A slow fall

Chapter 27 - Caleb

    Anxiety bubbled in my chest, an incessant ache that never ceased. I was never alone. In the darkness was always someone else, a false friend with a wide smile and inviting arms. Anxiety wasn't that friend, but he sat beside, whispering words of doubt, watching as the floor beneath me crumbled, the world shattered and somehow making the bad seem even worse.

Ask my parents. It was a simple task, but the thought made nausea rise in my throat.

I'd woken up groggy, the few hours of sleep I'd managed were a gift Lucas so easily gave me. I knew he was busy, that his life didn't revolve around me, but the longer I basked in his glow the more I realised I needed his sun in my orbit. If he wasn't there, the dark never left.

Part of me felt empty when I woke up without the soft hum of his voice floating through the speaker. Even if he wasn't here, I enjoyed waking up knowing he was still there. Still close despite the distance. That he let the call active just to make sure I was okay, that sleep held me peacefully and sent me back into the world just as softly..

I could hear my parents downstairs, the closing of the front door was what had woken me up.

I hated it. I hated knowing they were home, hated the dread that curled its way up my throat, hated the constant fear of footsteps, of tracking their movements in case they got too close. I hated feeling so hateful.

I was late last night. The time didn't matter, it was the act itself. I was late and that was that. Five minutes, ten, an hour—all the same.

Stepping into the house had been a feat, leaving Lucas behind more of a challenge than I'd expected.

As the noise of the bowling alley consumed me, for once I didn't want to run and hide. The unease in my gut lingered, the awareness of too many people, too much noise, but, despite everything, a brief licker of happiness found me.

I was surrounded by comfort in different forms, sun, moon and stars. It was bright, the venue, the lights, the smiles on my fiends faces and humour in their eyes, and I wanted to turn away, I wanted to find my way back to the dark, the familiar, but then Lucas was there, stopping any chance of escape.

Instead I tried to enjoy this feeling, so foreign and unknown, while it lasted. This warmth that threatened to consume me if only I'd let it.

Lucas' presence had always been comforting. He was familiar, a constant in my life that I'd never fully appreciated before. But he was captivating. I couldn't stare too long, it was blinding, but fleeting glances and increased exposure felt like enough.

My friends did what they do best, laughed, joked and lived like teenagers should. While I tried to stay at the back, distanced from the chaos, Lucas never left my side. He stayed and he talked and he treated me like—like me. Like I wasn't a sinner, an inevitable failure condemned to a life of unquenchable fire and endless torment.

So I smiled more. I occasionally joined in on the jokes. I let myself exist outside of that fiery future, instead in a place of soft warmth, held in Lucas' tender embrace. Not too tight, no darkness—just space, and breath, and freedom.

Then I'd looked at the time and Lucas' arms no longer kept me safe, and the heat began increasing.

As I sat in Lucas' car, words evaded me. My mind went straight to what could await me when I walked through those doors. I overthought everything. What I should say, how I should act, what they would expect.

The reality was always worse than what my brain conjured because it was real.

The glow from the day, the fading embers of light that I tried to cling to in the car, fizzled up and left as the door clicked shut behind me. The anger from my dad was palpable, the disappointed look from my mom was gut wrenching. The flaws in my actions were laid bare.