Ten Ways To Die

[Liebe.]

Ten Ways To Die

[Lonely Procrastinator]

I'll be waiting for this.

[Liebe.]

Suicide. It's something I've had to think about.
I was desperately unhappy, when Luca left. Actually, he left me a lot. Just never with any permanence; and I could have lived with that.
Lived like that.
So when he did go, I succumbed to breaking all his mother's precious china. Not that that meant anything to him; he was never very material.
Mr. Ashton wheeled himself in when the worst was over. When he was near enough, he curled his wasted hand around my wrist.
I reeled from shock. I had expected anger, more harshness which I ironically craved. But I couldn't have that.
He didn't say anything.
Let me add, he couldn't say anything. The stroke did that. But I understood just as well.
It was an apology. I let him go this way. I ruined him; I ruined you..
He couldn't have, though. Luca was better at being human than I was. That's why I love him.

---
Truth is, I never thought I'd have to consider it again.
I did.

Dad met Luca on New Year's. It was different from him meeting my mom.
My mom never trusted Luca. The first time she met him was Christmas, eight years ago. She'd said, I thought I'd taught you better than to choose 'em for their looks. But she would trust me not to get in over my head.
Dad's opinion, though. Dad was different. Honest, brutal, and frank, the perfect lawyer. Later that evening, I would find myself listening in on a lengthy conversation on politics.
It was very formal, almost comically, formal. He was gruff, and pointedly so, as a standard.
But he'd had faith in Luca. Wait on him, Laur. He'll come around.
So when he died, I was all alone in this stubborn belief that Luca cared.. That's what made me suicidal all over again.

[piualice]

Waa suicide.

[Lonely Procrastinator]

Speechless. This contains a heavier weight than Maps.

[Liebe.]

@Lonely Procrastinator I guess it is. It's kind of just a theme though. I'm naming the chapters with the different ways people can die, and how that relates with Lauren's emotions.

@piualice Yeah, it's not really an uplifting subject.

[ianne11]

hmm... interesting... can you continue???



___________________________________________________________________


_{... what if a distraction came?....}


Buhay Nurse
GUESS WHO???
Guess na!!!

[Liebe.]

Drowning. That's what I dreamed of that night.

Funny, because I was fine in the evening. Unpleasant news should always be told when the sun was down, that's my family's philosophy. But I've been thinking of breaking it.
For Isla's sake, at least.
I arranged the funeral myself, that night.
Actually, I didn't.The Ashtons' had their own events planner, a job someone else had taken up when the second Mrs. Ashton passed away.
So I rang that person.

I decided not to bring Isla to the funeral. I've always been quite selfish about her. And it made no sense for her to be in a sad place, for sad people, when she didn't understand why she had to be sad.
Or maybe she did. She was old for her age, like Luca. But I wasn't risking her unhappiness.

---
Some things were easier. Up near the end of his life, Dad sold his New Hamptons apartment to rent one nearby. I didn't have to sell it, or think if I should sell it.
Maybe I wouldn't have. Isla loved Dad's apartment. Maybe we'd have lived there.
But, no, that would have been unfair to Mr. Ashton (who I'd never had the guts to call anything paternal) and Isla (who relished his attention, and the wide expanse of his estate).
That's a million realities long gone, at least, and I don't have to make that choice. Some choices were never yours to make.
When I think that, I feel guilt for what I'm doing to Isla. She's never had a say in anything. Again, I comfort myself with the thought that she wouldn't have understood, and again I am lying.

--
If I did drown in real life, what would Luca have said, anyway? I can see his disgust when his stepmother was buried. He doesn't even care, he'd said.
But I believe he did. If anything, Mr. Ashton has more guilt than grief, but that's enough.
So, what? Guilty, relieved, but I can't see him grief-stricken;
Maybe because I didn't want to.
You would understand this differently, I would rather Luca die, than I do. That's sick of me, I know, but it's for his own good. He doesn't deserve to feel how I would've felt.
Then again, maybe he wouldn't have cared.

[Lonely Procrastinator]

Luca and Lauren's difference made her say that he'd rather die, I guess. Lol. ;p

[Liebe.]

@Lonely Procras. I actually got that part (the one I think you're referring to) from Wuthering Heights. I think Catherine says she'd rather her father died than she did so he wouldn't feel grief.

@ianne11 I will. Thanks for reading. C:

[Liebe.]

Car accident.
I was nearlyin one, today. Carelessness, plus the stupor of traffic-less, sunbreak travel, things I used to enjoy, would have killed me.
It would have been tragic, considering I was a few miles away from my destination.
The other driver--might I mention, not I--swerved just in time.
We both got out of our cars. She was middle-aged, driving a conservative white Toyota; I was the dissheveled adult-ish borrowing her husband's conspicuous SUV.
For a moment we both just stared.
I notice the plaque on her car, it was a commemorative. I cancer vive. She notices me staring.
Softly, she smiles. "It goes on," she says.
It does.

---
It's like a play I'm about to act in. Or I could have been the director. Eitherway I am pacing somewhere behind the scenes because I know everyone is looking for me, and I don't want to see them.
But I have to, and I have to look okay.
I think back distractedly. I'd hand-written the invites. Who did I send invites to? Mikey, friend of a friend, Mom (who'd cancelled), friends of my Dad's, some friends from school, Luca...
Heavy footsteps echo, and I freeze.
He rounds the corner real slow, almost like he knows how it aggravates me, but then he's here. He's finally here.
I crack a grin, a glimpse into our lives almost a decade ago, "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Mikey looks me up and down before answering. "That isn't completely my fault. I thought we understood mutually what 'keeping in touch' meant?"
My brow crinkles on accord; this is too easy, "I'm sorry. It can't be easy being a bestselling author."
"No." Mikey agrees. "No, it's not. I sit behind my laptop all day, drinking coffee and root beer. I sometimes get bored and run around New York." he shook his head. "I can't believe you've lived there all your life; it's so--"
"Technically," I correct him, "I spent most my happy days at boarding school. With you, and... Luca."
I straighten my spine. We'd been leaning in conspirationally for all our conversation. My neck creaks.
Someone coughs.
The perpetual sore throat was familiar.
I swallow spit, because I don't want to croak my first words. "Luca?"

It's weird.
Luca had been enduring the conversation in silence. His hand is poised under his chin, despite the fact that he'd been staring at the floor. It's a thoughtful expression, you might even say it was soulful.
But I have no idea what he has to be soulful about.
Luca looks up and cracks his own smile, and I can almost here muscles moan from disuse. "Just like old times, "
How am I happy? It's my father's funeral. But all I hear is strains of a Kings of Leon song from the back of my head.
i want you,
just exactly like i used to ,
'cuz, baby this all that keeps bringing me down
It was worth it. Everything.
It wasn't, though. Not with any rationality. Still, they could humor me.
Mikey tightens his grip on my arm (which I hadn't noticed until then). I think it may have been because I was about to fall over.
It may be irrelevant, but. Luca looks just the same. I haven't missed, much.
I feel a loss of pressure from my arm. Mikey has obediently gone to sit on the pews, inside. I feel kind of guilty, here we are pushing him away again.
We shouldn't. We shouldn't have.
As I stand there, stricken, Luca moves by me and follows Mikey.
And we go on.

[Lonely Procrastinator]

What happened to the trio? (:/

[Liebe.]

Grew apart, I guess. I meant to explain in the Maps epilogue, but I never wrote it. Mikey became a writer, which I've mentioned, and Lauren teaches at a university, which I will mention in the future. Luca... Idk exactly. Family business? :|

[Liebe.]

I stared at the guest list. It had to be somewhere between a hundred and  two hundred people.
I couldn't imagine Dad knowing that much people. Lawyers tended to live solitary lives, so maybe I should have been a lawyer. Except it's not really the solitude I like but the clandestinity.

Some time before Isla was born, we were sitting in the library--(that was before Mr. Ashton's stroke, and we had all the unnecessary space to ourselves)--surrounded by paper. There's a view of a grey lake outside.
There are premature photos you have to really look at to see anything, and there are documents, and then there are the newer prints which are more defined.
I have my bare feet on the couch, which is this huge awful thing that is never warm, no matter how long you sit on it. But it's summer, and this is the only time I can appreciate the cold.
Luca is beside me, peering distractedly at one of the pieces of paper that have waxed and never waned on the coffee table. It's one of the few I've only briefed through. It was all words; I preferred the images.
"Isla." he decides.
I ask him why, and he shrugs. In the silence that follows, Luca starts to hum No Man Is An Island.

We take a break. I don't think I can have any more of this. It's not the grief, or my dry mouth, but the presence of all these people.
Everyone is compelled to go to a funeral, more than any other event. They celebrate, death. Mikey had said so. It was a line that was quoted in the New York Times.
At the buffet table, Mikey sidles up next to me. He stoops a bit, and I realize with envy that he has continued to grow taller in our separation. "You okay?"
"Peachy," I hiss.
Knowingly, he guides me back inside the chapel. We are alone, except for Dad.
"Did you expect him to come?" he demands. I'm surprised to see that he is upset with me. But Mikey has never been a fan of self-destruction, it was scoffed at in his two books.
"Yes," he sucks in a breath. I add, "Yes, but I didn't expect him to stay. Not long."
Mikey looks at my hand, which is gripping the seat of the pew we are sitting on. "Did he leave?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
So quietly we wait. I'd expected a whole interrogation. Mikey was one of the few people of my life before her that I'd let Isla meet. He kept me in line so that I could take care of her.
I realize it's because he's eavesdropping.
There's a narrow corridor in this chapel that led to the lavatory.
Distantly we hear a voice, "I have to stay. I have to."
Pause.
Then again, louder this time. "Well don't make it sound like I want to!"
Mikey's face hardens. "Her name's Michelle." he tells me. My skin crawls. Michelle. I go back to a little archive of conversations in my head where I should have paid more attention, what I could have done...
Prior to this, all I knew was that she existed, and then, suddenly, I had a name. A mailing address for all the spite and contempt and bleak, sick hate.
Luca paces when he's aggravated, and he comes into view. His eyes widen a little when he sees us, but he does not hang up.
"I'll be there." was all he said.
Without my noticing, Mikey has taken my arm, which he uses to pull me up. I feel like limp all over.
"Guten tag mein freund!" Mikey calls, so loud that his voice is echoed among every nook and cranny of the chapel. I wince for my dad. Mikey takes no notice.
Luca frowns, "I'll call you back."
I hate you, I think without really thinking.
Mikey squeezes my arm encouragingly, which unsettles me all over again.
"Oh, um, Hello, Luca."
Dissatisfied with my efforts, Mikey shakes his head and attempts to carry the conversation on himself. "Well isn't this what we've been waiting for? We're all together now." He gives the other boy a burning look. "All... perfect." I might imagine he said that with gritted teeth.
I begin to tug on his arm in the direction of the chapel doors.
"Oh, don't go Lauren!" Mikey's blazing eyes flash on me. "You haven't said one word, yet."
I recoil from him. Until then I hadn't known the depth of anger Mikey had for me, for us, both of us.
He hated what we did to each other.
His nails dig into my arm. "Let go." I plead.
"If it's the only way you'll stay together..." He doesn't finish. Luca's fist to his head interrupts his speech. Mikey staggers a bit, than moves swiftly and lands his own blow. My eyes catch the few moments before when his face twists in pleasure, this was what he'd been waiting for after all.
They fall into a pew, causing the heavy dark wood to grate the rough stone floor. Luca is underneath, and I see Mikey raise his fist again. My veins all contract at the same time, I manage to choke out, a plea, "Stop. Please."
The moment ends at a crescendo. My heart pushes the blood back out and I start to feel normal, dizzy.
Mikey staggers away from Luca, he moves towards me, then stops. "I'm done here." he says.
I wait for him to leave before I can look at Luca. Luca, who has since then stood up and was looking at me with watchful eyes. I noticed that both were too proud to look pained from crashing to the ground.
A cut near his jaw where Mikey broke skin starts to bleed. I reach to wipe the blood. Luca shakes his head and walks away.
The chapel doors echo the second time they close.

Today I watched two of the three most important people in my life walk away from me.
Poison, I think. Because that's what I am, I'm pure toxic.

[Lonely Procrastinator]

I'm not used to the two boys being destructive. Like finally meeting their harsh alter egos.