A slow fall

Chapter 23 - Caleb

    My parents took my phone away from me Saturday night. It was pointless, I lost the will to use it after everything anyway, but they believed it was a good way to increase my productivity.

When they came to wake me up for church on Sunday morning their disappointment settled into my bones, sitting with all the other feelings festering beneath my surface.

I went to church. I don't remember the car journey, the pastor's words sounded like white noise, the faces sitting beside me looked distorted.

I knew my father spoke to me when we returned home, distantly felt the slap against my skin, but I didn't really feel it.

I felt nothing.

It was a hollow abis. A black hole sucking out the essence of what I am, what I was. Soon I'll be nothing. A walking corpse.

I wouldn't let myself get to that.

Going to school was a feat I couldn't face, but I often had a choice in life. I'd already missed a few days of school and we were just over a month into the year.

It was unacceptable.

So dad dropped me off. The car sat idle beside the curb as he watched me walk into the gate.

The same happened on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I spent the nights tucked away in my room, blanketing a darkness that I told myself helped, but I wasn't so sure.

The quiet left time for thoughts to run rampant, but my mind was a hostile place.

I had a friend in the darkness. He made himself known when I felt consumed by the world, all too small and suffocated.

With him I wasn't alone.

Turning my lamp on, letting the light back on, was a challenge I could face when I was like this. It was pathetic.

I was pathetic.

My parents came into my room each night. To check on me. Because they love me. They care.

They told me the truth. How I was failing. How the darkness was the devil calling me to him.

I was a failure. I wasn't fighting. I wasn't trying.

How could God know I loved him? He must be disappointed in me. So disappointed—like my parents.

The first burst of light broke through at lunch on Wednesday. It was something so simple, just a stupid joke Shane made that wasn't even funny, but I'd heard it. It strung the words together and finally found myself slipping into the normalcy of conversation.

I didn't overthink the looks they gave me. I didn't want to know.

Secret. This was all meant to be a secret.

I was failing again.

The day became slightly more bearable after that. Marcus was in both my afternoon classes and his company helped keep me tethered.

On Wednesday night Lucas crawled in through the crack and made it bigger. He was canvased in golden rays, shining like an ethereal being set from the heavens.

Maybe God didn't hate me after all.

He spoke in a soft voice that helped soothe my soul and with his body heat I finally felt alive again. Even if only slightly.

By Friday I'd somehow clawed my way back. I wasn't me, I hadn't felt like that in a while, but I was the version the world had seen for years.

So when Aaliyah invited me out in the evening I said yes.