It's the Mess That Feels So Right...

It was Caleb who found me.

After I'd started running, there was no way I could stop. I needed to run until I was so dizzy from lack of oxygen I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t want to think at all. I ran all the way through the city until I hit the water’s edge and couldn’t go any further. I turned and continued to run along straight, back around the city and back towards Caleb’s suburb.

By then, it was so dark I could barely see in front of me and my entire body ached to stop, but I didn’t want to. Finally I let myself collapse near the swing set I had visited only two days ago, back when my troubles seemed so problematic, but they were miniscule compared to what I had to face now.

The grass was wet where I fell but I didn’t care, I didn’t have the energy. I could only just manage to curl up, and then the tears came. Running over the bridge of my nose and sliding down into the dewy grass, my throat caught in raw sobs, I saw him.

He hadn’t seen me yet, and he looked worried. A tiny wave of warmth crashed over me for this angel-like best friend, but part of me wanted to shy away, I didn’t want him to see me so absolutely destroyed.

I thought that maybe I could have loved Gabe a little more than I should have. That would have explained so much, why his kiss had been more explosive than any of William’s, why it hurt so much to be away from him, but I couldn’t have been sure. I thought maybe if I said it to his face that it could make the feeling a little clearer, to see if I was right. Instead, all I found out was that for part of my life, I had been living in a lie and the person I thought I could have trusted with anything, betrayed me worse than I thought possible.

I choked back another set of tears, causing Caleb to look across the silhouette park and see me huddled into myself. Everything after that came to me in flashes.

Caleb running towards me, saying my name like some sort of lullaby. Caleb scooping me up and stumbling home, calling for Cassandra. Cassandra wrapping me up tight in a sea of blankets and ordering Caleb to take me upstairs. Gently being placed on the familiar bed. Feeling my eyes drop, pushed down by the weight of exhaustion as Caleb placed an arm around me. That comforting numb feeling creepy over every nerve.

Hours later, dawn not quite accomplished, I gasped awake to find myself swamped in blankets. My mind damp with sleep, I began kicking around, my arms everywhere as I tried to rid myself of the suffocating layers.

The fear of feeling trapped overflowed my thoughts, and through my sleepy haze, I began to scream, loud enough to pierce my own ears and feel the sensation of my lungs being ripped apart. I thrashed around, not caring who I woke up or what I hit in the middle of my fit, not hearing the door being thrown open and arms circling my waist as I was pulled from my nightmare. Even then, I couldn’t settle down and my anger overtook every thought I could process.

“He killed him! He bloody killed him and he got away with it! Those fucking lying bastards! They both knew, they knew and they never told me! I hate them! I hate him!” I yelled into the darkness, my vicious babble causing my captor to hold me to them tighter and try and shush me unsuccessfully. I started flinging myself around in their arms, trying to free myself until I finally managed to tire myself out, and falling limp against the warm body.

Looking through blurry eyes, I watched Caleb look back at me in fear, and then he slid to the ground as the silence - now empty of the shouts - consumed us both. We both sat on the cold wooden floor, our backs propped up against the bed, my skin covered in sweat and my lungs processing air quickly.

Caleb was quick to pull me against him, in case I tried to hurt myself any further as I tried to hide in his shoulder. He didn’t seem to push for a reason as to why I had been in the park, shattered, or what had caused my breakdown. Instead, he rubbed circles onto the back of my shirt, the friction of the material on my skin making me drowsy.

I hiccuped softly, before looking up. “Caleb?”

He looked down at me with a comforting smile. “Yeah, baby Bee?”

“William knows.”

“He knows about you and Gabe?” Caleb asked quickly, looking worried.

I sniffed quietly. “Yes. And it was Gabriel who was responsible for Ben’s death.”

“What?” Caleb yelled, and then apologized for his outburst. I couldn’t help myself, the tears flowed faster now that I said it out loud, and it hurt worse than I ever thought it could.

Through hiccups and tears, I managed to grate out the few sentences that cut into me, pain seeping through. “G-Gabriel convinced Ben to drive... under the influence...they crashed...Gabriel got away.”

Caleb pulled me closer to him, my head fitting in under his chin as he muttered soothing words, but I could feel the shock of this new information in his movements.

“It hurts so much, Cay,” I cried into his neck, his skin wet with my grief.

“I know Bee, I know,” He replied soothingly, for lack of anything else to say.

“I...I need to g-go...” I whispered suddenly, pulling away from Caleb, my thoughts buzzing with a sudden need. Caleb stood up with me and watched me with confusion as I found something warm to throw over my attire.

“Bee, what are you doing? Where are you going?”

“I need to... I have to go to... I’m going to visit... Ben...” My sentences came out broken, my mind not fully awake as I searched around the room for shoes before heading down the stairs, Caleb in tow. Caleb quickly exchanged words with Cassandra that I didn’t quite catch, and then followed me out the door and into the gray dawn that was vastly growing.

“Bee, are you sure? You don’t have to go just because-“

“I want to go,” I muttered in determination. I hadn’t been to the cemetery since the day they buried my brother into that hole, and I had never wanted to go again. In my mind, they hadn’t been my family; it was just their remains, rotting into dust and then nothing. Caleb knew this, which was way he was so wary about my sudden need to go, and silently walked right behind me the whole way there.

It was so eerie when my footsteps lead me into the graveyard that my mind was having second thoughts, but with Caleb behind me, I couldn’t turn back. I was stubborn and didn’t want to back down. I collapsed to my knees next to my brother’s gravestone, tears dribbling pathetically down my flushed cheeks, my shaky fingers tracing the engraved letters with care, like a spell. I wanted so badly to have him back. To have my whole family back. I was tired of being so alone.

Caleb stayed with me. He watched me mumble prayers and poems and memories to the ground that was above my brother’s casket, along with other things I imagined my brother would have liked to hear. He watched me lie down on the long grass and curl up, just like I had been when he found me, and watched me drift in and out of sleep, but he didn’t want to say anything to break me from this reverie.

The only thing he did for me that morning, the only thing I could have ever asked for him to do for me, was lie beside me, keeping me warm and just staying with me. No words had to be exchanged as we both huddled under my grief; he just knew that I needed to feel together and he seemed to be the only thing keeping me in place.