Lost, abandoned, and aimless, I crouched in a corner of the six-by-four cell. Writhing cries, shrieks, and shouts into a void reverberated against rigid walls. The colossal metal bars restricted motion. Every endeavor to escape was futile; it merely reinforced my sense of failure and acceptance of a miserable fate. And at that inopportune moment, flashbacks of the past few days began to hound me.

Jury boxes, civil cases, staff attorneys, witness stands, and bench trials.

Court.

Weeping, I’d roared “But I didn’t do it! Why would I kill Jason? When I had seen his bleeding corpse, I spiraled. I’d lost everything. My heart felt like a deep, endless abyss, devoid of any emotions. Because that day, not only did I lose my husband, I’d lost a part of myself too.”

“Then how do you justify the knife in your hand and the blood around you Mrs. Cooper?”

“I-I I don’t know. As soon as we got into the yacht, we had a few drinks and immediately fell asleep. Everything from there was a blackout. The next thing I knew, I woke up, horror-struck, in a pool of blood along with a knife in my hand. I was clearly framed.”

“However, you do have a history of overdoses, addictions, and blackouts. And despite the treatments and medicines, it is essential to question whether your schizoaffective disorder has relapsed.”

The faint sound of dripping water from a dingy pipe pulled me out of my mournful musings. Spiraling, I lay on the cold, uninviting floor.

It was like falling through a frozen lake. The ground; was seemingly unbreakable just moments before unexpectedly shattering underneath. The initial rush of frigid water, was a slap to the senses. Each shiver; an individual knife piercing the expanse of skin. A relentless pain so consuming, so overwhelming, even being alive was unbearable. Frantically flailing, banging at the merciless eyes. Pleading, begging until finally the deep agony, of feeling everything became an encompassing sigh, of feeling nothing. Solace in the devastatingly beautiful relief of numbness, from the emptiness of the heart.

But, how could emptiness be so heavy? So heavy, I crumbled faster and more erratically than ashes from a burning cigarette. The universe: a constant reminder of the walls of my heart; a flawed façade full of cracks, jagged like the scars of my past. And in those moments of seemingly meaningless calm, I remembered how broken I was.

But everything’s temporary. The darkness, the spiral, the grief. Merely simple moments in a string of infinite stories that eventually end. However, my spiral failed to cease.

But amidst the meaningless calm, one question continually invaded my mind. What if I did kill Jason?