The Forum by Marie Reyes (white hot kiss .TXT) 📗

THE FORUM

MARIE

REYES

Copyright © Marie Reyes. 2021

The moral right of Marie Reyes to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copywrite owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 9798725363425

https://mariereyes1985.wixsite.com/mariereyesauthor

Cover art images:

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash

Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash

For Kirst, Sam, Sandz, Millsy, and my parents.

Part One

Chapter One

SEATTLE

Piper pulled her ratty fleece blanket over herself and traced one of the cigarette burns with her finger. The thermostat said it was 12 degrees, but it felt like zero. Maybe the thing was broken, like everything else in her apartment. Pulsating bass from upstairs made the ceiling vibrate and usually she didn't mind, but tonight was different.

"Shut the fuck up!" She coughed, her voice strained, but that didn't stop her from grabbing another menthol cigarette from the pack. A fog of smoke already enveloped the apartment, but she didn't care. It made her feel warmer somehow. Besides, she had given up the drinking and the prescription painkillers, so smoking was all she had left, and they would have to pry her cigarettes from her cold dead hands. She considered cracking open the window the tiniest bit to help the smoke dissipate, but didn't want to let any more heat escape.

The claustrophobic darkness made the room feel colder. If she put the main light on, maybe it would trick her body into thinking it was the sun, but she wasn't ready for that level of harsh brightness, favoring the dim glow emanating from the brass lamp she had picked up at the thrift store. There was no room for her laptop on the formica table in front of her, so she swiped the clutter and stray cigarette butts aside.

Without her laptop, she imagined she would have gone crazy, even crazier than she was now. This little screen was her portal to better things. With this little screen, she could transport herself to anywhere in the world, walking digitally through streets on the other side of the world, or chatting to someone in another country, or browsing luxurious properties she couldn't afford in a million years, imagining what it would be like to sit out on one of those balconies overlooking the ocean. The possibilities that this bundle of metal, wires, and plastic offered, gave her a sliver of hope.

The colorful images on the screen distracted her from the messiness of her apartment, and she tried not to think about what her ex-husband and children would have made of the state of it if they happened to swing by unannounced, not that they would. Ever. Well, except when he and his new girlfriend were desperate for childcare, and they'd have to be pretty desperate. It was better this way. It's not that she didn't love them, but they were most certainly better off only seeing her every now and then. She didn't want to poison them and taint them with the darkness that lingered around her like cigarette smoke.

Tonight, was a bad night. There were places she would go when she was like this. First, she would hang around forums where others, as miserable as her, could wallow in self-pity. That was the first step. It would only go downhill from there. She skipped that part of the process and headed straight to the website with the black background, and the migraine inducing bright yellow, green, and white fonts.

There were certain things that would pique her interest as she scrolled through the images and videos. People jumping from the tops of buildings, hangings, and self-inflicted gunshots to the head — These were the videos that pulled her in like a black hole. Seeing the aftermath made her feel so many things. Disgust was always the first reaction, closely followed by curiosity, then a weird tingle in her stomach.

She didn't know if she pitied them or wanted to be them. They had the guts to do what she couldn't. Those videos made her feel alive and reminded her that this existence wouldn't last forever. The here and now was real, but it was temporary. The people in those videos weren't on autopilot like her. It made her take stock, and believe that she could do something, that she had to do something, because the other option was so final.

A head smashed to pieces on the sidewalk from the sheer force. That could have been her, still could be. Didn't she want to do something before then, something worth-while?

Besides having Clara and Stephen, she had done nothing with her life. All she did now was smoke, watch television, and try to survive on welfare. In the interest of seizing the day, she wondered what she could do, here and now, from the safety of her living room, through a screen and a series of wires. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard as if some great inspiration would course through her from some higher power. After a minute, nothing came. If she made herself a coffee, maybe then it would come to her.

She lumbered towards the kitchen, glancing to the bathroom on her left. She needed to pee, but the thought of the cold bathroom tiles against her feet put her off, and she couldn't be bothered to put her slippers on. They were either buried under a pile of dirty laundry, or down the side of her bed from where she had kicked them