Chapter 52
The sound of the gunshot still echoed in my chest the closer I walked to the gravesite of Elias.
A familiar body slumped against Elias’s grave, his blood coating the grooves of his lover’s name. My hands went cold before I even reached him.
“No…god dammit, son.” The word cracked out of me, ragged and broken, because it wasn’t just shock. It was guilt and so much damn pain.
I dropped to my knees beside him, trembling, and my chest heaving. My fingers brushed his hair out of his face. Nothing.
Cold.
Still.
Dead.
I closed my eyes and prayed for the man beside me, not with words anyone else could hear because they weren’t neat or proper. The words were just raw, guttural pleas into the void of this fucked up world we called the living.
“God…take him…let him pass…let him find…peace.”
The words choked me, and my throat burned. My chest tightened when I opened my eyes again, and all I could see was the blood and the empty, final silence.
I can’t stand here.
I can’t…
I pulled my phone from my pocket, shaking, almost dropping it from the blood. After dialing 911, a new number popped up, one I hadn’t dialed in years.
Jerry.
I pressed the button and waited for the dial tone.
His voice was a shock, and it filled me with so much emotion that I broke all over again.
“Hey there, Priesty Pop.”
“Jerry…It’s me. Jed…” My voice was complete-gravelled-shit. “He’s…he’s gone. I don’t…he’s…”
I felt…nothing when he told me he was on his way to get me.
Relief? No.
It was like the weight pressed deeper, and the blood around me filled my lungs.
By the time Jerry arrived, I had barely moved, barely breathed, and the bustle of the emergency personnel around me became white noise.
The city passed us in gray streaks as we drove in silence.
I hadn’t seen my best friend in over twenty years. The minute my world shattered, I shut myself away in the church.
I didn’t surface for air after that, and the little boy under my care hadn’t either.
At the hospital, the machines hummed, indifferent to the sadness surrounding us. The doctor shook my hand gently but solemnly.
“He didn’t make it,” he said.
I nodded.
What else was there to say?
I knew the moment I saw him that that precious man’s soul was gone.
He was somewhere far away, hopefully with his love, Elias.
The grief didn’t stop just in my chest. It was settled deep in my bones.
I failed Elias when Jack got too close, and now, despite my best efforts for months to bring his beloved some light…
He was gone, too.
Every prayer I’d said for years…they all coiled around me like a snake.
I had worn these robes for over forty years. I had never taken another person’s body since the night Sayuri gifted me hers.
Every year I’d lived as an honorable priest.
But it was a lie.
I didn’t believe in a merciful god, a vengeful god, yes. I stayed the hope of the town because, though God didn’t exist, the hope did. Sometimes that was all we had.
False prophet…
Jerry placed a hand on my shoulder, knocking me from my dark thoughts. “It was good…to hear from you, Jed. Thank you for telling me about him. He’s always been like a son to me…I feel like I’ve lost them both now.”
A tear slipped from Jerry’s cheek, and my guilt simmered in my black heart.
“I’d tell you they’re in a better place, Jer…”
Jerry waved me away. “Nah. Don’t do that shit if you’re here. I want the real Jedidiah. Not the priest, okay?”
I swallowed and nodded.
“Okay…”
The problem was…I didn’t know how to be anything but the priest now.
My identity had completely warped and molded into the lie I’d forced myself to live. The Black Onyx never came for me, and I knew why.
They wanted me alive.
But every time I held a gun in my hand, ready to end it, I thought about the blond-haired little boy who would be left behind, and I couldn’t do it.
I had letters still written. So many letters over so many years, stating that parental rights go to Jerry for Jujiro, expressing my guilt and shame. I went from angry to desperate to dangerous.
Nothing worked.
The gang might never come back for me, but they killed my soul when they took her.
“I will see you around, Jerry. We can catch up sometime.”
Jerry smiled sadly and waved. “Yeah, Jed. Take care.”
I left him behind and walked through the fluorescently lit corridors with my head heavy and my heart like concrete.
I wandered the hospital’s wings, defeated and lost. Every face was a familiar blur, and each voice greeting me sounded too distant.
When I finally reached the room, I opened the door, and I saw him.
A figure.
Sitting by the bed, soft music was playing.
His blond hair was visible before the rest of him, and just as before, my heart squeezed when he looked at me with those dark, beautiful eyes.
It was a mirror to hers.
And though hers remain closed as they have all these years, the pain that his presence brings me was just as deep now as the last time I saw him when he left Monticello for his big, stupid dreams.
It was an excuse.
We both knew it, but I couldn’t hold him back when I wasn’t able to give him any kind of animation. He needed the world.
So much of his life was stolen, and for years, I kept him hidden away from everyone, afraid they’d come for him and take the last thing I had of her.
“Jujiro,” I said, walking closer to him.
He turned, and his usual scowl when he saw me replaced the smile he had for her.
“Jedidiah. How many times do I have to tell you? That name belongs to her. The woman on this damn bed you got killed.”
I sighed and shook my head. “She’s not dead.”
I told myself this every day. But…
“You think machines keeping her breathing is living? Keep telling yourself that to make it all better, but you killed her. She’s gone because of you!”
I tried to compose myself and look my son in the face.
“Ju—”
“I’m not Jujiro! I haven’t been for a long fucking time.” I sighed and leaned against the wall.
My body felt weak from the day’s events, and this was breaking me further.
“Fine,” I said slowly. “Why are you here, Travis? When did you leave Vegas?”
My son glared at me, his unusual clothing glittered in the light, and he shook his head.
“Ya know what? I don’t fucking know. Goodbye, Jed.”
The boy I raised walked away. All the injuries I healed throughout his life, from scrapes on his knees, bumps on his head, and tears on his cheeks…
None of it mattered when I was the reason his mother was nothing more than a ghost.
“I’m sorry, Sayuri,” I whispered, walking to her bedside and laying a kiss on her forehead.
Her body didn’t move. The machines remained a steady beep, and her chest rose and fell.
She was alive.
But she was gone. I should have killed myself with that damn gun when I had the chance. A conversation from the past flittered in my mind, and I sighed.
“You know what, Mortifera? I think I have the answer. You asked me a long time ago why Adam ate that damn apple knowing he’d go to hell, even if it was Eve that gave it to him.”
I smiled, recalling her smile and surprise.
“Living is true hell, baby. I breathe in this world with a black heart and a shattered soul. But I do it for you. Adam knew he was going to hell, but being without Eve would have been worse.”
I held her hand in mine and let the tears fall.
“Every day I will make the same choice, Sayuri. You and Jujiro are my only reason to be here anymore.” I prayed silently so she could hear me one last time as I lay my head on her chest and listened to her heart beat.
“I choose hell…because you are my heaven.”
The End.