Uncontrollable Feeling

Chapter 47

Kristal Anderson

I have died.

I'm sure that I have died and now I am living out my eternity of suffering.

That was the only logical explanation for the shit show that was my life. Everywhere I looked, all I saw was rubble from the aftermath. Every aspect of my life was in complete pieces before me, pieces that could not be put back.

Aunt Jenna tells me that you refuse to write back to me.

Aunt Jenna tells me that you still refuse to visit me.

Aunt Jenna is doing everything in her power to get me out of here. She is an angel on earth.

Aunt Jenna

Aunt Jenna

Aunt fucking Jenna. Bits and pieces of my father's letter were permanently ingrained in my mind; they echoed in my ear like a song on a loop. His words constantly drowned out the voices around me and even my own thoughts.

His letters showed me just how involved she was in both of our lives and in both cases, making herself out to be the knight in shining armour, the guardian angel sent from the heavens above to protect us from evil. She successfully manipulated the narrative on both ends to protect her scheme. While she corrupted my impressionable mind with demands for me to accept the fact that my father was a monster, that I couldn't nor should I want to visit him, that I should fear him, she used his state of vulnerability to manipulate him into thinking that she was on his side, that I was a troubled kid who had shunned her own father. She made me hate him; she made him think that he not only lost his wife that night but his daughter, too.

I know you want nothing to do with me, Birdie. Aunt Jenna advised me not to push you, to give you time. And I will. But God knows how much I wanna come looking for you the moment I leave this place.

That quote rang in my ears; it was from one of his last letters after he received the news of his release for good behaviour. To protect her plan, she instilled the idea that his pursuit of me would only make things worse, all while convincing me to put my life on hold and go into hiding because he was coming after me. 

Everything was a lie.

A fucking lie, an illusion.

She manipulated me, fed me lies that became my torment.

You have to believe me, Birdie, I did not kill her. The person responsible for this will pay one day, and I will clear my name for you. You won't need to feel ashamed to carry my last name, I'll make sure of it.

He reassured me with every letter. In the first letters, he kept details vague, sparing me many details, knowing how young I was, but as the years passed, he shared more. Trying to convince me of his innocence. 

I went to the bar after work that day, had a glass or two of scotch and I know for a fact that there was something in my drink because I was never a lightweight, but that night, after the second glass, I could hardly stand. So I left my car there and took a cab. That's the last thing I remember. When I woke up, I was handcuffed to a hospital bed, accused of murdering my wife and attempting to take my own life in the process.

I have never held a gun, let alone bought one, yet my fingerprints were all over the weapon. A weapon I had never seen before.

At first, I was questioning my own reality but I replayed the events of that day over and over again and I can assure you that I did not do it. I did not kill her.