The sky was a gloomy color that perfectly matched the mood of the person standing on the balcony of his hotel room. A bottle in his hand, he watched the clouds slowly darken across the sky. There was nothing like a good thunderstorm. The first droplets of rain splashed down, but he didn’t bother going inside. Instead he stood there as they came, faster and faster, until it was a down pour. Within minutes he was soaked, but he didn’t care. The water felt good on his skin.
Overhead, the thunder started to rumble. Standing against the railing, the man spread his arms, letting the storm fill him. A bolt of lightning lit the sky for one second in all of its deadly beauty. Here, witnessing this, standing in the midst of a raging thunderstorm, the man felt alive. He felt human for the first time in almost six months.
So much of his life anymore was meaningless. Each day he went through the motions, but they weren’t good enough. None of it was ever good enough. Others had started to notice it, and call him on it. What did he care? What did they know? How could they understand what was going on in his mind? He hadn’t told them. Could never tell them. They would never understand. How could they? You couldn’t understand something like that until you lived through it. Until you had to crawl out the other side on your hands and knees, trying to get back on your feet.
They wanted to judge him for drinking. For the drugs. Maybe they were right in that. Neither seemed to help anyways; or at least, not for long. Never long enough. Always his mind would go back to that night, back to that club. One night of his life that would never go away. The one night that had ruined everything, including him.
There was nothing left inside of him anymore but what they had left there. A shattered heart and a torn soul. Pain, always pain; and fear. The fear that never completely left you. That woke you up at night after a nightmare, and had you gripping your sheets and biting your pillow to stop yourself from screaming until your voice was gone. That left you trembling when someone looked at you a certain way, or brushed up against you when you least expected it.
They attributed it to nerves, or a paranoia that was a side effect of the drugs. He didn’t have the heart to tell them that the drugs and alcohol actually helped control it. They took the fear and brought it to a level he could manage. But none of them knew what had created that fear, let alone that it was there.
Sometimes he wondered if he was sane anymore. He didn’t feel like it. Here he stood, a bottle of jack in one hand, staring at a thunderstorm in the pouring down rain. He found his eyes traveling over the balcony. Dark thoughts entered his mind, not for the first time. One quick move and it would be over. He stepped up on the slight edge, the railing now barely sitting at his knees as he stared down. Through the rain he couldn’t make out the ground, but he knew that it was a ways down. They were on almost the top floor of the hotel. One step, one small jump, and he would never have to do this again.
While the storm raged overhead, another one raged inside of him. Staring at what he felt was his only release, AJ McLean found himself thinking about the one moment that had brought him here. The one night that had started it all.