At the "Bitter End"

I had nothing left. I crouched crumbling locked in my closet, lights off, in the fetal position. As if pulling my knees as close to my body as possible would hold me together. My breaths were short, ugly, gasping squeaks. I couldn’t make them stop. Cool, sticky snot streamed from my nose and leaked into my grimacing mouth and mixed with the salty tears flooding from every aqueduct of my swollen, blurry eyes.

I couldn’t find his ring. The ring he had put on my finger on our first date, right before our first kiss. My room was in ruins from my frantic search. It was the only piece he had of a father he hadn't seen in nine years and I had lost it. I had lost him. What had I left?

A knock came on the bedroom door. I froze mid wail, “Aims? It’s dinner time honey.” I swallowed hard on the rock lodged in my throat and desperately wiped at my salty, clammy face with a worn shirt sleeve. I unlocked the closet door and slid out.“Aims?” Mom’s voice came again, concerned.

“Okay. I’ll be out in a sec.” I called back with as steady a voice as I could manage. Her footsteps faded down the hallway and I put on my brave-face to bear the world.

The phrase “to the bitter end” originates from ropes tied to “bitts” or posts on the deck of a ship. Once these ropes were completely extended and there was no more rope left, or until the end of the bitts, the ropes were said to have extended to the bitter end. Today, the phrase has come to mean sticking with something unpleasant to its end. 

Driving the Caged Elephant Isn't As Easy As it Sounds

Bwomp, bwomp, bwomp. I can feel the base through the skin in my hands that grip tightly on the leather of the circular object in front of me. I can feel it in my ears and it causes vibrations between different panels on the door. The black rolling hill-like plastic stretches out in my immediate vision. After that, I am looking through glass at what seems like hundreds of pairs of red lights. I can feel the rubber tires gripping the pavement underneath me. I can see buildings and a tree or two blurring past in my peripherals. I hear honking through the crack between glass and metal frame and someone hollering. I look to my left Where Nicky is sitting beside me singing along with Cage the Elephant. I look through the steering wheel at the glowing gages and then over at the glowing clock. My Arm rests upon the center counsel, but I can’t really say how it feels. I am absorbing my surroundings, taking everything in on a purely sensory level when suddenly Nicky yells in panic,

“Amy! Amy! They’re breaking!” I look up in time to see the brake lights in front of me and reflexively slam my left foot onto the brake pedal. My mind is ripped back into the realization that I am supposed to be driving.