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Anything but FIne
Dominic
My fingers traced our names carved into the old wood table as the sky lit up above me again.
For nearly twenty years, I came here anytime life got too hard to deal with. And right then, I needed a time out from my troubles more than I had in a long-ass time.
How quickly my brain went from being happy to ready to toss myself into the river was terrifying. But when Faith came through the bushes when the sky let loose on us, I was a superhero again.
From the second she caught my sweatshirt on the first day of school until this day, my entire universe revolved around her. Keeping her safe and with me was all I cared about. Jumping from the table, I ran to her, pulling her into my chest as I turned her back toward the trail. “What the hell are you doing out here?”
The faraway wail of the storm alarm whistled at us as she pawed at my clothes and checked me over. “Are you okay?” Shaking me as I walked her backward, she fought me every step of the way as I tried to keep her dry when the raindrops started pelting us. “What the hell’s going on, Dom?”
Though it was too thin and wet now to do her any good, I peeled my flannel off to cover her as best I could. Pushing the branches away as we squeezed through the path, I tried to yell back at her through the creaking trees. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
Letting loose finally, the rain beat at us from all directions, canceling out anything else she tried to say to me.
The world around us hid behind sheets of white water, making us fall over the rope gate we couldn’t see until it was too late. The storm’s pressure held us down with such force I could barely even keep her in my arms when I lifted Faith from the ground again.
A vacuum held my door in place, every muscle in my body straining to open it and shove her inside. “Are you crazy?”
As soon as I started the engine, I turned the heat up as she huddled against herself, her teeth chattering behind every sob and sniffle. “You left me and didn’t tell me where you were going. What did you expect me to do?”
I just stared at her for a second, wanting to throw that back in her face just a little, but that piece of my mind that was still thinking clearly understood it was only the medication withdrawal talking. So I pulled her to me instead, rubbing my hands over her back as the howling wind rocked us. “Baby, I just wanted to be alone for a while. You should’ve gone home.”
Putting her hands on my cheeks, she brushed her nose over me. “You can’t unload all this stuff on me and expect me not to react. You told me you were sick, and then you told me not to worry. How am I supposed to not worry when you take off like this?” Her eyes flipped over to the windshield and the nothing we could see beyond it anymore. “For Christ’s sake, Dom. Look where we are.”
I pulled her hands away and rubbed them between mine to warm them. “I come here when I’m stressed out, and seeing you with that asshole stresses me out. Okay? I can’t help it.”
Like I just punched her straight in the mouth, she gasped, and I put my fingers on her lips. “I’m sorry. That’s not...” Waving my hand away from her, I sighed against the back window, making it fog over. “My mother called me to stir up some shit, and I took the bait. Then, when I saw you talking to Travis, I guess I snapped.”
Her hand cupped my jaw in it, bringing me back from the happy face I made in the mist. “You have to stop living in the past. That stuff with him happened a whole other lifetime ago.” She pinned my hands against her chest. “That man has never been any threat to our relationship, and your mother’s only power over us is what you allow. You have to let this go. Look what it’s doing to you.”
“How do I do that?” Tears spilled from my eyes, and I blinked up at the ceiling, not even caring to stop them. “Everyone is always telling me to let shit go, but I don’t understand what that means.”
Turning away from her to find the courage to tell the truth to someone at last, I stared out into the storm. “Right before we moved here, my doctor told my parents he thought I was entering a major depressive episode and needed some time in the hospital. But Mom...” My thumb beat on the steering wheel. “She said I didn’t need pills or therapy. I just needed to have more faith and go to church more, and my dad was too much of a fucking coward to stand up for me.”
Shaking my head at the past, I let that night watching the train at the football field replay. “I hated my life so much until you and Jason found me.”
She slid her hand over my leg, and I looked down at it. Something magical in her touch always pulled me back, no matter how far I was veering off course. “When you left, it just all” — my fingers wiggled by my head — “crashed down on me again. I knew I couldn’t go off to school like that, and I begged her to get me help. But she kept telling me I only needed to pray more, and I’d be fine.”
I tried to separate myself from that sick kid as much as possible. But every emotion was on overdrive for me those last few days without my meds, and I beat my fist at the steering wheel with every thought — so angry for him. “But I was anything but fucking fine. I was so messed up I couldn’t even function. I didn’t sleep, or bathe, or eat. I just wanted to never wake up again.”
I slid down in my seat, my eyes shifting back to the cloth roof above me, going back as far into that night as I could remember. “But Mom berated me until I came home one weekend to see her.” Gripping the steering wheel tighter, I closed my eyes, laughing. I was actually laughing as the relief washed over me that I was finally putting it out there for someone to hear. “I drove by your house instead, and as soon as I saw that tree at the playground, I just hit the gas and plowed right into that motherfucker.”
Hearing her whimper, I opened my eyes to her. I knew what I said devastated her. I knew how guilty she had to feel, and maybe I wanted her to feel it a little. “I almost died. I was in the hospital for weeks, and there was my mother every day telling me how it was all your fault.”
My thumb came off the wheel and pointed back at me. “She tried to make me hate you, Faith. Tried to make me feel like shit for wanting help. Told me I was embarrassing myself and my family.” A line of tears dripped from the corner of her eye, and I followed them with my fingertips. “But the doctor who treated me had Mom’s number. He’d come in the second she left to undo that bullshit she spent all day feeding me. He might only be a step above me for the most hated doctor ever to work there, but the man saved my life.”
Faith took everything to heart, and I wasn’t trying to put any of this on her. She was as much a victim of Mom’s cruelness as I was, and I kissed her so she’d understand that. “As soon as you hugged me at the hospital, though, I knew it was my mother’s jealousy that sent you away and almost killed me. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get over that.”
She shook her head as her eyes fell between us. “I don’t know how to help you work through this, Dom.” Laying against my shoulder as that panicked energy wore off from us both, she worked her arm around my waist. “But I’ll do it with you. Doctor’s appointments, medication, counseling, whatever you need, I’m all about it. I just want you to find some peace.”
The pea-sized hail started to blast my windshield, but not enough to drown out the ringtone from the emergency command center growing louder in the speakers. Pulling my seat belt over my lap, I put the truck in gear and turned up the windshield wipers as fast as they would go. “Buckle up, baby. They’re calling for us.”
51
The Situation
