Chapter 40 Jonah - Past
forty
Jonah - Past
FRESH WOUNDS OVER OLD SCARS.
I waited around for him to get back.
Of course I did. Where else would I have gone? I considered waking up Becca, but I didn’t want to explain what had happened, and there was nothing I wanted less than to go back to Dad’s. That left me with going to the diner, maybe, or the beach.
I’d thought about it. I’d even got dressed at one point and made it as far as the car before stalling, because what if he was in danger? What if he came home again like the last time he’d been called away from me, bloody and beaten. Who would take care of him if I wasn’t here?
He’d lied to me. Shocker. Even if I had gone to sleep, he wouldn’t have been back before I woke up. It was just after ten in the morning, and he still wasn’t back. I paced back and forth in front of the door as if waiting here would bring him home faster.
I cycled between panicked, enraged, and this other feeling from deeper inside me I didn’t know how to name.
It was both, and it was more. Bigger. Heavier.
It sat uncomfortably in my gut, clawing up the inside of my rib cage and threatening to spill free until I swallowed it back down.
Because it felt like darkness. Like destruction.
It was rising again, creeping up my chest, up my throat like it could possess me to lash out—to break things—so Dex could see with his own eyes the storm that was inside me.
Logically, I knew it was wrong, that breaking things wouldn’t change what had happened and would only make things worse for the both of us when he returned.
But still it was there, impossible to ignore.
“Fuck!” I shouted, and not for the first time since he’d left. I was thankful that the houses on either side of this one seemed empty or abandoned.
Leaving my post at the entrance, I stormed into the living room and slammed the door so hard that the wall rattled and a picture fell to the ground. The glass shattered, and the wooden frame splintered.
Fucking fuck!
Why not, then? If just existing was going to cause destruction, why not fucking lean into it?
My arm swiped out, knocking tacky trinkets from an accent table across the room as they shattered and broke as well.
I flipped over the table itself for good measure, then stood there seething, fists clenching and unclenching in the heavy silence that followed.
Panic clawed up my throat, and I tamped it down, but it was getting harder, and I knew I was getting bad again. Pride had stopped me from calling Dex when he’d already made his choice, but I needed him. I needed him even if I was pissed at him right now. It had been long enough.
I’d left my phone in the bedroom, because having it on me had only made the temptation to call him stronger, and I hadn’t been ready to give in to it yet. I was now. I pulled the door handle with as much force as I’d slammed it earlier, only this time it didn’t budge.
I tried it again, and the handle twisted, but the door didn’t open. I pulled harder, but it was like it was locked from the other side.
Clawing, slashing, scratching panic.
With both hands I jostled the handle, pulled the door with everything I had, but it was jammed. My vision blurred, and the panic blazed. Engulfed me. I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t breathe.
I took a step back, raising my leg to kick at the door. My foot made contact, and I screamed as searing pain enveloped the limb like fire.
FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.
“FUCK!” I screamed, clinging to the rage because without it there was only panic, and I was just scared and trapped in a room alone.
I put my weight on my leg, and it gave out immediately, sending me to my knees.
I screamed again. Then I was grabbing whatever was within arm’s reach just to throw it, set on taking the destruction inside me and pushing it outward.
I crawled to the dropped picture, my hands ripping apart the pieces of the still-intact frame just so I’d have more to break, more to throw.
I threw the back of the frame, hearing it smash against something else made of glass across the room. Then I went for the shards.
One piece of jagged glass thrown, and on the next I felt the sting of cold edges as it sliced into me. I hissed, watching as red beaded slowly from the break in the skin, bubbling, oozing to the surface.
For a moment, everything was quiet.
Then the sting faded, and noise was back—the thoughts, the panic, the rage, the thing inside me climbing back up. I clutched at the shard again until the pain pushed the demons away, my blood a sacrifice that appeased them.
Not enough.
Pain in my fingers. Pain in my leg.
More red. More quiet.
I didn’t think. Couldn’t.
I just wanted it to be quiet.
It was finally quiet.
Then I was done, and the panic was gone, and in the quiet it left behind, seeping out of the wounds with the red and the pain, was shame.
I curled in on myself, hugging my knees, my sleeve soaking in the red I’d caused on my leg, fresh wounds over old scars, but I didn’t care. Dex would come home, and he’d find me like this, and he would finally see that I was too much.
You’re too much.
Why can’t you be different?
Why can’t you be better?
Why can’t you make yourself smaller?
This is why they don’t love you.
This is why no one ever will.
You’re crazy. Insane. Unreasonable. Stubborn. Frustrating. Too much. Too much. Too much.
I sobbed into my arm, panic replaced by hopelessness. My anger had been loud so I hadn’t had to listen to the doubts that whispered in the silence. The fears. But it was silent now.
Why couldn’t I just be like Dex? He was in pain too, he was hurting too, but he could control it. Why can’t I control it?
I’m not good enough.
Dex would return and see that he’d been right to leave me. And the next time he left… he wouldn’t come back.
By the time I heard his bike coming down the road and into the driveway, I didn’t want to move. I didn’t have any rage left for him. All I could do was sit here and wait for him to find me. Wait for him to decide that this was it, this was too much for him.
The door opened and closed so softly that if I hadn’t been sitting in the next room over, I wouldn’t have heard it.
Maybe he was worried about what he’d be walking into and was trying to be cautious.
I heard the creak of the stairs as he climbed them, but I didn’t make a sound. Let him think I’d left.
After a minute, I heard the creaks again as he descended. Closer. Until all that remained between us was a jammed door. Only when he turned the handle, of course it opened for him.
Dex inhaled sharply, no doubt taking in the chaos I’d caused. I’d thought maybe I’d get some satisfaction from him seeing the destruction, but all I felt was more shame.
After a moment, he pushed the door open the rest of the way, and then disappeared out the way he came. I figured he’d go for the front door, but he took the stairs again. Was he waiting for me to leave now that it was open?
I didn’t have to wonder for long before his heavy footfalls bounded closer, like maybe he was taking the stairs two at a time.
Then he was back, kneeling in front of me, concern and hurt in his tired eyes as he gently pried my arms away from where they hugged my knees, getting a better look at what I’d done to myself.
Leaning forward, he placed a kiss on the top of my head, achingly soft and lingering. Then without speaking, he opened the first aid kit and got to work.