An uncomfortable and heavy silence filled the air. But even in all that silence, his smirk was loud, quite unnecessarily so. Looking back at it now, I think that's what triggered me.
It was like a switch just flipped in my head, and I suddenly had this desperate need to wipe the bloody smirk off his face. So, I picked up the closest thing I could find, and unfortunately for him it was a dirty carbon steel pan right next to my tiny kitchen sink. Then, I swung it over his head, knocking him out instantly.
I find it both strange and funny how I don't actually remember picking that pan up. What I do remember, however, is feeling a mixture of adrenaline and relief inside my chest as I set the pan back down after I had finally done what I should have done months before.
I watched as his body hit the kitchen floor in a thud. I watched as drops of blood from the side of his head splattered all over my once sparkling white tiles.
Then there was silence.
There was a deafening silence.
And for a minute I just sat there appreciating the peace and the silence that I had been missing since that awful, awful man had entered my life. Neither the peace nor the silence lasted long though, because I soon realized that even though there was deathly silence all around me, my thoughts were still pretty loud.
Thoughts of how everyone around me kept on either dying on me, leaving me or rejecting me, flooded my mind to the point where I forgot how to breathe. I clasped my chest and slowly counted to ten, and thankfully that calmed me and helped me concentrate on my breathing. In fact, it helped me so much that my mind wasn't flooded with so many thoughts anymore. Just one: I didn't want to ever give anyone the chance to leave me, or reject me or die on me ever again, and the easiest way out of it was for me to beat them all to it. The only way out was for me to die first.
I slowly got off the rail, being careful not to step on the body that was now laying across my kitchen floor, then I made my way over to the couch where I had hidden Gracie's gun a few weeks prior. I picked it up effortlessly and emotionlessly, and then I pointed it to my head. I breathed a sigh of relief I didn't know I was holding.
I was ready.
I was finally ready.
I was ready to leave this world, and I was ready to join Gracie in heaven or hell- wherever she was.