Where We Left Off

by J. Alex Blane

  She was digging an even deeper hole with everything she said. Nothing was coming out sympathetic or with the slightest hint of empathy, as she’d meant.

  “What I’m trying to say is, until you forgive him, until you are able to move past what he did to you by no longer feeding it with hate and painful memories, you limit yourself from being who you really are or who you could become.”

  Sydney pressed her hand on his chest over Mason’s heart, hoping he’d finally see the sincerity of her words.

  He laughed, tilting his head in dismay. He moved her hands from his chest and backed away with a look of resentment. “You are all the same. So…I guess forgiveness just makes it all go away, right? Make it all seem like it never happened, make me a better, stronger person, right?” His tone was filled with sarcasm.

  “No. It won’t make it all go away, or make it seem like it never happened, but it’s a start. A start at –”

  “You know what ….just stop. I don’t know why I said anything to you at all,” he shook his head. “I trusted you enough to share something with you that I thought…you know what, forget it.”

  “Mason, you can trust me.”

  “Can I? Of everything I said, your big idea is to pretend like it never happened. What is that, Sydney?”

  “Mason, that’s not what I was saying at all.”

  “Well, you said more than enough,” he added as he prepared to walk out. “Understand one thing, Sydney, and make sure the Christian, ‘God forgives all’ side of you gets this: I. WILL. NEVER. FORGIVE. THAT. MAN. And the day his body burns in Hell, I’ll be there to light the match. And if that affects us, this, whatever this is, that we having going on, I guess you have a decision to make.”

  He stormed past her, making his way to the door. Sydney wasn’t going to let him leave, though, not like that. All she wanted to do was help, and from where she stood she was doing more damage than good. She didn’t know what to say in a situation like this. Is there ever really a right thing to say…or do? At the very least she, just wanted him to face it head on. Maybe then he could, Í don’t know, she thought, move past it. Mason reached for the door but she yelled out, pulling his attention back.

  He opened the door to leave.

  “Mason, you can’t keep running from this!” she yelled.

  “’I’m not running!” His voice was thunderous, slamming the door back closed still inside the room. “So what are you, judge and jury now?”

  “No, of course not,” she nervously exclaimed.

  “I guess you think I’m too weak to deal with it then, right?”

  “No, Mason,” Sydney shook her head, trying to calm him down, “I never said that.”

  “You seriously don’t get it! You don’t know what it is like to go through life not knowing if something as simple as a hug or a brush of the shoulder was right or wrong, not knowing if you are…. gay… because of what a man someone who was supposed to be a father to you did to you, or if you are straight because, after all, you didn’t have a choice. I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t that, that I wasn’t what he made me. I forced myself to become everything that I never intended. I slept with every woman I wanted to hundreds just to prove to myself that I didn’t like what he did to me. I made sure I never gave anyone enough of me to know me, or to love me, because that’s when they take everything. But then you come along,” he shook his head. “I willingly lost myself and who I had become, who I was before you, just so I could feel for you what I’d never felt before, and I actually liked it. But all you see in this is ‘forgive and forget’. I can’t forget it, Sydney. I am reminded every single day when I look in the mirror that everything that should have made me who I am was taken from me.”

  She stood at a loss for words, but wanted so badly to say something, to respond somehow.

  He made his way back to the door without looking back, “Please Sydney…don’t bother saying anything else.”

  The door slowly closed behind him.

  Chapter 32

  “A little early for the hard stuff, isn’t it,” the bartender insisted.

  “You’re open, aren’t you?” Mason asked, arrogantly slamming down his credit card.

  He pointed to the top shelf and told the bartender to keep them coming. Wiping the bar top down with a white linen cloth, the bartender slid a glass towards him on a coaster and filled it with his best vodka. Mason drank it down faster than water, slamming the glass down for another. Of all the places he could have gone when he left Sydney, he had ended up in a bar, one of the only ones in the city open that early. Even in the day the décor inside was dark enough to resemble night.

  Mason felt humiliated. Remaining silent all of those years, he’d avoided the embarrassment, the skepticism, or the judgment of anyone. To take a chance with someone and in return feel everything once was far more than he had expected. Looks of concern, maybe, but not this, not the way Sydney responded. Staring into the bottom of his glass watching his drink disappear and be refilled, Mason hated the feeling having to defend himself against what happened to him, as if he were the one at fault. He was angry at just about everything Sydney said. He was angry at himself for believing he could trust her enough to tell her. ‘Forgive him,’ he angrily remembered her saying. The idea was no more a question in his mind than a mockery of her words.

  Time seemed to disappear behind the once-filled glass he could barely keep a grip on. It wasn’t hard to notice that he had been there a lot longer than most. His posture was slumped and his speech was slurred. People had come and gone, each making no attempt to converse with the guy at the end of the bar who reeked of alcohol and sweat.

  “Mr. Everett, would you like me to call someone?” the bartender asked.

  He had a tab set up from the time he walked in, and was already well past a few hundred dollars.

  “Jimmy… that is your name, right? Listen…there’s no one to call.” Mason’s speech was slow and drowsy.

  “Sir, I’m going to have to cut you off. We can’t serve you anymore alcohol right now.”

  Mason looked around and noticed some of the guests staring and whispering to each other. “You …have V-I-P rooms, right?”

  Frustrated and annoyed, the bartender responded, “Yes we do, sir. The rates are fifteen hundred dollars and up with a thirty percent gratuity.”

  Mason squinted as if to make sure he was talking to one person and not two. “You know my name….put… it tab…on me.”

  He could barely speak, let alone hold another drink, so he slid off the bench and picked up his suit jacket, which had fallen on the floor beside him. Jimmy led him into one of their private VIP rooms and sat him down. Before Jimmy could ask if there was anything else he needed, Mason was slouched over on one of the sofas sound asleep. Jimmy shook his head and walked out of the room.

  No one bothered him for hours as he slept. Even the bartenders, when they went to see if he needed anything, noticed Mason hadn’t moved an inch. They honestly preferred that he sleep it off and drive home sober than attempt to do so now. Not to mention, regardless of Mason ordering anything or not, he was still paying for the room.

  By the time Mason came to, he had wakened to a worse headache than he began with earlier that morning. His cell phone had completely died, and he was paying a bill for almost seventeen hundred dollars. Some of the drinks had worn off, but he was still far too intoxicated to drive home. It took him a while of searching and feeling for his keys to remember that he hadn’t driven there in the first place. He laughed when one of the bartenders walked in asking if he was ready for them to call a cab.

  The daylight was almost blinding as Mason walked outside into the afternoon sun. He gave the cab driver his address and sat in the back, shielding himself beneath his jacket. The overshadowing sun was a throbbing reminder of the night he’d had, as it pierced through his jacket.

  When he got home, Mason kicked the front door closed behind him and threw his jacket across the table, making his way upstairs. I
t wasn’t as bright inside as it was out, or as warm. The few windows that were open let a comfortable spring breeze into the house, but he was still too drunk to appreciate it. He sprawled himself across the bed and pondered in the silence that surrounded him well into the evening. How did it get this bad, he asked himself, laughing to a joke that only he heard.

  He dozed in and out of sleep, waking to the same thoughts and drifting to the same conclusions each time. He’d never really thought about what had happened between he and his stepfather beyond the fact that it had happened. It seemed like that’s all he had done for the last few months, whether he liked it or not. If it wasn’t by his own doing, something or someone stirred up a memory that he would have rather forgotten. I just wish…I should just kill him, Mason thought. Although drastic, that wasn’t the first time he’d considered it.

  Almost every day walking into his front door after school and walking out every morning, he’d thought of ways he could kill Kevin without getting caught. Mason was now at the point where the only way to pretend his stepfather never existed was to make him actually cease to exist. I wouldn’t miss him, he joked. It was obvious, seeing how Sydney had reacted, that talking about it only made things worse, and at the end of the day nothing would change the fact that it had happened, or help him forget. But one more drink just might, he said to himself, sliding out of bed and heading into the kitchen. Unlike earlier, he was now able to walk without staggering and speak without slurring. He couldn’t shake the throbbing in his head, but it started to not bother him.

  Mason pulled open the cabinet door where he kept a few bottles of Vodka and Hennessy. To his surprise, every bottle was empty. In fact, everywhere he looked in his kitchen the bottles were empty or gone altogether. Maybe this is a sign, he thought ruefully, maybe God is telling me, ‘Hey, I didn’t keep your step father from raping you but…sober minds save lives; He chuckled at his own tasteless sarcasm.

  The day was pretty ordinary, and even though he could have just sat in the house and sobered up he decided not to. Mason figured he’d head down to the shopping center to restock his shelves, and get a few more bottles of what had magically emptied themselves, he said to himself.

  The sky was lined with an orange glow as the sun began to set and the breeze was somewhat more refreshing as the sky faded into the deep tones of a day passing. It was far too nice an evening to take the truck, but it was perfect for a ride. Despite his throbbing headache Mason reached for his helmet, hopped on his motorcycle, and roared off, leaving his still opened garage and his development behind. The rolling roar of his loud pipes lingered long after he had gone as the neighbors watched him ride away.

  The shopping center was only about ten minutes east of his home, but a few minutes into the ride he decided not to stop but instead keep riding, taking in the breeze as it blew and cleared the thoughts that rattled his mind. The sounds of his motorcycle drowned out every noise that surrounded him and for a moment it felt like nothing else in the world mattered. He didn’t have to think about Sydney, or any part of what he had told her. It was the first time that day, as he rode beneath overhead streetlights and whizzed past other cars, that he actually felt he was in control. He pulled up to a stop light at an intersection that seemed to be far less busy than usual. There were a few cars a block or two ahead of him; others were parked at the restaurant on the corner, but there wasn’t much traffic at all. His face clenched curiously at a feeling that came over him. He felt nauseated, and his stomach turned like spiraling silk. He could almost feel it in is throat, like he was about to vomit. Given the amount of alcohol he had drank, he wasn’t surprised. He’d had hangovers before, though, and this didn’t feel anything like that. He blinked, trying to clear the blur that glazed over his eyes. Looking up at the stoplight for some reason, it was hard to distinguish the red from the green or the green from the yellow. He rubbed his eyes intensely now, feeling a little drizzle hit his face. It was starting to rain and he knew that regardless of what he was feeling, he had to get home before it really started to come down. After clearing his eyes he lifted his head and, just as the light changed from red to green, stepped down into gear and pulled off, picking up speed quickly. The rain was leaving a few wet spots in the road that he knew he had to avoid as he pulled off. There was a turn ahead, one no different from any other. Still shaking the blur that had settled in his vision, he glanced to his left and then his right and leaned into the turn.

  The rain pricked his skin as cars passed beside him like the high-pitched sound of applause. Mason was lost in a moment that felt endless and another that quickly felt like it was coming to an end. His chest tightened and everything around him froze at a glance, as if movement had stopped. Then he saw it. Headlights were speeding towards him before he had any time to react. The screeching tires of the pickup truck trying to stop blended with the horn the driver was blowing, trying to get his attention, but it was too late. His vision fluttered like a shuffled deck of cards, black then white, there was a loud crash, and then silence. The last thing he saw was shards of glass flying across his face and then everything went black.

  Mason saw flashes and glimpses in and out of consciousness as he tried to catch his breath. The ringing in his ears was the only sound that remained the only sound, high pitched and piercing, that reminded him he was still alive past the feeling of his fading heartbeat as it weakly pulsed through him. His eyes blinked slowly, staring up at the stars peeking through the dark clouds as rain fell through the cracked and shattered face shield of his helmet. His body convulsed violently and his breaths grew shorter and shorter as blood filled his lungs. Rain fell on his face but he couldn’t move his hands to wipe the drops away. He wanted to get up and brush himself off, but he could move his feet to stand. His eyes raced frantically to the left and right, hoping someone would see him, would run to him and help him back up onto his motorcycle so he could get home. But there was no one, and he wasn’t getting up; he wasn’t going home. He was dying, and fear gripped him as tight as the ground that held his body to the earth as his tears blended with the rain that fell down the sides of his face. There was nothing he could do and nothing he could say. There was no one he could call and no one that would hear him even if he was able to yell for help. His life and his death flashed before his eyes, and in it he remembered something his father said to him one day in the hospital.

  “Even in death God has a plan. Whenever you feel like you are alone, or you just get scared or you feel like giving up…talk to him. I promise you, he’ll listen.”

  Mason felt his last breaths grazing his lips as his eyes searched for someone, anyone, to see him, but there was no one. His eyes fell, still staring into an endless sky in a break between the rain clouds and beyond the stars.

  His mouth barely able to form the words, he pleaded, “God…please…help me.”

  Chapter 33

  The hospital smelled like synthetic, clean death. The fluorescent lights glared against the wall art, providing little to no comfort, and were accompanied by repeats of the evening news on the televisions that always seemed to highlight someone dying or getting hurt.

  Sydney paced from one side to the other with her phone glued to her ear. Please, please answer the phone, she wished, calling Jackson for the third time. She had been trying to reach him all night, but every time she called it went straight to voicemail. She didn’t know what to do or who else to call. There was no one else. Why isn’t anyone answering? she wondered. Do they already know that something happened? If they do, why is no one here? She grew frustrated. Fingers shaking, she dialed the number to Jackson’s office, hoping he’d be there. By the fourth ring she began to slowly move the phone from her ear, but her attention was grabbed by a rumbling in the receiver.

  His voice was rushed as he answered, “J.D. Everett, this is Jackson.”

  Sydney’s face filled with tears as if she were waiting to hear a familiar voice to warrant her emotions. Deep gasps caught her every word as she tried to sp
eak.

  “Hello?” Jackson said again, pressing the phone to his ear trying to make out a voice.

  “Jackson, it’s Sydney…”

  His throat grew knotted at the sound of her voice. Everyone in the office had already gone for the day and he had just been preparing to leave himself. His computer was off, his briefcase was closed on the edge of the desk, and the only light that remained on in his office was the small lamp that dimly lit his desk. He was slow to sit, unprepared to hear why the tone of her voice was so low and sad.

  He leaned forward with his elbows pressed into the desk, holding the phone to his ear in one hand and his face in the other. “Is everything okay?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t.

  “No,” she answered faintly, her voice consumed by her tears, “It’s Mason.”

  She was at home when she received the call. A police officer at the scene of the accident had found Mason’s phone on the ground a few feet from where his body was lying. It had several missed calls from the same number, and an incoming call rang as he held it. It was against protocol, but for some reason he dialed the number back and Sydney answered. Excited, she thought it was Mason and didn’t give him time to speak or to simply say hello. She immediately started to apologize for their argument earlier. She went on and on, until the silence and the commotion, along with what sounded to her like the chatter of a police radio, brought her conversation to a dead stop.

  “Mason?” she had asked hesitantly.

  The officer froze, more nervous than usual, wishing he hadn’t dialed the number back. “Ma’am,” he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, this is Detective Messick with the Delaware State Police department. Are you the spouse of Mr. Everett?” he asked.

  Why would he ask her that, and why did he have Mason’s phone? She thought. The detective’s question echoed in her head as she fell to the edge of her bed, feeling the pounding of her heart rush to her head. She couldn’t say no. She knew if she did he would be reluctant to tell her anything else. Given the way he had posed the question, she knew something was wrong. Something terrible had happened.