a Stardew Valley fan fiction: The Proper Care and Feeding of Souls

Chapter 10: Saving

thousands

of light-years away

lives a butterfly

constructed of stars

it is home

to souls

who were too bright

for our world.

- Vic Lejon

His hand whipped across her face, stinging hard, and causing her to lose her balance. She stumbled backward, the taste of blood filled her mouth. She whimpered. "Please." She pleaded. "Please." He knocked her straight to the ground. Grace fought for consciousness, her head spun and reality came in and out of focus. He crouched on top of her. Grabbing her by the hair, he pulled her face close to his. She could smell the revolting combination of his alcohol, his cologne, and his breath. His vile words whirred into her ear. She heard them over and over and over.

Grace woke herself with her own screams, her body shaking, her mind and pulse racing. She was panicking. Even now that she was awake, she was panicking. Her body trembled. It didn't even feel like it belong to her like she was somehow disconnected from it. Her wild eyes surveyed her room. All she knew was there was no place that could possibly be worse in this moment, so she threw on her sneakers and took off running into the dark.

SEBASTIAN

I don't even get life. What's the fucking point? I spent my childhood hiding from the monster who created me. With age, fear turned to rage. Man, it burns holes deep inside me sometimes. Other times, I feel nothing. Absolutely. Fucking. Nothing. So, yeah. I don't get life. What is worth this nothingness, this seething anger that I cannot control? I reached to the side table and unscrewed the lid of the pill bottle and neatly set it back in place. Last time I ended something, it was messy. This time, it'd be clean.

A loud ferocious pounding interrupted the silence. Fuck. What the hell was that? My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. Someone was pounding on the outside door that led to my room. I glanced at the clock. Who the fuck was knocking on my door at 11:43 PM? I peered out the window and saw a streak of pink in the darkness and swung the door open.

Grace's face was ghost white. She was shaking and out of breath, maybe from running, but I didn't think so. Her eyes were wild. Whatever had happened, she was terrified. Looking at her was like looking in a fucking mirror. She looked just like I felt. I didn't know what to say so I just pulled her, trembling, into my arms and held her as tightly as I could. We stood there in the middle of my dark room in our pajamas fighting back at the fucking demons who were daring to destroy us both. I don't know how long we stayed that way. Sometimes things just take however long they take.

Eventually, I felt the slightest hint of stillness between us, so I released my grip and guided Grace to sit on the edge of my bed. I handed her the glass of water from my nightstand. She closed her eyes and slowly sipped it down. When she was finished, she reached over to place it back on my nightstand, accidentally knocking over the open pill bottle. FUCK. The pills scattered across the floor and I watched with horror as easily half of them clattered through the heating vent and disappeared for good.

I'll tell you one thing. Grace had no way of knowing it, but she had just saved my fucking life.

GRACE

I felt incoherent and actually quite embarrassed to be sitting on the edge of Sebastian's bed in the middle of the night in my pajamas and sneakers. It was an impulse to come to him, my only safe person in this new town, when I fell into a full-on panic attack like I hadn't in months. Being in his presence, it just made me feel safe. I knew he battled dark things, too, so maybe that was part of it. He understood. But, he also just had this way of making me feel protected. No judgment. No questions. He just sat with me in the hard parts and that was what I needed.

Sebastian sat down on the other side of his bed and leaned back against the headboard, patting the space next to him. He was wearing a thin white t-shirt that revealed the tattooed sleeves his hoodie had been hiding. The shirt was just thin enough that when the light caught it, I could tell that his ink continued beneath it. I slipped off my sneakers and scooted up next to him, leaning my head on his shoulder. I could feel his rhythmic breathing as we sat together. No words.

The last six months, my body and brain constantly fought against what had happened to me. I pushed back. I shoved it down where no one could see it. I hid it in the least conspicuous places I could find, lest it be found. Curled up next to Sebastian, I could feel the reservoir of all that I had held back and pushed down, all that I had tried so desperately to escape ready to overflow. I was ready to face it, to feel it, to hold it, unafraid.

A single tear ran down my face. Sebastian did not wipe it away. He did not tell me it was okay. He did not tell me not to cry. And so, I released it all. I held it. I faced it. I felt it. Silent tears turned to sobbing into his chest. With his arm wrapped about me, he held space for me to cast my darkness out into the light of day, lessening its grip on me. Releasing it from my tightly controlled grip felt like freedom.

SEBASTIAN

People don't surprise me much. But, she does. Sometimes she looks like the fucking wind could blow too hard and knock her over. Other times, I watch her slay demons like she eats them for breakfast.

GRACE

The room was dark when I awoke. Everything was unfamiliar, but then it came back to me: the nightmare, the panic, the running away from it all, Sebastian. I looked next to me to see him fast asleep, his chest rising and falling with each breath, his large thin hand wrapped around my arm. His arm was vulnerably on display as he slept and I found myself studying his tattoos, wondering what they meant to him. On the side of his wrist protectively wrapped around my arm, I took in thin lines of neatly stacked scars.

My heart leapt in a way I hadn't expected. I realized I loved this guy, probably more than I had ever loved any man. I wasn't in love with him and I was pretty sure he wasn't in love with me either. All I did know for sure was that we needed each other and I couldn't imagine life without him.

2012

Sebastian sat quietly under the staircase balled up as tight as he could, watching his father angrily leave the house. The mark where his dad had slapped him with the barrel of the handgun stung. Hearing the truck engine roar away, Sebastian crept out of his hiding spot. He could hear his mom crying in the bathroom. At least that meant she was alive. When Sebastian heard the gunshot, he had not been so sure. Sebastian crept noiselessly through the kitchen to grab a bag of frozen peas for his face. He could feel it swelling, and the bigger it got, the worse it stung. That's when he saw it. The handgun his dad waived recklessly at his mom. The handgun he'd swung across Sebastian's face. The handgun he'd fired after Sebastian ran to hide. It was laying on the kitchen table right in front of him.

oh but that's the irony,

broken people

are not fragile.

- Clinton Sammy Jr

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MY OWN MONSTER, X AMBASSADORS