WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD ✸ Joel Miller

xxv. At The Hands of Your Saviour

[ CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE ! ]
at the hands of your saviour

THE WORLD AROUND ME SMELLS OF CINNAMON AND HOT COCOA. My sister's grinning figure sits at the edge of the stairs, her body shivering next to the heater but she doesn't seem to mind.

Snow melting into my pants, I joined her side and when I noticed that her mug was nearly empty, I didn't hesitate to trade her for mine.

She chuckled. "Thanks."

The sound was familiar and warm but there was still that cold fog coming from her mouth as she said the words and her bottom lip trembled with the smile she formed.

I took the final sip of hot cocoa from the mug of which was previously hers. The only sip I got that day.

And when I look back on the memory I can't help but want to laugh and cry at the same time knowing she's gone.

Tommy was kind enough to show me a photo album of her in her last few months here, but as I stare at her and Tommy's unmade bed I feel nothing but hurt.

And betrayal. And anger.

"You could've wrote me," I say, my voice barely above a whisper as I stand next to the emptiness that is Tommy.

I can almost hear his breath hitch. "You were gone, Rhea."

Oh.

Somehow that makes it all worse. My once-was sister has spent the last twenty years thinking I'm dead and she's the only child of my parents left.

I could've wrote.

I'm all-consumed by guilt and grief and I'm having a hard time differing the two.

She died thinking I was dead too.

Oh, the disappointment she'll feel when I am not holding her hand at the gates of Heaven.

My throat closes and I can feel the air leaving my body. Tears stride down my face before I can help it and when I look to my side, I see Tommy fighting the tears pricking at his own eyes as he watches me watch the photos replay memories.

I take his hand in mine and I swallow down the sob begging for an escape. "It's not your fault, Tommy."

I watch the clenching of his jaw tighten through his cheek and a tear swims to the corner of his eye and down his face.

"She loved so thoughtlessly," I try smiling. "She loved you so thoughtlessly."

There's a beat of deafening silence.

"I always thought she was copying me. I thought she was so jealous of Joel and I that she went to go date his brother." And instead of a cry, a laugh finds its way out my body. "But she saw something in you that..." My mind seems to wire down as I spiral for an explanation I don't have. "I don't know."

He squeezes my hand back and meets my saddened gaze for the first time.

"She loved you so thoughtlessly."

Something behind his chocolate-like brown eyes breaks. I watch something crumble and for a second it looks like he's going to fall apart in my arms.

"She died alone."

My brows knit together in confusion as I don't quite process what he tells me.

"She passed in that bed. She had a friend—her name was Elsie—she knew she wasn't gonna be strong enough to do it, so," his eyes focus on one particular part of the bed and I watch the bobble of his throat with the change in his breath. "she asked Elsie to do it. Elsie was infected, too, so..."

I'm terrified of what Tommy is going to say next, my mind is spiraling and the last thing I want is to hear what I think he's going to say next.

Tommy is fighting a war in that mind of his, it's so obvious—he's looking back on the memories of what he endured.

"It was a murder-suicide."

"Oh my God," I choke out, vision suddenly blurry with tears as I hear a muster of them in his voice.

"I came home one day..." Tommy stands tall, but the deepened frown on his face displays something entirely different. "I was out in town trying to get something to save her from the infection and— it must have gotten worse because when I opened this door I saw her on the bed."

I almost forget how to breathe. My eyes squeeze shut, unbearing the image of my sister displayed dead on that bed. Warm tears slip down my cheeks and it reminds me that this actually is real life.

"That's why I sleep on the couch."

It's silent between us; an oh-so bearing silence hanging between the both of us, weighing us down.

He swallows and wipes the loan tear from his face. "She wrote me a letter."

My gaze meets his and I watch him sniffle. His foot passes through the doorway into the room he once called his sanctuary and it looks as though it physically pains him. Like... Hazel's presence is still in the room with us and will haunt Tommy for coming inside.

"Would you read it?"

My breath is caught in my throat and panic seeps up my spine and consumes me.

I turn from him, from this room—from Hazel.

I shake my head and bite down my bottom lip to stop the sob threatening to spill out.

"I'm sorry, Tommy." I say for myself, unwilling to look at him as I jog down the stairs and out onto the porch.

And as soon as that brown wooden door closes behind me, I fall apart. I crumble at the hands of the world and let myself hold onto the porch's railings for support.

This feeling is overtaking me and I don't know where to channel it. I want to throw something—break something yet I want to just lay here and cry and hold onto someone for dear life and thank them for being there for me, but—

I can't stay. I can't be here with a dozen reminders of everything I lost that night.

My sister has spent the last twenty years missing me and now she's in some other afterlife world and believes she'll be seeing me, only to likely miss me for twenty more years, and Joel—

God, Joel won't even talk to me. He's guarded—and rightfully so—and keeps reminding me of everything I've lost and can't get back.

And Hayden... Hayden is going through the most a child should ever be put through and it's all because of me. Because I put her here.

"Mom?" Hayden's innocent voice calls out from behind me. "What's wrong?'

My red-rimmed eyes meet her doe ones and I smile.

I shake my head. "Nothing, baby. We're going home."