Missing Like You

FIFTY

Lexie
Saturday November 7, 2020

Dear Diary,

Something's been happening lately and I really don't know how to even talk about it. It feels strange writing about it in here, but I have nowhere else to turn.

I know I haven't written here in a while, but I've been going through a difficult time. Which bad news would you like to hear first? Okay, how about this: My dad died.

Just writing that doesn't even feel real. It happened in August. He had a spontaneous brain aneurism and died in his sleep. He was only forty-three. He was so young. I don't even know how that was possible. I thought he was healthy. I thought he was okay.

Everything was going well in my life. And then just like that, he was gone. I still can't wrap my head around it. My dad was everything to me. He was supposed to watch me grow up and be there every step of the way, just like mom was supposed to be. But then she was taken away from me so early, so I thought that meant life would even itself out and dad would be there all the time to overcompensate.

It's not fair. I'm only twenty-four years old. Most people don't lose a parent until they're much older, let alone both parents. I don't know how to comprehend this. I don't know how to cope.

Since dad died, I've contemplated ending my life. I've thought about swallowing a bottle of pills, or jumping off a bridge. Life is too unbearable to live without both of my parents here.

I barely made it to the funeral. It took an army to get me out of bed that morning. I yelled and screamed and told everyone to let me be. I just wanted to die. But Mark didn't relent. He told me that I'd regret it and that this is one decision I can never take back. So I dressed in black and went to watch them put my dad in the ground.

A few people from my childhood were there. They all hugged me and gave me their condolences, but I was numb to it all. It was an out of body experience. That was the only way I could get through it, to disassociate.

I called one of the girls I used to work with at Rouge. She gave me some pills to help me manage. I've still been taking them. Mark doesn't know, nor will he. If he ever found out I was doing drugs again, he would kill me. I'll add it to the list of secrets I've kept from him.

I won't get hooked. I have too much self-control to become a junkie. But I don't intend on stopping anytime soon either. These pills are the only thing helping me manage right now. The pain is still too strong, the reality much too real.

At least he got to come to the wedding. That is the one good thing I can look back on. Meeting Mark, getting engaged, having the wedding when we did. It all happened accordingly. If we would have waited any longer, dad would have missed it. At least he died knowing that I was happy. Knowing that I was in good hands.

After dad died, Mark was an immense help. I can honestly say that I don't think I would have made it without him. He constantly brought me back down from my dark moments, reminding me of everything I had to live for. He'd talk about the good things in life, all of the things we had yet to do together. He talked about starting a family and having children. That only made it worse, knowing that my child would grow up without having grandparents. But despite how good Mark was with me during this time, I still cannot deny what is happening now.

Which brings me to my second piece of bad news: My marriage.

We've been married for nine months now, but the past few months have been different. Correction – he's been different.

After our honeymoon in the Maldives, we came back to Philadelphia and started our life together. Everything was blissful and heavenly in the beginning and we were the perfect embodiment of a new married couple. But it didn't take long before I began to see a different side of him that I'd never experienced before, almost as though he'd been wearing a mask for the entire time I'd known him. And then once the marriage was official and we had easily slipped into our new skin, the mask came off and his true colors began to show.