Ill-Gotten Memories

25. Wreckage

Bodily, I was exhausted. But despite the stillness and tranquility of holding Barbara close in my arms, sleep eluded me. To pass the time, I counted each breath that echoed My Love's peaceful slumber. They were soft, innocent billows of air receding in and out of her lungs, so steady and rhythmic, so sweet to listen to. Evident of life; that she was real.

And she was mine.

I felt a masculine but... barbaric lust for them; it reverberated through me like a war cry wailing in my bones, swearing an allegiance to protect and stand guard over the very breath she breathed.

I would do horrible things for Barbara. She was not yet aware of what I was capable of, and that saddened me, but my intentions would always be pure. To keep her safe.

The "family instincts" were rapidly spreading through me. It remained incurable, a disease thick in my blood, infecting my mind at a moment's notice. I was a Giacchino through and through; we were bred to protect what was ours no matter the cost! And sometimes... it made me murderously ill. I formed strategies in my head, methodically wrote the scenes, play by play, of the violence I would commit should anyone ever try to separate us.

Dismemberment... torture... murder.

Until my own thoughts began to bounce back at me. They were unhinged. I sounded evil and grotesque—someone she would be frightened by!

"She deserves better, Johnathan. This isn't going to make her feel any safer."

Jolting me out of my rest, something shook me.

What was that?

My eyes shot open. I didn't think those words of my own accord—but I heard them. Plain as day. Maybe it was time I'd started seeing a doctor myself?

I inhaled softly to calm down.

It could have been my insecurities talking, perhaps, but it didn't sound like me. It was someone else.

I heard it... in my father's voice, almost?

So, was he slowly morphing into my guilty conscience? I could imagine his disappointment with me. He'd have a lot to say about the man I've become, and who was I to dispute him? I knew what I had done with my life. Wrongs I'd made. The irreversible damage I'd caused. He would be so ashamed. Appalled even.

"What are you doing, son?" He used to chide. "You know God's watching you."

Maybe I was trying to steal a candybar off the shelf... or I'd gotten into trouble for punching another kid at school? I couldn't remember. But his correction, his loving discipline? That was always with me.

And even after all this time, he was right.

God could see us. I felt His eyes on me, lying here, and yet He was the reason why. If not for Him, I wouldn't have Barbara at arm's length, let alone my fingertips. This wasn't an accident or some turn of fate—screw that nonsense. It was by His goodness alone that we were finally together. The people closest to My Love had done nothing but brutalize her heart and soul since the moment she arrived. Her capacity to let me in was somehow sufficient even though the world had broken her repeatedly!

How we had gotten this far didn't add up. Not on paper.

That's how I knew that God had orchestrated everything.

Looking back, Barbara's absence in my life had stretched like a canyon between two different worlds, and I never wanted to be on the opposite side of it again. I was repressed and disconnected from my feelings for far too long. But now all of them were rising to the surface, and it was turning me into someone I didn't recognize.