11 Animus nocendi

I then went to the car and sat in the passenger seat and Jason sat in the driver's seat and turned the ignition to my Camry and the car revved to life as the lights turned on and just like that, as if a light switch was flipped, I broke down sobbing uncontrollably and I wailed and wailed loudly, I distinctly remember wailing and screaming as someone rubbed my back, my tears streamed down, mixing with my snot as I wailed and sobbed harder and harder. My chest heaved and sobs wracked by body as I cried harder and harder, my emotions were drowning me all around and it hurt so much to be all by myself now that she was dead and gone forever. My chest hurt with the screaming I did, my eyes felt sore and red all over from the crying I did and yet, my eyes felt like a spigot that seemed to never stop spouting off water all over the place and Jason was patient with me, driving us slowly through traffic, and all the while I was crying my eyes out, wetting all the Kleenex tissue paper I had in the car console.

Jason soon pulled the car to a stop and then I realized it was the Forlini's bar, the same bar where we had our first date and we held hands as we watched the sports and we chatted, I was very nervous talking to her, she was a very wise woman beyond her years and she was a kind and loving and every bit of her made my heart flutter, she made me believe in love in a world where love did not exist for anybody at all.

Love is an emotion like no other, it fills your heart with a light and feathery feeling like nothing in the world could ever go wrong and that everything is finally, for once, going right, and that for once, you might just have that fairy tale ending that you read of all the time and that someday, maybe just someday, you too, can have a little slice of heaven on Earth. But no, the universe doesn't give a fuck about you, your mental health or your happiness for that matter, in fact the universe revels in your agony and pain and the misery that you endure in everyday, mired in grinding mediocrity forever, because in the end, none of your efforts in the grand scheme of the universe matter, because nobody cares. I once was told 

"Ed, don't tell anybody your problems in your personal life because 80% of the world does not give a fuck and the other 20% are the people shoveling the shit in your way and are enjoying it."

My father told me that as he was recovering from the fallout from divorcing mom and I realize now how much he was right and he had some other bits of wisdom that he shared with me as someone who was an Atheist. He tried incredibly hard to tolerate my mother's religious beliefs, but in the end, he found it intolerable to live in the same house as her while she kept her preaching going on all the time. 

I then schooled my face and then drank booze and listened to her siblings deliver speeches and I listened to her co workers from the Vice division talk and deliver speeches. Soon my co workers from the Narcotics division delivered their speeches and they mourned the loss of someone who was brave and always ready to go and get the job done and was always ready to lend a helping hand to anybody who needed it.

I listened to them speak and soon I drank and drank, I didn't care much for delivering speeches or pretending to even have the energy or the formalities to do so and I was not getting out of this bar stool until the room stopped fucking spinning. I shook more hands and talked to more people and I heard from someone that I was getting another medal, well fuck, I wasn't even thinking of getting a medal, and on top of that, someone wanted me to take the test to become a Sargent, I wasn't sure I was ready to move on just yet from the job of being a detective and moving onto becoming 1PP, I didn't want to leave behind the memories of working alongside a TO and talking with them and interacting with them. Becoming a Sargent meant that I would become more independent and that I would no longer have a partner by my side anymore.

To be honest, I was more afraid than ever to be alone, and knowing that my brother was going to go back to Seattle after this amplified my insecurity, I said things I probably should not have said, and to this day, I will never forget the pain and the sadness in Jason's face when I spat out 

"Everybody leaves me! Why don't you leave as well Jason? Mom and dad both have emotionally and...and to a degree, physically have left me! Naomi was murdered! Why is it that everybody leaves me? Why? Am I really that evil? Am I that detestable that people must leave me so soon? Why do I deserve to be alone and miserly like this? Tell me why!?"

I blacked out soon after, drunk and dizzy from drinking so much vodka and wine and beer and scotch that I fainted in Jason's arms and I closed my eyes, where the darkness seeped in and there was no pain.

I woke up the next day, heavily hungover and heartbroken and tired, I ran to the toilet and threw up the contents of my stomach, my stomach was empty afterwards and I threw up some more. Jason sighed and said 

"Here's a hangover cure my aunt once made me when I stupidly decided to drink all the beer on a dare when in University of Washington. I can tell you that what you did was not a wise decision, you're lucky I took your pistol and car keys away from you as it was even before the wake. So...there's that."

He sighed and added "You really need to get therapy Ed. You're hurting a lot more than you think you are."