Disingenuous

27. The Step

May 26, 2018

Jackson hadn't been inside a church in a very long time. It had been so long that he genuinely worried about what would happen when he got the bravery to walk through its heavy carved wooden doors. He had a distant and delusional vision that his skin would ignite in a fiery burst. He'd melt where he stood in the foyer. God would effectively smite him down for daring to bring his sinful and tainted self into the holy structure.

He could change his name, but he was still Lemuel. He'd done those dirty blasphemous things. He'd made those choices and he didn't feel bad about them. Not in anyway that mattered to God anyways. His regrets were practical, not moral.

He was still staunchly sex positive and gay. He was thinking he might even be a little prideful in some areas if he could get past the religious trauma and guilt.

Probably, maybe.

He'd been standing outside the church for a while. Two meetings had occurred. It was past noon. He'd watched the service end and the people leave. He'd stepped away and leaned against a tree to avoid awkward post church small talk. That wasn't his goal. He wasn't entirely sure what his goal was, but it definitely wasn't that.

The morning had been long. Actually, the last 24 hours had been long. The previous night, he'd been met with an almost inconsolable version of Morgan. She'd seemed so angry and confident, but Jackson oddly wasn't surprised when she'd reduced herself to tears over her mothers treatment of her. It wasn't that Amanda had been particularly direct, but her attitude had largely insinuated a negative opinion of Morgan. Jackson had felt it, and he had felt nothing but painful empathy in response. Morgan was hurting. There was no version of this where she wasn't. Jackson had felt all the same things at another time, so when she broke down, he let her. She sobbed into his arms and apologized for what had happened, and he consoled her and promised to do whatever it was she needed him to do to.

He loved her. He said it to her face because he couldn't remember what the words even sounded like coming from his own father. She just cried harder.

That morning she asked him to never speak of it. He hadn't seen her cry. He hadn't seen a single thing.

She had notably went back to calling him Jax instead of dad. He preferred that.

Since he was busy being a father, Jackson hadn't taken substances in any way through the entire day. It had been thoughtless really. He didn't even notice until he found himself unable to sleep that night. Sobriety did that to him. There was just no turning his brain off.

While he'd been pacing the house the entire night, he couldn't help recalling how different it felt that time. It had been gradual really. He'd been slowing himself down the entire week. From the moment he saw Morgan, with the exception of his initial reaction of course, he'd been limiting something about his regular behavior. The gradual lightening had made that first full day somehow worlds easier. He still had that ache in his chest. His brain still pounded. The delusional urges were still very much present, but he felt grounded in it. He had a life preserver around his waist at the very least.

Unfortunately, his sober brain definitely worked. It was a star employee. It did overtime for free, and that week had left him plenty to think about.

Like the fact that he maybe still thought God was real. He hadn't thought about that in forever. It was an odd thought he liked to cycle to when he was sober and overwhelmed. He was thinking about how his family had used the church to justify every evil thing ever dealt unto him. He was thinking about the fact that his mother knew who Morgan was and never told him. He was thinking about how he really wanted to get high or drunk or something and how he needed to get out of his house before he acted on that. Morgan wanted to spend the day on her phone anyways. He'd gotten her one after leaving the police station as an I'm sorry Seb got arrested with you in the car/made you carry drugs like a pack mule gift.