Tenebrosity: Chapter 14: "Underneath" Part 1

[rhapsody_series]

Author: galeandrandy
Thank you to my artist: momentsgoneby
Thank you to my editor: adoringaudience
Rating for story: XXX
This is Chapter: 14/20
Genre Timeline: Post-513
Present Time: A little over 10 years post-series moving forward.
Past Time: Story directly after Justin goes to NY, returning to Brian & leading up to present time.
Further credit and thank you post: ++click here++
Notes: The Full Tenebrosity Soundtrack is now available. Discs 1 and 2 links can be found in the sticky or in the sidebar.
Warnings: Angst, Original character death, Raw Sex,
Summary: From such a gentle thing, from such a fountain of all delight, my every pain is born ~ Michelangelo
Story Meta: ++click here++
Rhapsody Series Part 1 On-going Reference Timeline Here
Rhapsody Series Character Images Here
Rhapsody Series Character List & Summaries Here
Chapter Word Count: 21,784
★Rhapsody Series Memories in Numerical Reading Order★

★★

Tenebrosity
Chapter 14: “Underneath”

Waking up this morning thinking this can’t be real
They say there’s nothing love can’t heal
Why don’t you come on down so you can feel what I feel
Sitting all alone in this place, even though we’re here face to face

I know what to say but don't know where to begin
The fear of losing you beneath my skin
Is there resolution for this pain that I'm in

Sitting all alone in this place
Even though we're here face to face
There is nothing gone
But there's something wrong

Can't you see that I'm stuck here underneath
And you're making it hard to breathe
So take a look around and tell me what you see
You'll find me underneath

If only you could feel what I dream
Maybe you could hear what I mean ~Selected lyrics taken from Underneath, written by: Hanson & Mathew Sweet

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Every time I take a step it isn’t the crunch of leaves, grass and dirt that I hear, it’s the words ‘liar’, repeated in my head until it grows so loud that I can’t ignore it anymore. I say the word aloud softly at first, puffing out white clouds that I’m sure would spell each letter if my skin didn’t soak it in because I keep running. I am a disgusting liar, a terrible father, and a monster. And the worst thing is, no one sees it but me. Brian might see it sometimes, but I know he’d rather ignore the real me. He wants me to be the boy he met under the street light, a good father to our kids, the man he married, an artist, a wanton devoted lover, his fucking Sunshine. He let me believe I was that man just because it made it easier for him to believe it too. But for some reason Brian changed the rules of the game and I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I tried, I swear, I’ve fucking tried to believe I can be his Justin again, but I can’t. It isn’t that I don’t want to; I just know that it’s impossible. I can’t be one of those, not the artist, the wanton devoted lover or the boy he met under the street light, I can’t be any of them, let alone all of them.

On my fourth lap I’m feeling so much better. Running solo allows my body to catch up with my brain, or actually, I think it fools my brain. The endorphin rush from the exercise overpowers my despair. I can think more clearly, because the emotional pain doesn’t become physical pain too. The pain from today’s charade is finally leaving me. On the way to drop off Gus I could tell Brian was freaking out and I know I should have pressed him, comforted him, but I couldn’t. If I didn’t continue with the farce until I could release it alone, I might’ve broken down and the whole act would’ve been pointless. I’m beginning to think that if what I did tonight is what I have to do from now on to deal, even if I’m betraying Brian, then it might be worth it. If I can come out here afterward and run, turn my screams into grunts and cries into puffs of breath that dissolve into the atmosphere, then it might get me on my way to being half-way normal again.

Thirst makes itself known to me, so it’s time for me to go back. I slow my run to a fast walk as I turn around toward the back of the house and start running through the backyard. Usually when I go for a run, I take all of my gear. Jake will probably kill me if he finds out I ran tonight without my watch and the belt with the water, but I was in such a hurry to unleash everything that I couldn’t wait. I’ve probably only been running for half an hour and I ate big meals at every sitting today so I doubt that I’ve run off that many calor…

My muscles protest my abrupt halt and I have to bend over and put my hands on my knees while trying to pull air into my lungs so I don’t pass out. I keep my eyes trained to the second story window of the back of our house, and blink slowly over and over to be sure that what I am seeing is correct. I’m running again, before I even make the conscious decision to do it; my feet hitting the deck steps, my hand clawing the door open, everything my run accomplished disappears. I run through the house, up the staircase, down the hall and barge into her room. From my eyes to my brain, a millisecond later, tenebrosity abducts me again.

♂♂♂♂♂♂

“What are you doing?”

I heard his loud footsteps coming down the hall, so his presence doesn’t surprise me. I knew Justin would come inside at some point and see me in here. I knew that I would have to confront him, or he’d confront me. Seeing his wild, near-hateful expression makes me so angry with him, I’m not sure I can do this without my anger controlling me. If that happens, I might say something or do something that will end us. But I can’t be afraid of that anymore. “Coloring,” I reply, knowing full well that he’s gonna lose it at my flippant tone. His posture changes like he’s about to explode, his expression is pinched and his eyes darken to a blue-black. Seeing how much I’m upsetting him can’t stop me from going on and I tell him the truth, “I’m trying to remember her. I’m trying to feel her.”

“Feel her?” he asks in a tone that sounds like he’s disgusted with me.

Fuck it, I am angry and he should fucking know that I am. I have every right to hate him. The purple crayon I am holding snaps in my grasp and while I stand up I drop it onto the open, dusty coloring book lying on the desk. “I’m trying to love her even though she’s dead! But you don’t want to hear that. You only want to know, want to see, hear and feel what you want; on your terms. You want everyone else to ‘grieve’ the same way that you do.” Tears sting my eyes but I fight them and try to get my strangled sounding voice under control and say, “If it’ll make you feel better, just go down to the kitchen, make a bowl of Cheerios for you both and pretend like everything is all right.”

“You lied to me!”

I take a few steps toward him but back up again when he starts running toward me. I realize too late that he isn’t going to stop and feel his hands push against my chest, knocking the wind out me. I stumble and fall back against the desk and the things on it crash to the floor. If he’s going to behave like this, then I have no choice but to retaliate. I grab him by the shoulders and swing him around, pin him against the wall with one arm over his chest and my hands pinning his wrists above his head. “You lied to me!”

Tears cloud in his eyes as he starts fighting me. He may have gained some weight and muscle back but he has very little strength, yet still he manages to twist his wrists from my grip.

He grabs my arms and his fingers dig into my biceps as he tries to push me away. “You promised me! You promised me that you wouldn’t come in here until I was ready. You fucking promised me that you would wait!”

I let him go, push away from him and open my mouth to explain but stop when he charges me again. I’m ready for him this time and grab him, pulling him against me and pin his arms to his side.

“Fucking let me go, Brian! Let me go!” he growls, his body shaking the way it does when he has a panic attack and can’t handle having anyone touch him.

“I will let you go,” I whisper calmly against his ear and then push away from him. He falls to his knees, landing beside the bed and starts growling out curses and threats that are barely discernible and not nearly as threatening as I know he wishes for them to sound. He’s behaving like a wounded animal fiercely trying to protect its offspring but he can’t protect her from this, the damage is done.

When I kneel in front of him, he backs up between the bed and nightstand and yells, “Don’t touch me! Don’t, fucking touch me! Don’t touch me, don’t, don’t, don’t,” he mumbles hysterically.

“I’m not. I’m not going to touch you,” I assure him and keep completely still. I thought my heart broke as much as it ever could the day we buried Arella, but there must have been a big chunk of it left because seeing him like this, realizing how insane he actually is, it’s breaking whatever was left of my heart. Still, I know I have to continue, I have to tell him what I feel, whether or not he hears it and actually cares. If I’m going to survive this, I have to at least know that I gave everything I could to him. I carefully lean close to him and whisper, “I can’t wait for you anymore. I’m done waiting for you.” I want that to be a lie, but I can’t hide from the truth any longer. I know that this isn’t his fault. I know that Justin, that my Justin wouldn’t be like this if he could help it. But he can’t help it and I have exhausted myself with trying to help him. I can’t do it any longer. Acknowledging that fact hurts almost as much as the moment I knew that nothing would help her survive. I’m scared that now that I’ve broken my promise, he’s going to break his promise to live and nothing will help him survive if he doesn’t face this right now. “Do you understand?” I force myself to ask this and the tone of my voice belays the eerie calm that settles over me. When his expression remains the same as it was before, aloof, I ask, “Do you understand what I’m saying, Justin? I can’t wait for you anymore. I have to move forward without you. You made your choice.”

He sighs and then blinks a few times before he just stares at me with a feral expression. “You said you would wait for me,” he hisses and stands up.

“I know.” Shame builds within me as I stand up to face him, take a few steps toward him and watch him back away from me. I still my movements and stare back at him, feeling at a total loss of what I should do now.

“You’re a fucking liar! A liar! A god damn fucking liar!” he screams and stops near the door. “Get out of here!”

“I’m not leaving this room until I decide to.” He doesn’t get to control this anymore. “I’m going to sit in here and talk to her and grieve and cry because I miss her.”

His body sways and he reaches out and grips the door handle and he curls in on himself. I want to go to him, to try to comfort him, but I know that I can’t. If I try, he’ll either reject me or manipulate me into thinking he’s okay and we’ll be going in circles again. “But… but you promised me. You promised me. You promised me. I heard you, I know I heard you. I know I remember that!” He starts breathing hard and heavy and points into the hall. “Right there. Right there, Brian. Didn’t you tell me that you would wait for me? Didn’t you promise me? I know you did. I know I heard you. I know that was real. I know it was…” He stops suddenly and looks at me, his expression a mix of confusion and fear. “Wasn’t that real?” he asks in a calm whisper. He steps closer and his eyes dart around my face. “Tell me it was real, please. Brian, tell me you promised that. It was real, wasn’t it?”

“I said it, Justin. It was real, but I didn’t know what I was promising you then.”

He looks around the room, shaking his head and says quietly, “You messed it up, you touched it all?”

I don’t know how to get through to him and it’s getting harder and harder to remain calm. “What does it matter? You didn’t fucking care about any of it.”

“Yes I do.” He says it so off handedly, without any passion at all.

“You don’t. You only care about what you want. You don’t care about what she would want or what Gus or I would need. It has never occurred to you that I need to love her, to grieve for her without you dictating how I should do it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mutters, and begins pacing in front of her bed. “I don’t know what you’re saying to me.” His tone has changed and as he passes by me I see tears are falling down his cheeks. “You ruined it. You ruined her room.”

“I hate you for it,” I continue, in a louder voice, determined for him to finally hear me over whatever is going on in his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for it. Arella would never forgive you for it if she were to come back to us. But she won’t. She wouldn’t want to come back to us, to you. But you don’t care because you’ll never forgive me, will you? Is that why you didn’t want me in here? Did you do it punish me for killing her?”

He abruptly stops his pacing and falls to his knees at my feet, his hands gripping my ankles, his face pushed against my thigh. “Please, please, please,” he begs and begins sobbing.

I bend down and bring him up into my arms, his shaking so intense I can hardly keep a hold of him. “Justin, I need you to answer me.” I want to comfort him but this is the first time I’ve seen him cry like this and I’m hoping that maybe he’s finally accepting this. “You need to answer me.”

“To what?” he hiccups. “What?”

“Are you punishing me for killing her? Is that why you don’t want me in here? Is that why you want me to forget her?”

“What?” He backs out of my arms, rubs at his eyes but his tears keep coming. “Brian… I d…don’t know wh…what you’re asking me.”

“Yes you do. Tell me the truth.”

“I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t know why I’d want to punish you. Why would I do that?” he asks in true confusion.

“You haven’t orchestrated all of this to punish me?” I question in disbelief.

“All of what?” he asks this as if he really doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take! “You don’t want me to feel close to her. You didn’t want me to talk about her, think about her or grieve for her the way I needed to. You hurt me, every fucking day by not mentioning her and what we lost. I understand why you didn’t want to share her with anyone else, but why not me? Why not me, unless you didn’t think I deserved to love her anymore.”

“I didn’t do that. I don’t think that. I could never think you don’t deserve to love her,” he cries.

“Then why did you want everything we had left of her to disappear? Why? Why do you want her gone?” I plead with him for an answer. This question I’ve been asking myself since I realized that what I needed to survive this was different from what he said he needed and so I buried what I wanted for so long; but I can’t anymore.

“She isn’t gone!” he wails, throwing his hands in the air.

I can’t keep my anger in check any longer; this imaginary bubble he wants to bide his time in has to be popped. “Don’t … don’t fucking start that again! She isn’t here!”

“She is here. And I’m waiting for her! We’re waiting for her, Brian. That’s why you weren’t supposed to come back in here. Don’t you understand?” He falls back onto the bed and his cries turn into body wracking sobs. “Why don’t you get it?”

“You have to explain it to me.” I want to hear what his mind has come up with, what he’s believed all this time and has hid from me.

He shakes his head from side to side and starts mumbling incoherently into the mattress for a few seconds and then suddenly stops and looks up at me with the most vulnerable expression I’ve ever seen him give me. “When…when she was sleeping I promised we’d wait for her. I promised I’d wait as long as she needed. I would wait for her forgiveness. I promised her that I’d keep her room the way she had it, so when she woke up and came back, it’d be perfect for her. I promised her. I promised her she could come back and be our little girl whenever she wanted! She… she hasn’t forgiven me yet and now it’s all ruined!”

Jesus Christ! His words have caused sudden paralysis in my body, but somehow I manage to ask him, “When was this?”

“When you were sleeping too,” he whispers brokenly.

“In the hospital?” I ask, shivering as the depth of his annihilation-induced insanity makes itself clear to me. Fuck!

“Yes,” he says and begins crying again.

This is what has made him like this? I don’t know who I’m angrier with - him for thinking he had any reason to need her forgiveness or me for never asking him to forgive me for what I did. I walk over to the bed, sit down and pull his limp body into my arms. “What the fuck do you have to get her forgiveness for? I’m the one! I’m the one that needs that. I’m the one that doesn’t deserve it. I fucking killed her!”

фффффф

Thursday, October 31, 2013

“Da…da…”

Fuck, my head is killing me. Why the fuck didn’t Justin close the drapes before he came to bed last night? Oh, god. I feel sick. Did I drink last night?

“Dada.”

It’s too fucking early for this. “Go back to sleep, Rel, it can’t be time to get…” OH FUCK!

“Da.”

“Rel!” I scream, or think I do as I force my eyes to open. There’s so much wrong with what I see, it’s hard to focus. Shit, I can’t move, I can’t move! There’s a fucking tree going through my fucking windshield!

“Da..da.”

“Rel!” I snap my head to the right and feel something in my neck tear and I get dizzy and choke down the urge to throw up. “Rel?” I can hardly see her, the tree is blocking my fucking view, there are branches everywhere and I think…. Oh fuck… the fucking car is upside down and there’s blood, there’s blood everywhere around me and on the tree and…. “Rel!” I scream her name again.

“Da…da,” she chokes out my name.

I’m so terrified for her that I almost black out from fear but just as my vision tunnels to a pinpoint I fight the urge to go unconscious and focus on the sound of her breathing. She’s going to be okay. If I can get to her, she’ll be okay. I just have to figure out how to get out. I don’t smell gas but there is smoke coming from the engine and I’m scared that the car might blow up with us in here. I have to get out. I have to get her out!

Through the tree branches, I see pieces of her blond hair matted with blood but I can’t see much of anything else of her body. She’s hurt, she’s hurt and I can’t reach her. I have to get out of here. I have to get out. I have to get to her. What the fuck do I have to do to make that happen? Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. God, my neck is killing me! Okay, okay, I have to stop this. Stop freaking out. Stop freaking out. “R…Rel, can you hear me?”

“My….tu…tum…tummy hu…hur…” she starts coughing and gagging and the noise triggers me to start gagging.

The smell of blood permeates the little air I can take into my lungs. “Can you move, Rel?” I ask, while trying to figure out how exactly I can get out of the car. I’m half-blind by blood coming down from somewhere on top of my head and my brain isn’t working up to its normal speed.

“No… Dada,” she starts crying and coughing.

“Just a second, baby, I’m going to figure out how to get us out,” I say, trying to sound calm so I don’t scare her. I need to get to her as fast as I can. I can’t think about anything else.

I start wiggling, trying to pull at my seatbelt and as it slips off my neck, blood begins to shoot out and the pulsing pain of it makes it hard for me to stay alert. I close my eyes and feel around for the seatbelt latch, barely able to move my left arm enough to reach it but I finally feel it. Finally, it clicks and as it rolls back, I hear Rel emit a blood-curdling scream. “Just a minute, Rel, I’m going to get you out,” I promise her. “I’m coming, baby.”

I wipe away the blood from my face and try to assess everything else again. The tree branch that cuts through the windshield across my left shoulder broke out my window. If I can make myself limber enough, I can crawl under it and get out there. First, I need to fucking stop this god damn bleeding on my neck. I see my scarf hanging on a few branches to the left of my seat. I pull it loose and wrap it around my neck as tight as I can without choking myself.

“Dada…y…you…out?” Rel asks in a tiny voice.

“Just… about,” I say, wiggling my upper body over the branch. I push my feet against what’s left of the dashboard and grab onto the pieces of the tree outside of the car to pull myself completely out.

The bottom of my car is burning hot and because of that, I quickly jerk away from it, not allowing myself a moment to catch my breath. I lift myself up and over it, using a mangled part of the bumper for leverage. I ignore all the pain I feel and hobble around the biggest weeping willow I’ve ever seen in my life and get to the other side of the car.

Blood covers the passenger’s cracked window completely. A large splatter that turns my stomach and makes me freeze, terrified of opening the door. But I know I have to and I try, but it doesn’t open easily. I yank on it a few times, practically tearing my arm out of the socket in the process and it finally swings open. I quickly sandwich myself in front of it so it doesn’t swing back and close again. When it does come swinging back, it jerks me forward into the car.

“Dada,” Rel cries out, as I land practically in her lap. Her eyes are red from crying, she’s terrified.

Fuck, I’m terrified.

I bite my lip and beg God to stop me from puking on my child. The nausea gets worse when my eyes take in her broken body but I swallow down the bile in my mouth. “I’m here, Rel,” I tell her, placing my hand on her face. It’s the only part of her body that looks safe for me to touch.

I hear sirens from off in the distance and the sound of rustling and footsteps. I jerk out of the car, look up, and see a man coming down the hill. “You all right?” he asks, coming to stand in front of the car. “I saw you guys go off the road. I called an ambulance.” He stops behind me and I see him quickly look in at Rel and then look away and back up to the road. “They’ll be here any minute!”

My vision swims as I point to my daughter. “Please, help me. I have…I have… to get her out… of here.”

“Dada,” Rel cries again. She’s probably feeling the excruciating pain she’s in the more time that passes and any adrenaline from the scare is abating.

I can’t do anything for her! Her entire body is mangled and she’s forcibly curled into a ball, her safety seat pushed up against her stomach. “Rel, I’m here.”

“Daddy,” she whimpers. “Daddy.”

“I think we should wait for the ambulance before taking her out,” the guy tells me softly.

“But there’s smoke!” I tell him, trying to figure out if he’s right.

“I don’t smell gas. I think it’s just a busted engine. If you move her too fast it could hurt her more.”

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Oh, God. She wants Justin. She needs him here. I need him here. I don’t know what the fuck to do! “Do you… do you have a cell phone?” I ask the man.

He digs in his coat pocket and hands it to me. “Just a second, Rel, I’m going to call Daddy,” I say, trying to keep my words calm when I really want to fucking break down right now because my fucking daughter is bleeding everywhere and I can see bones sticking out of her limbs and through other areas in her body.

“Answer the phone, Justin, Answer the phone,” I beg hearing it go to the third ring as the sirens near us.

“Hello?” he answers happily.

Oh god damn it! “Justin,” I cough out his name and blood sprays out of my mouth onto the phone. Shit!

“Brian?”

“We…we were in an accident and the ambulance is coming but you need to get here. Right now!”

“An accident?”

“Yes.” I turn away from Rel and say quietly, “It’s bad.”

“Rel!”

“She’s… she’s... bad, Justin. You... we’re….close to home.”

“I hear sirens,” he interrupts me. “I hear them!”

“We’re a few blocks away,” I say looking around the car to be sure. “We went off the overpass.”

“What!”

“Justin! Listen to me, we….we’re hurt. You need to run to end of the block to the cul-de-sac and go through the trees after the Jacobson’s backyard. You’ll see us there.”

“I’m coming! I’m getting on my shoes and I’ll be there!”

“I have to hang up,” I tell him, feeling dizzy and nauseas again.

“Okay, I’ll be there, Brian. Take care of her until I get there!”

“I will.” I hang up the phone, hand it back to the guy, and turn back to Rel. Her eyes are closing and she starts coughing up more blood. “Dada…”

“I’m here.” I lean into the car and put my hands on her face, wiping away the thick blood so it doesn’t drain into her eyes. “Look at me Rel, just look right at me, not at anything else.” The sirens are almost deafeningly loud now. I hope that Justin makes it here quick. “The ambulance is almost here and there will be doctors that will help you now, okay?”

“They’re here,” the guy says, backing away from the car. He starts shouting, “Down here! There’s a little girl that needs help!”

“Dada…out!” she speaks through a garbled breath.

“Shh… it’s okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay. Daddy’s coming and we’re going to get you out of here.”

The first E.M.T. reaches us and asks me to move out of the way. As I do I hear Rel coughing more, for longer and then, everything is a blur until Justin comes running up the hill as they’re loading Rel into the ambulance.

“Rel!” Justin screams her name jumping into the ambulance beside her. He takes her hand and looks at her, tears streaming down his face. “Daddy’s here now. I love you.”

“Sir, you’re injured, we need to look you over too,” one of the E.M.T. s tries to tell me as I stand by the ambulance door.

I shake her off and climb in beside Justin, next to Arella’s gurney. “I love you, Arella,” I whisper leaning close to the ear that isn’t bleeding from inside.

I grab one of Justin’s hands in mine and place my other over Rel’s as they close the doors and the ambulance starts moving a second later. The E.M.T.s shuffle around the back trying to help Arella, but I’ve been in the back of one of these things before. I know what they look like when they think it’s a hopeless cause. I wish I didn’t know. I wish I didn’t see Justin looking so hopeful, so sure that she’s going to be okay.

Rel turns her lips up around the breathing tube and bats her eyelashes at Justin and me a few times and then…

Then I die.

♂♂♂♂♂♂

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

“You didn’t kill her, Brian! You didn’t do it.”

“Don’t lie. I know you’ve been blaming me. I know how you look at me.”

“You’re wrong!” He is. He’s so fucking wrong. She won’t come back because she’s still mad at me. “You told me to fix it, Brian. You told me to.”

“What were you supposed to fix?” He presses his face against mine and I feel his hot tears mix with my own. “What, Justin? God, tell me, please.”

How can he forget? How can he not know? Hasn’t he been blaming me? I deserve to be blamed for this, not him! “The tire. I was supposed to fix the tire.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I couldn’t pick her up,” I explain. “I had to call you because I didn’t change the tire on my car. If I would’ve fixed it instead of going to paint, I would’ve been able to pick her up. You told me to do it that morning. You told me to! Remember? You knew that if I didn’t put the spare on right away, then I would go in my studio, start painting and forget to do it. I didn’t listen. I thought I could go paint and have time to fix it. But I didn’t. I forgot it. I forgot and then it was too late! I thought it was more important to paint than to fix the tire. I promised her. When she was sleeping, I promised that she’d always be more important than my art. I promised that I wouldn’t paint ever again. I swore that I wouldn’t ever go into that room again! Not after what I did!”

“After what you did? No matter what you do to get her forgiveness, she’s not coming back!”

“Don’t say that! You don’t know.” I don’t know how he can lie like this! He has to know that it’s possible. She could come back to us. She has to!

“What’s wrong with you? Who are you, Justin? You can’t….you can’t be like this! You know she’s dead. I thought you understood that she isn’t coming back!”

“No. No, she isn’t. She hasn’t forgiven me. She doesn’t think I love her. That’s why she isn’t back!” She will if she believes that I love her more than I love anything else. “She just doesn’t believe it yet.”

Brian crushes my head against his chest and starts crying loudly. “I told you,” he sobs, his lips moving against the top of my hair. “I told you that she loved you and wouldn’t hurt you by making you wait. If she could’ve lived, she would have. Why don’t you understand that? Why?”

♂♂♂♂♂♂

Just when I think Justin is as fucked up as he can possibly get, he shows me that I’m completely wrong and there’s a whole different level of disillusioned psychosis within him. I’m not sure how he just checks in and out of reality like this or if this shit is always there and he covers it up. I thought I might lose him if I told him how I feel, but I didn’t think I would be losing him to an untouchable vortex of improbable promises and delusions. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I can only think of one thing to do that may completely wrench him out of his inflicted travesty. “Come on,” I whisper. I grab his hand and pull him with me toward the door.

“What? Where are we going?” He demands in a frightened voice, resisting my pull.

I circle my arm around his torso and force him into the hallway with me. He’s screaming at me but I don’t listen to his protests. I have to use all my strength to drag him down the hall and to the last door at the end of it.

“No! I don’t want to go in there. Please, please don’t make me go in there!” he begs me as I open the door.

“You have to,” I tell him encouragingly as I pull him across the threshold.

“Don’t do this to me!” He scratches, punches, kicks me, uses everything he has to make me release the hold I have on him, but I don’t.

“Now you’re in your studio and you’re not going anywhere,” I yell, shaking him.

The scream that erupts from him is loud enough to make me go deaf and I lose my hold on him for a split second. I turn and close the door behind me, but he sticks out his leg and arm and tries to wedge himself in between it and me, but I grip him tight and pull him back inside, close the door and keep my back against it. “I ruined it for you,” I tell him, “if she were going to come back, she won’t now. Not now that I’ve broken both of your promises to her!”

“You can’t keep me in here!” he seethes, clawing at my side and shoulder, trying to push me away from the door but he doesn’t have the muscle to do it. Realizing this, he results to punching my chest repeatedly. “You can’t do this! Let me out of here!”

I grab his wrists and bring him further with me into the studio. Our feet slip and slide on the dust covering the wood floor as he struggles, but I manage to keep my balance and finally get him to the sofa and throw him down onto it. I leap onto his lap and hold his resisting body down. “You have to get out of this delusion, Justin! You have to or I’m not going to have any choice. I’ll make you leave here! I’ll put you into treatment!”

“No! You can’t! You can’t! You promised me, you promised me.”

“You’ll give me no choice if you fucking don’t stop this. I don’t want to do it, I don’t, but I don’t know that there is any choice unless you face this with me. Face it! Stop thinking she’s coming back! She’s not!”

He abruptly stops crying out and jerking around and looks into my eyes. I don’t know what I’m seeing in them, but they’re not as wild as they have been. “Why won’t you let me keep hoping that she’ll come back? Why is that wrong? Don’t you want her back, Brian?”

“Of course I want her back,” I say this with all the want I’ve had for her since she died. I hate that I see such a satisfied expression cross his face after he hears my answer. “If I could do something to get her back, I would do it. I’d do anything, I swear I would. But no one can do anything to make her come back. How could you believe that something so cliché as a deathbed promise would ever materialize into real life? That isn’t how shit works. You’re smart. You know what life is really like.”

“But miracles…”

“She isn’t coming back because I killed her,” I interrupt, pressing the side of my face against his. “Don’t you understand that? I killed her. She’s dead. She’s never going to be alive.”

“I killed her. If I would’ve gone to pick her up from school then I would’ve been driving a safe car and…”

“And then you might be dead too because you would’ve hit the same patch of ice and the fucking gas tank would’ve been full and probably would’ve blown up!”

“But…but…but…”

“It’s my fault. You know that.” He knows that. He’s been blaming me for years. I’m not sure why he’s denying it and trying to take responsibility for this.

“It wasn't you, it was me. I did it. I did it. You aren’t the one that was too preoccupied with work to think of her,” he cries, wrapping his arms around my back. “I did it.”

“You weren’t thinking of her?” I ask, softly sliding to the floor to extract myself from his hold. I point to the painting sitting on the easel. “You weren’t thinking of her that day?”

He turns to look where I’m pointing and I hear him suck in a deep breath. The color of his eyes change and I feel like I’m watching him morph into himself. Into Justin Taylor-Kinney.

He pulls on my arms to get me to move back up onto the couch with him, when I don’t budge he slides down onto the floor and sits on my lap. “Say you didn’t kill her, Brian! Please. Say you didn’t. You already carry the blame for too many things that you don’t deserve. Please? Please? Please?” he begs in a hoarse whisper.

“It wouldn’t be true if I said it,” I tell him confidently. This entire time we’ve been in some sort of bodily contact with one another but now it’s so much different. He feels so warm, familiar and I want to lie and tell him what he wants to hear but I can’t.

“If you love her….if you ever loved me, then you wouldn’t blame yourself for this.”

He’s crazy if he thinks saying something like that will change the truth. “I still love you and I love her but that doesn’t mean….”

“Do you love me enough to forgive me? You know it was really me. Say it. Say the truth. I’m the reason we lost our daughter. I’m the reason Arella is dead and I’m the reason that you almost died, too.”

“I won’t!”

“But it’s true!” he insists, shoving his hands into my hair. His eyes beg me to believe what he’s saying.

I want so badly to believe him. I try to force myself to believe his rationale but then something else becomes clear to me. It bombards my thoughts, refusing to dissipate into the recesses of my mind. I have to speak it, share it with him, the need is too strong to censor. “Why should either one of us get the blame for something neither one of us thinks the other caused? Why?”

“What?”

“Does it make you think she’ll come back if you feel guilty?”

“Yes,” he admits, dropping his head onto my shoulder. “It did.”

“But not anymore.” Something did happen inside of him. “You have nothing to hide behind now. If you really believed that she’d come back if you were the best fucking mourner on Earth and lived up to the rules and promises you set for yourself, you have to realize that I ruined that for you and you can’ t go back.”

“I know,” he whimpers, looking up at me

I stare into his eyes, the urge to card my hands through his hair proves irresistible, and I begin petting his head. “Do you really understand it? I thought we’d gotten through it before but you were lying to me! You were lying to everyone!”

“I didn’t want to. I swear I didn’t, but it was the only way. I just couldn’t stop hoping. I still want to hope that…”

“Stop!” I try to shout this but my voice is so hoarse it comes out as a gravely whisper. “You aren’t allowed to feel guilty. Neither am I. Those are the rules from now on, do you understand?”

He nods. “But… what if…”

“What ifs are bullshit. She isn’t fucking coming back. You saw her dead body. That wasn’t a dream. You slipped that glass slipper on her foot in the funeral home. You kissed her cold lips and I’m sorry, Price Charming, but she isn’t coming to any ball you’ve created in your head and she didn’t wake up from your kiss. She doesn’t have a fairy godmother that has the power to turn back time and change what happened. No one and nothing can make her live. So we’ll just have to try to exist with that. If you really believe I’m not to blame…”

“I do!” He presses his lips against my jaw and murmurs, “I know you’re not. I promise. I know you aren’t to blame. I didn’t mean to blame you for anything. I never really have, it was me.”

“But you aren’t to blame.” I look him directly in his dark blue eyes and say, “If you love her then you have to acknowledge every part of her life. Every fucking part of it, up until the last minute of her life, when she died. It’s fucking horrible that her death is a part of her life that we remember, but we can’t change that. No promise you ever made or tried to keep could change that. We don’t always have to remember her dying when we think of her, Justin. But she deserves to be remembered and I won’t let you keep her hidden away from me anymore.”

“God, Brian. I won’t. I won’t do that. I promise. I won’t hurt you like that anymore.”

I turn my face slightly, his soft wet lips brush against my lips and my whole body shivers as I speak against them, “I don’t want you hurting yourself anymore.”

“No more,” he speaks, his breath flooding into my mouth.

I push my lips hard against his and for the first time in over three years, the familiar heart expanding rush of need bursts from a place inside of me that only Justin can touch. I try to coax his mouth open with my tongue and I feel him shuddering against me. He gasps and I suck in his breath, use the opportunity given, and slip my tongue into his mouth. Tasting him after so long, too long, is indescribable. My shattered insides start coagulating around my heart and I feel like if I stop kissing him I’ll implode from the charge.

TBC in ch 14 part 2-->http://rhapsody-series.livejournal.com/11724.html
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