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.
Interesting use of research. Why did you place it at the end instead of another location in the post?
ReplyDeletebecause I didn't want the audience to think about that while reading the piece. I wanted them to experience as I had, then read the research and think about it differently. I was thinking that people don't experience these sort of things with an intellectual lens. It isn't tell after that they analyze it intellectually.
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