† Mea Culpa †
Interlude: The brink of a bad decision
WandaNat x [struggling, former Catholic] reader
Mea Culpa ― Masterlist
Chapter summary: What do you do when your mistakes pile up? Nothing good. Nothing sane.
Word count: 2.6k
Warning: suicidal ideation, disordered eating, heavy guilt, just general angst I guess.
A/N: I don't know if I'll leave this one up. I've just written it this evening as a way to work through things that have happened lately, and something which happened last night. I'm not in the best place right now and that will reflect in the writing (both making quality poor, and content potentially very triggering). So I'll see how I feel about this tomorrow. And how much I regret it.
If you were going to Kate’s, you’d head to the subway. Instead, you walk in the opposite direction. Just walking, with your throat choked up with tears. It’s hard to breathe and impossible to think straight. In your head, you just hear your own words, shouting and swearing, then denying their help. And in your head, there’s only silence as a response. The silence of them realising that you aren’t the person they hoped you were. You’re not a charity case, capable of healing. You’re a changeling, a demon, a curse on their home. You’ve hurt them, in the way you’ve treated them. You’ve hurt them, in the way you responded to their attempts to help.
The guilt seems to blacken your bones, burning your insides until your skeleton is charred and crumbling within.
You just walk. On and on, through streets and parks and alleys, until you don’t recognise where you are anymore. And then you keep going. Even as your legs ache and your stomach grumbles with discontent. It’s been a long time since you last ate. And you have no intention of changing that clock.
You find yourself crossing the river, over the North Walk on George Washington bridge. And you know then, despite never having walked this way before, where you are going. And even though it scares you, you don’t turn back. You just keep walking, even as the sun fades and the headlights of cars begin to glare. Even as the other pedestrians give you curious looks, probably wondering why you’re walking the wrong way for this time of night.
As you turn right at the end of the bridge, you chance a look at your phone. Two missed calls: one from Natasha, and one from Kate. There are many messages also, from the two of them, and Wanda too. They’re panicking. But you can’t summon the courage or the will to respond. So you turn your phone onto airplane mode, and count yourself lucky that you removed location tracking weeks ago. They won’t know where you’re going, so they won’t have to worry any more than they already are.
But the guilt grows stronger. So you take your phone out again, turn airplane mode off, and message Kate.
I’m fine Just walking
Kate messages back very quickly, her texts frantic and in quick succession.
Fuck you had me spiralling mousie Please can you phone me Or them We are worried
You stare at her message, feeling sick but no less determined to continue on your walk. You can’t talk. Not now. Not when everything is falling apart, and it’s all your fault. Because of how you are, how you behave, how you react. You’re a bad person, bad to the core. And you don’t deserve forgiveness, or compassion. All you deserve is suffering and pain.
I don’t want to phone I’m okay
The path moves away from the road, and you glance around, checking nobody is following you. It’s quiet. There’s nobody there, nobody ahead either. You’re alone, in the developing darkness.
Do you need someone to come to you? Because we will
They would come, too. You know they would. Even though you don’t deserve their repeated attempts to help you. You used up your quota of compassion years ago. All the kindness and energy wasted on you as a child, when you were stubbornly sick and wouldn’t get better. And now you’re back there: lost, out of control, causing hurt everywhere you turn. You don’t deserve another chance, or any more unconditional love. So you send one last message, one more slither of reassurance in the hopes that it will quell their worries.
I’m okay
You turn your phone off after sending it. There’s no reason to waste battery now; you might need it later, depending on how things transpire. You don’t really have a plan, after all. You just need to get up somewhere high; you need to breathe. You need to feel in control again.
It’s truly dark now. Your eyes have adjusted though, and you can still see enough of the path beneath your feet, lit with the eery glow of light pollution reflected back by the cloudy sky. Every step you take you hear your feet landing, your breath, the swish of your jeans against each other. In the distance, you can hear the sounds of traffic, and the occasional siren. Other than that, it’s quiet. Quiet enough that you begin to hear the familiar thoughts, echoing like a long-lost lullaby in your head.
Fat, ugly, mean, stupid.
A despicable person.
And you don’t deserve to live.
———
If your father raised you to be anything, he raised you to be tough. He raised you to bite back at bullies and respond with vitriol to anything which might harm you.
Sticks and stones may break your bones… so find your own, and hurt them back.
When your brother antagonised you as a child — wrestling you so hard it hurt, or playing cruel tricks which broke your sensitive heart — your dad would always respond the same. You need to learn how to fight back. You need to learn not to let it get to you.
And if your father found you fighting together — physically, verbally, however it transpired — he would set an ultimatum. Sort it out between yourselves, or I’ll sort it out for you.
It was posed as a threat. And you knew what him sorting it out would mean. He’d shout — a lot — and probably hit you too. Then you’d be sent away to your room, for some unknowable amount of time. To cry it out for a while, until maybe your mum came to check on you.
It made you scared. Not of him, not exactly. Just scared. Scared of consequences, scared of being seen as bad or wrong. And your brother felt it too. If either of you were doing something which could be perceived as wrong, or lazy, or bad, your dad would demand an explanation. And it was up to you, and your wits, and your way of explaining every tiny detail, every mitigating factor, which could be the difference between being hit, and being seen as redeemable. It wasn’t a trial, it was a sentencing hearing. A decision on whether your soul could be saved.
Because you knew from attending church every week that good people went to heaven, and bad people went to hell. So every time you made a mistake, you had to prove that you weren’t fully bad, you weren’t evil. You had to justify, like your life was an endless dress rehearsal for the play called purgatory. At home, this worked. You could avoid being hit, you could avoid angry words and damning titles being hurled your way so long as you proved it wasn’t entirely down to your moral failings. But in the real world, as an adult, this pattern became a problem.
Because as it turns out, most people don’t want explanations and justifications. And they don’t automatically assume you are evil, or a problem, when they confront you with your wrongdoing. They just want an apology.
But anytime you thought like that, anytime you tried to just apologise and be accountable for things you did wrong, your mind would begin to fight back, as if it needed to prevent the world from jumping to conclusions about your moral condition.
And so it was now: clinging on to the context, to the reasons you got angry in the first place. Anger and defensiveness are safer. They’re always safer, because they prepare your body to fight, and they prepare your body to take punches. Then, when you’re hit, it doesn’t hurt that deep. Because the anger is an armour, an armour which prevents you from believing you deserved it.
At least it seemed so, in the moment. But whenever the anger was lifted, and the armour removed from your body, there would still be bruises. Not physical ones — he never hit that hard. Just emotional ones. The kind that seep in and remind you of how bad you are, how unlovable. The kind that ache even as an adult, when you do something wrong. Like old witnesses to your evil, called to testify.
As you walk, you feel a phantom ache in your right ear: the ringing of an unexpected blow to the side of the head. For being annoying. For being a problem. For being you.
———
You’re distracted from your self-loathing thoughts by movement ahead of you. There’s a person approaching, with the long limbs and self-assured gait of a young man. Every muscle in your body twitches, and you force yourself to stand taller, and lift your chin. You don’t let yourself hesitate either; you keep walking.
I am not weak, you think fearfully, as if he can hear. You cannot hurt me. I can run faster than you.
There’s a moment when your eyes meet in the darkness, and you see the slight surprise which registers in his face as he takes you in: short, feminine, very alone. He keeps walking though, and so do you. You wait for a few breaths before turning over your shoulder to check. He’s still walking away, same pace. Even so, you keep checking back for a while. Looking for his fading black dot, until it disappears into nothingness. Only then do you let out your breath.
This is stupid, you know. You’re putting yourself at risk, being out here alone, in the dark. Especially when nobody knows you are here.
You wonder how long it would take the world to find your body if he returned and threw you off the cliffs. Maybe they never would find you. And you’d be reported missing, forever a mystery. Even suicide would be better than that.
You carry on walking, even as the trees begin to grow numerous and obscure the orange glow. The path is fairly well trodden, so you only stumble a couple of times, when you catch your toe on a rogue stone. You don’t even look at your watch, you just keep walking. Like some kind of self-destructive meditation. Every step seems to cement your guilt more in your mind, even as you fight to find reasons to acquit yourself. Because with every step, you make them more worried. Every second, another sin.
You pass a waterfall, and some benches. You don’t stop. There’s no view to enjoy, no body deserving of rest. You simply plod on, until the trees finally open and suddenly there’s space, and air, and the glow of distant lights across the chasm.
You’ve reached the cliffs. You can see the edge, mere meters away, ominous with its dark line against the fuzzy horizon of the Hudson, and the city behind. The wind hits you too, cutting into your cheeks like a slap.
You step closer, placing your feet carefully, moving until your toes are touching solid rock, rather than the shingles of the path.
Do I want to die?
The question sighs in your mind. Slow, unsure.
Life seems unliveable, like this. When you’re in so much pain, and projecting that outwards onto the people you love. When every connection you make, every person who comes to care for you, ends up regretting their choice.
And you don’t believe in God, or church, or confession. So what hope is there, if you cannot repent? Even if you apologise, it won’t eradicate the pain. It won’t change how they see you. It won’t fix the things you have broken.
Nor would suicide, you suppose. Maybe some situations would shift in retrospect for them, but your guilt would remain untouched. There would be no posthumous pardon for your wrongdoing. Only more on top, if you chose to leave like this. More pain inflicted.
Your knees wobble, and you collapse onto the rocks, looking at the edge looming just beyond your toes.
You’re not even brave enough anyway. Too cowardly to own up to what you have done, and too cowardly to properly run away from it. You just exist in this awful limbo, being flung about by whatever impulses your disordered brain concocts. Starve yourself. Lie. Do what you want. Lash out. Run away. Disappear. Hurt them. Hurt yourself. Repeat.
Everywhere you go, the hurt continues in your wake. Active and passive harm, from what you do, and what you fail to do. Every bit of it is your fault.
My fault. My fault. My most grievous fault.
The words run through your mind, as you hit your forehead three times in succession. In the ringing after, your brain supplies another vitriolic mantra.
Everyone I love leaves me.
The thought ripples, like a dark wave, until it breaks on some shore of sense.
That’s not true, you think quietly. Most often, I leave them.
The realisation settles over the automatic thought, like a drop of dye, turning the water back to a clear blue. Through it, you see memories of lost loves; all the friends you fell out with and ran away from instead of settling the score. The ones you hurt, and the ones who hurt you. Regardless, you would most often run. Thinking yourself undeserving of those chasms being bridged. You don’t really know how to do healing, after all. You don’t know how to confess, or repent, or forgive. The priests spoke of these things often, but they never made sense to you in practice. It was only the guilt bit which really sank in.
You wonder what it must be like to grow up without that. To grow up without the rhetoric and self-punishing rituals, and instead be raised with a more intrinsic moral compass, and a more human way of making amends.
If it’s possible for them, maybe it could be for you, too.
As your thoughts begin to calm, you look out over the cliff to the water far, far below. And you take a breath. Long, slow, and assured.
I don’t want to die.
This is the peace your brain needed. It’s what it’s always needed. To be on the brink of a truly bad decision, laid bare. Here, you can stop and think. Here, you can take a breath.
It’s the feeling you’ve been chasing all your life. The feeling which led to you climbing trees as a child, and onto balcony ledges as a teen. That feeling of pause, and control. Just you, and your decisions. And perhaps the wind too. Just survival, stripped bare of all the emotions. Quiet.
The peace soothes you, and washes away the anger. The armour slips away, and you’re left feeling raw and regretful. It’s different from the sickening guilt. This feeling is slow, and controlled. This feeling wants you to think with compassion, rather than act with anger. This feeling comes with hope.
“I’m not a bad person,” you whisper out to the wind. “I’ve… just made bad decisions. I’ve hurt the people I love.” You swallow, feeling tears trickle out. Still, you speak aloud. Like the words, once spoken, will stay true. “I want to get better. I want to do better.”
Nobody is there to answer. It’s just you, speaking out to the great expanse of the Hudson river, and the city you ran away from. Somewhere beyond that city, across the North Atlantic Ocean, is the home and the family that made you like this.
But you’re not just a product of where you came from, and who raised you. You’re not forever bound to the burden, the guilt, and the rage.
It will hurt, you think dully, tallying up all the apologies you’ll have to offer, and the remorse you’ll have to bear.
But you know, even as the cold grips you and the weight of your phone acts as a steady reminder in your pocket, that it will be worth it in the end.
Because they deserve your honesty, your remorse, and your amends.
And you deserve to be better too.
You deserve the chance to be good one day.
You deserve the chance to atone.
