Page 28 of Written in Sin
Chapter Twenty-Four
Istare out of the windows, watching the same trees pass by as I did every Wednesday and Sunday on our way to church. Harold is driving, Zed is in the passenger seat, and Fenris sits beside me. I haven’t said a word the entire drive, even though my mind is full of them. All of the words that never mattered. All the words I couldn’t say. The words they refused to listen to.
I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom. It’s surreal watching your parents change. To not know who or what they are. The eyes I used to look into before falling asleep as a little girl are gone, now they just look at me like I’m a problem. A problem that doesn’t belong in the life they created. The arms folded across Dad’s chest can’t be the same ones that carried me to bed. The ones I felt safe in. I can’t make the pieces fit. These people feel manufactured. Once you stop fitting the mold of whatever their favorite politician or preacher tells them everyone should fit into, you stop being their daughter and become their target.
Because I treat people the way they taught me to in Sunday School? There isn’t a national day for people lost to religion on the calendar. Maybe it’s by our parents’ hands, or our own.Maybe the youth pastor touches you, and no one believes you. Maybe there’s a bill passed or one overturned that is the final nail in your coffin. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does when they have the perfect conclusion—it is the devil. I guess he works in mysterious ways, just like god. There’s no purity in surviving this. If you get out, you will have scars, rage. There will be stains from the fight it took to leave. Your salvation from the church won’t be clean.
I hear gravel slinging underneath the car and know we’ve arrived at Crossroads. I scan the parking lot, thankful it doesn’t look like anyone is here yet.
Harold’s door opens and shuts before I realize I should be getting out too, but I’m not given any time to use the door handle this van surprisingly has, before Zed opens my door, helping me out. I look down at my black flats that are now covered in a light gray film from the dust.
“Are you okay?” Zed asks. I know I’ve been much quieter than he’d hoped, but I’m not sure what to say. One minute I’m angry at them and the next I’m angry at myself.
“I think so,” I manage to say. “It’s just confusing, you know?”
He nods. “I do.”
His hand is warm when he slips his into mine, it feels good around my cold fingers. My ears and cheeks are the only places on my body that feel like they’re boiling. It isn’t because he’s touching me, his touch is the only thing I want anymore. It’s because of Fenris.
I look at him and see his eyes burning a hole through Zed. I nudge his arm with mine, not bothering to let go of his hand and whisper, “Fenris…”
“Fuck him.” He smiles at me and I can’t help but smile back.
I opted out of a wake. That was really the only input I was dead set on. I probably have an hour alone before others start showing up. I’ve already made it a point to tell the three ofthem, Zed, Fenris, and Harold, that I do not want to stick around afterwards. I never thought I’d be looking forward to going back to The Collective.
I walk over to Mom first and remember one of the times she ran into the grocery store after church, leaving Dad and me to wait in the car. When we saw her walk through the sliding doors, he said,“You sure do have a pretty momma.”I did—she was pretty. I look down at her face and over her jet-black hair. The natural curls frame her face like normal; it just looks like she’s sleeping.
Her autopsy report had blunt force trauma and internal bleeding listed as her cause of death. Multiple rib fractures, internal organ damage—punctured lungs, a ruptured spleen—were among her injuries. I stare at her, trailing my eyes over her face, trying to memorize her features, her thick eyebrows and round face. Tears sting my eyes so I squeeze them shut. I really don’t want to cry.
I turn around and focus on a breathing exercise. My chest expands as I inhale and hold it in, counting one, two, three, four, five, six. When I hit seven, I let myself exhale.
Looking over my shoulder, my eyes land on Dad. I walk to the pew in front of him and sit, instead of walking over to him. I know he had a little bit more damage so I think I’ll just keep my distance. I look up at his side profile, and it just looks like Dad.
His report was harder to read. His cause of death was blunt force trauma, massive internal bleeding, and a traumatic brain injury. The car’s impact with the tree caused his head to whip forward before snapping back, fracturing his cervical spine.
His chest connected with the steering wheel, breaking his ribs that then punctured his lungs. The lower half of his body was pinned in, crushing both of his legs.
I can’t help but wonder if he had died differently, if he had seen it coming, would I have been left with anything? Deathcan change people. It doesn’t always, but it can. Deathbed confessions are made all the time, maybe there’s such a thing as deathbed apologies.
“You know, there isn’t anything to accept. I had to let go of the hopes of having a dad who was proud of me years ago. Around the same time I watched the man I knew turn into someone I didn’t.” I say the words I need to say while staring down at the burgundy colored carpet. I zone in on a stain that’s probably been there for longer than I’ve been alive. “Not that you would ever ask for my forgiveness…” My laugh is short and bitter, as if an apology wouldn’t have even been an option, and I know that.
“You gave me to a man, to a place that was determined to break me down. That was his one goal, but I’m sure you knew that. I’m sure you hoped he could,” I spit out the words like they’re daggers, like they have the ability to land anywhere except the empty air of this room.
I wipe the snot pooling under my nose. “You know, Dad, the thing about trapping someone is that eventually they’ll learn to stop fighting the walls that surround them, and start studying them.”
“And while Fenris’ walls were something I didn’t even expect, they really were the same fucking walls. Their foundation’s the same. Built by the same carpenter.”
Tears fall over my lashes, but I don’t stop them. I just let them fall, not even bothering to wipe them away knowing they’ll leave red streaks. I just stare at him, this man that wanted me at one time. Letting my body react, letting it all spill out without choking it down is soothing. “I don’t know what happens after we die. Maybe you did make it to the pearly gates, or maybe it’s just pitch black. If reincarnation is real, then I really hope the universe figures it out better next time. For your kid’s sake.” Afigure walking up on me to my right makes me jump, but I relax when I see it’s Zed.
“Here.”
He holds up a tissue, and I take it and attempt to wipe the caked up mascara from my eyes.
“Can you tell I’ve been crying?” The pew creaks as he sits beside me.
“Absolutely.”
I lean into him before using the last clean section of the tissue. “Is it almost time?”
