Post by Tommy Sirius on Aug 14, 2011 1:16:15 GMT -5
Three weeks, and to be honest they had felt like three years to him. Each day dragging on and on as he felt the pain digging and digging into him, inch by inch it dug deeper and bled him out further. Every passing day he sat and watched his mother sit in silence, her eyes blood shot with tragedy and a picture frame clutch in her arms as if she held her heart...and in a way she did, with the passing of his father....her husband...it was as if their life force had been ripped from them.
He sat in their large kitchen, the only light coming from a small one across the room that resided above the stove. His head sat in his hands, the house quiet. He turned, looked into the next room where his mother sat on their leather sofa...her legs curled up beneath her as she leaned against the chair arm. His fathers picture clutched in her arm as she stared out the window as if a war widow awaiting her husband to come home, and it was as if each droplet of rain the fell...only further pushed the truth to her.
He wasn't coming back....this wasn't a work.
He turned back, grabbed the small shot glass that sat in front of him and took the contents back. He welcomed the burn, and dulling of sadness it brought him. Though it was all a chemical reaction, and nowhere near what he really needed....it helped. He brought his hand up to his chin as he looked to his left at a small stack of papers, the beard that had been sprouting up over the last couple weeks was rough to his touch...though as he fumbled through the papers with his free hand...it was as if it burned him.
His mother, had yet to know these papers even existed...and to be honest, he'd rather keep it that way. The only words he had heard from her was her crying pleads and curses to god as she lay in her empty bed, and the occasion pleads to AJ to never leave her side. It was a request he had no trouble answering, he was eighteen...his parents had been together two years more then he had been alive. Despite whatever ups and downs two people have...no matter how far into the grinder the shoved one another or how high into the clouds they lifted....twenty years of having your hearts sewn together...will stay with you for the rest of your lives. Even when those stitches are abruptly ripped out.
He felts as though he could cry again, but the only liquids he had in him anymore where whiskey. Once he left the funeral, he had stayed in a drunken stupor...with the occasion sobering with fits of rage and anger...the basement...the place his father so ruthlessly trained him...was painted with that rage. Holes resided in the cinder block walls, a snapped sledgehammer by the door. The ring mat stained and ripped, broken whiskey bottles shattered around it. Trophies and championships lay scattered in the glass ruins that was a trophy case, bloody knuckles throbbing on his hands. He looked up into the near empty bottle, the fifth for the day. He caught a reflection of his blue eyes, and the longer he stared...they began to change.
His face became more and more apparent in the reflection the longer he stared, but with every shot he poured and every time he slammed the bottle back down...his reflections changed. His face seemed more weathered, scared and wrinkled. His eyes went duller and duller untill gray....and despite his depressed condition....a smile...no evil smirk spread across his face. He grabbed the bottle and tilted it back to finish it off, and as the open pointed towards his face...he heard it.
That laugh, he only heard once in his life. That laugh that erupted from his father when Kyra asked for a divorce, because he had let wrestling engulf him and change him into a monster. That laugh too came into the mouth of a whiskey bottle, and now it came back out taunting him. He gritted his teeth trying to suppress the roar as he spun around off the stool and smashed the bottle into the wall behind him. Grabbing his phone he stormed out of the kitchen, out the back door and to a bench the sat in the center of the yard. As he sat down, he fought with himself not to hit call....but he lost.
As the rain poured down on him, he lifted the phone up to his ear. The phone seemed like it run forever, and seeing as how it was two in the morning, there was plenty of reason for it too. And just before he was going to hang up, and quite possibly push end on this pain as well....the line clicked alive. The voice came very groggy, but the sweet nature still shined through.
"Uhm....hello?" she asked, only a second past...as if she pulled the phone away to look at the ID before she quickly spoke again. "AJ...is everything okay?"
Her voice seems much more aware and awake. He choked back the emotions, but quickly awnsered her.
"No...it's not Trinity..." he coughed up.
Her voice reflected memories of the last time she heard him like this, and the scars he wore that followed. "You havn't....done anything have you?"
He broke down, knowing the disappointment that would follow the answer, but lying to her wasn't an option. "Yes...I tore the dungeon apart, my hands are wrecked and I think I put another bottle through the kitchen wall."
"Baby, no....you can't do that."He broke down further, it wasn't that she said he was wrong that hurt him...but the fact that she called him baby, for the first time in a long time, that nearly made his heart implode.
"I....I...couldn't help it. I lost myself. Trinity, I don't know what to do anymore....." he pleaded out, he slid himself from the bench to the wet ground...ignoring the puddle he now sat in.
"I'm so sorry AJ, I wish I was there with you..."she said, then paused...wondering if the comment would hinder more then help.
He wanted that more then anything. Just her presence made him a better person, a better man. But the silence worried her.
"AJ, listen. You can't let all this crush you....I know it feels as though the world is against you and smashing you, and I could image the feeling would be warranted...." she said.
"I'm like him....but like he was when he lost himself." AJ interrupted, the fear ever present in his voice.
"No no no, you just lost your father...all you can see is the bad and grief right now. But I know you AJ, you have that side of your father that would fight for what he believed in and back down from no battle....not matter how vain the fight looked." she exclaimed, only taking a breath before continuing "AJ, you may have the Sirius blood running through you....but remember...you also have your mother in you...the most passionate and caring woman I've ever met. And I believe that, that part of her will balance out that part of you that scares you so much. You may have a lot of rage, and be as hard headed as they come....but you also have love and a good vision for whats actually right. And as much as I loved him too....that is the balance your father lacked."
And just like that, he could feel the calm beginning to trickle back into his body...the presence of the rain more apparent to him.
"Your going through hell right now....and I know it's scary. But remember what Aaron always told you......you are the devils own, and hell is yours to mold." she said, her words always had a way of soothing him...but rallying his spirit so much.
Quickly a chill ran over his body as the cold water seemed to drench every inch of his body...though dismissing it as the drunk haze he was in...he could swear he saw steam rising off of him.
"Go get some sleep, don't touch that damn whiskey anymore...and call Aaron in the morning...I heard about the packet they sent you." she said.
He didn't want to mention the packet, ignore it in conversation and perhaps it would go away. "Right, I'm sorry for waking you so late."
"No, don't be. Call me any time....you'll always have a friend in me...you know that." she said.
"Yeah, I know...thank you...and good night" He awnsered.
"Goodnight." Was the last thing she said before the line clicked away. Folding the phone he brought it to his lips as he looked up to the moon.
"A friend....I wish it could be more." He murmured to himself, turning back towards the house......