them.”
With that, I turned around and left, jumping in my car. I made it a few blocks down the road before slamming on the brakes. The tires of my car slid across the pavement as I drove with a heavy heart and a guilty conscience. My thoughts were as unrelenting as I started moving again, needing to slow the fuck down, but I couldn’t do it. The adrenaline of what I wanted to feel began to kick in.
The high.
I rode the euphoria that was my memory, needing something, anything other than what I was feeling.
Emptiness.
Darkness.
Burying me alive.
Faster and faster and faster I sped.
Ninety-five miles per hour…
One hundred…
“Stop it!” I screamed, breathless and on my knees. “Please stop!”
Scenes played out in front of me again like they were happening right then and there.
“Please stop!” I begged with my hands out in front of me, bawling my eyes out.
It was beyond my control, it had always been beyond my fucking control, so I pretended as if this was another time, another life, one where this wasn’t my life.
Where there was no past.
No present.
No future.
I lost count of how many times those words flew out of my mouth like they were acid, leaving a hole in my heart.
A hundred and fifteen miles per hour…
One twenty…
My car started to shake, and before I gave it another thought, I slammed my foot on the accelerator until the pedal hit the floorboard. The vibration from the motor rumbled through me, making the hairs on my arms stand straight up.
I suddenly felt cold all over, chills running down my spine. I didn’t even know where I was going until I rounded another hill. I white-knuckled the steering wheel, emitting a new high I had yet to experience. Resting my head back against the headrest, I let it take over.
My thoughts were bleeding off me now, right onto the cliff I was speeding up on.
A hundred and thirty miles per hour…
One thirty-five…
I sucked in deep breaths, heaving for air. My heart beat so fucking hard, I thought the pounding would knock me over the edge from the force of my own rage. I closed my eyes to allow fate to run its course.
