Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Elias
My mother was buzzing around the oven like an unsettled bee. She was normally very erratic during dinner time, but this was odd. She’d acted this way since she’d been on the phone with my sister.
“Ma, What can I do to help? Is everything okay?
I was starting to worry. Genuinely, my mother looked panicked. Her gray hair was standing straight up like a cockatoo from all her bending, moving, and creating recipes.
“No, no, no! You stay put. This is a dinner for you! You are the guest, too. You don’t put a guest to work. No, no, no.”
Her sing-song tone only worried me more. I stood, walking over to reach for her.
“Mom, please let me help. I can still be a guest, but you are clearly struggling with…just let me help.”
My mother whacked me with a dish towel and ushered me back to the table. I sighed, turning my back and allowing her to lead me.
“You work so hard, Elias. Let someone else work for you. You are my child. My beautiful child of God. Let your mama do her duties, too, okay?”
I sighed, running my hands through my hair and accepting this was her ritual. I could appreciate that. I had my daily rituals, too. Things I did that felt so routine that losing even a day without them was a discomfort.
I kept my mouth shut, watching her flitter about the kitchen. The smell of burnt meat permeated around the room, but I didn’t dare mention anything after her love-tap with the towel.
I focused on the icy coating over the window frames.
It was winter in Utah, which meant the frost was a consistent companion to the wind hurting your face by simply existing.
Despite the frigid chill in the air, my father still managed to down the buck burning in the oven. Ronan and I used to go hunting as kids. He didn’t have a father figure, so my dad practically raised him.
My dad did not know how deeply Ronan ran in my blood.
I would never have the courage to tell my family. They asked me for years why Ronan had disappeared, and when he moved away, I couldn’t handle their constant questioning.
I had decreased my time at home more and more until I found myself at Father Franklin’s doorstep on the most pathetic night of my life.
* * *
The bitch under me felt as dry as the alcohol traveling down my throat. Despite that, I fucked her harder, trying to get some semblance of an orgasm.
Was sex ever pleasurable?
It just felt…empty to me.
No matter how high, drunk, or sober I was.
Nothing was like Ronan. I knew I was going to live my entire life trying to feel a single spark that his kiss ignited inside me.
“Oh fuck! Yes, Daddy. Fuck me. Yes. ohhhh, yes.”
I shoved the woman’s head down onto the concrete, not wanting to see her and being too off balance from all the drinking.
“Oh, you are a god!” she continued to squeal, her glassy eyes leaning back to stare at me. She looked like a creepy circus clown, and adding in a hard shot of nausea was a baaaad combo.
“I think I’m gonna ? —”
Too late.
The girl shrieked, jerking away from me and slapping me so hard across the face that I fell onto the ground she was bent over just moments ago.
My dick scraped against the sidewalk, and I hissed, instantly deflated.
“What the fuck bitch?” I slurred, trying to stand up and falling like a damn baby giraffe back to the ground.
My world spun, the night stars dancing in my vision above my body.
“Oh, pretty,” I said, coughing from the vomit that still burned in my raw throat.
I needed more alcohol.
Rolling over, I began to crawl and took an army-like stance toward the road. It was pouring rain now, and the bitch had run off.
She’d taken my car.
Guess puking on someone during sex wasn’t exactly forgivable, so I accepted that.
When I got onto the road, the unforgiving asphalt burned my knees and palms. I was close. There was a liquor store a few blocks down the road.
Once I got away from the park, I kept crawling over that way. Eventually, I would find it. I’d probably be sobered up by then, so it would be a good time to get drunk again.
The perfect recycling.
“Watch out!”
A blinding light soared toward me, and I screamed, shielding my head and dropping to the street.
The car veered off the road and slammed into a tree like a moving freight train.
“Oh fuck!” I pulled myself onto my feet.
I was wobbling so much and could barely see straight, but I made it to the crashed vehicle. A woman was behind the wheel. She’d passed out, and her head was bleeding from a huge gash on her forehead. Blood was pooling into her eyes and onto the broken airbag.
“Oh, fuck. Oh, god. Geez-us. Fuck!” I said, pacing around the car, trying desperately to focus and searching for headlights from other vehicles.
We needed help, but we were alone. I smacked my pockets, realizing I’d left my phone in my car.
I didn’t have anything.
This lady was stuck with me and had no way of getting help. I smashed the shit out of my face, trying to sober the fuck up enough to help the woman.
“It’s okay. I got you. You’re okay. I’m Elias. You’re gonna be okay, ma’am. What is your name?”
The woman woke up slowly, instantly turning into a panicked screaming mess.
I didn’t know much about medical shit, but flailing around when you just ate a tree with your car definitely didn’t seem right.
“Ma’am, please calm down. You just had an accident. You can’t be smashing your head around like this!”
The lady smacked me, rage and pain etched in her features. “I crashed because of you, asshole! Why were you in the middle of the street at night?”
I swallowed, not even comprehending that.
“I…”I said, unable to form words. I fell onto my ass, wondering how Ronan would handle this situation.
He was always smart in emergencies.
I’d lost count of the number of times he bandaged his mom up from his abusive asshole stepfather or plucked splinters from my hands as kids.
Ronan was who this girl needed, not me.
No one needed me.
She needed Ronan…and I did too.
“Im fucking sorry,” I said, sobbing like a bitch on the ground in the pouring rain.
I was half naked, drunk off my ass, covered in vomit and still residually high. The woman stopped screaming and fear shot through me like a bullet. The silence stretched and I cursed.
“Fuck! No, no, no. Please, God. I don’t know what I’m doing. Help me, please. No…fuck. Just help her. I can’t be the reason someone dies. I can’t please.”
As if my broken prayer truly was heard, headlights blinded me and a big truck stopped beside us. A man got out of his vehicle. He was no nonsense, walking straight over to the lady and opening the door, reaching forward to stabilize her neck.
“Get my phone and call nine-one-one,” he said, not leaving room for any responses.
I fumbled to my feet, reaching into his pocket and dialing the emergency line as soon as his phone was in my grip.
The adrenaline crash and panic set in, making me shake. The man shucked off his jacket and handed it to me, all while keeping her head steady. I took it with trembling hands, unable to keep my tears at bay.
“Dammit. I am so fucking sorry,” I mumbled through chattering teeth.
The man looked over at me, and I felt the weight of the world upon meeting his gaze.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful. He will forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” he said, and I cried harder.
I knew the verse.
My parents were always religious, and I was not immune to the church. I refused to go. I didn’t want anything to do with the hypocrites of my town.
I was a man that fucked other men, so I didn’t belong in a church.
Hell, my very heart belonged to a man—granted, one that didn’t want me, broke my soul, and moved away—but still, I would always love him. I could not escape the hold of Ronan Saint Clare.
The ambulance sirens were like heavens bells or some shit and the rain let up while they came to collect the woman.
I couldn’t look at anyone.
I snuck away while the team performed magic, packing up the female and taking her away. I stayed in the safety of darkness watching even long after the tow truck came to get the totalled car.
I didn’t truly step out again until everything was quiet. There were no cars left. Just broken tree bark and randomly scattered plastic to show that the accident had occurred at all.
“I’m sorry,” I said, placing my hand on the tree trunk and seeing the oozing amber of the deep grooves made from the impact of the car.
Even trees could bleed.
As I walked away to slink back to my dealer, ready to get high and forget this shit, I stepped onto a piece of slick paper.
Confused, I picked it up off the ground and wiped it off.
It was a business card from the chapel. Oh shit, it was that man’s card who’d saved us after the accident. His jacket was still on my shoulders, and I figured it was only right to return it.
Of course, the man had been ‘one with God.’
His presence alone was intense.
Sighing, I walked the way to the damn church, so tired I couldn’t even see straight. The steps of the chapel looked so inviting. So un judgmental, and peaceful. I laid down, just for a minute, to catch my breath and regain some energy to make it the rest of the way up to the building. It was probably closed anyway.
Churches didn’t stay open all night, did they?
I closed my eyes. Ronan was there behind my eyelids, haunting my memories and sinking deep into my dreams like he always had, but there was something different about him. He looked…happy.
I held onto his smile, letting that warmth infuse my body and protect me from the night’s events. Finally, allowing myself to sleep.
* * *
The jingle of the door opening broke my attention from the window and my thoughts. My sister walked inside the room. I stood up to greet her, jarred by memories of the past, but then the biggest pain of those memories was standing behind her…Ronan.