Hopelessy Devoted

Chapter Ten: Enlightening

Beth...yer dead.

My head is spinning and my whole body is numbed by his words. He's joking right? He has to be! Pushing passed him, I stagger out into the hallway and race towards second period. Throwing open the door, no one notices me. I stand on the front table and jump up and down, but all the students are fixated on the teacher behind me. Insane. I must be insane. I'm probably in the hospital in a coma. I'm not dead. I can't be dead. I drove here in my truck!

"Beth stop."

"Screw you Dixon! This is some prank." I jump off the table and run out of school. Getting in my tuck, I start it up and drive to the bridge. Getting there. The water is rushing from the rainy morning and I carefully walk across the planks. Jumping up in the window, I look down at the river below me- it's rushing and the rocks look more dangerous than before.

"Beth!"

"Stop! I'm gonna jump." I tell him as he comes across the planks.

"Beth, jumping or not isn't going to change the fact that you died. Just accept it and come down."

"I'm not dead! I'll prove it to you."

"Beth you jump off that thing and yer alive- you will be dead. Just trust me please." He comes closer and I can't accept the truth- if it is the truth. Closing my eyes, I jump.

***
Opening my eyes, I'm in my room, dry and in bed. Looking up at the ceiling, I can't understand this. Is this a nightmare? I don't get it.

"Beth..."

Shooting up in my spot, I glare at him and get to my feet. Going to him angrily, I shove him once, twice, three times before I give up. His eyes soften and he sits in my mother's old rocking chair.

"It's hard to take in Beth...but you need to understand that what I'm telling you is the truth." His voice is gentle and it calms me into remission. Sitting on my bed, I listen to him closely. "I know how yer feeling. I didn't understand it myself, but luckily for you there is someone who's been in yer shoes to tell you that it's alright."

What? What is he saying?

"I'm dead too." Shock pours over my face and I feel sick, but this sickness will never go away. "It's a lot to take in, I know. But hear me out."

Coming over to me, he sits beside me on the bed and takes my hand- looking deep into my eyes I see his very soul.

September 8th, 1934

Sitting in the front yard, I try so hard to focus on my homework, but Merle keeps throwing stones at the back of my head. He has some nerve being an asshole to me when I just finished his homework. That's my life. Everyday, I do that asshole's work and chores because I refuse to meet hands with his switch blade. Dad's already cut up my back so much from his belt and whip- I don't need Merle cutting me.

It's a sad life for me. The depression really hit hard in Senonia, but then again- we're the lucky ones with a house and some land. Our neighbors, the Greene's have more land for us and provide the town with food, but being that my dad isn't so nice of a man, people try their hardest to keep us vermin in low health. I've taken to hunting, but my brother, mother, and father take it all for themselves. It's tough having morals. I wasn't supposed to be a Dickerson. I am supposed to be someone else. Someone of good faith and value, but ya can't help who yer family is.

***

I go to bed hungry again. Laying in my bed upstairs, I look at the ceiling and wish I was someone else. Wish I could make a life and a living for me because I don't wanna grow up to be like my father. Looking outside my window, I notice the Greene girl running. Genevieve Bethany Greene. She is so beautiful. Every night she takes off running in the moonlight. And every night I pray I get the strength to join her- to say two words to her. But girls like that never would go for a guy like me. She has four brothers watching over her and none of them would allow a guy of my class to even gaze in her direction. Laying back in bed, I look at my watch- 12:30.

Huh, I need to get to bed. 

Footsteps enter my room, and in my dream I hear them coming closer. The light comes on and I try to wake up, but I can't. Suddenly, I hear a Big Bang and my eyes jerk open. And beside me Merle is dead. Right as I am about to get up, my father raises the gun to my head and shoots me twice.

Waking up the next morning, I feel dead. Getting out of bed, I walk through the house and it's quiet. Mother is standing at the stove staring into a pot of dishwater, Merle is staring out the window, and when I look out myself, I see my father standing in the front lawn, glaring at a bunch of cops taking body bags and throwing them into the back of a truck bed. Bodies? Feeling myself, I feel empty and cold. When I go to the mirror, I look in and find the bullet holes are gone and my complexion pale.

Walking out the front door, I go to the woods with a rope in hand. Climbing a tree, I put the rope around my neck and tie the other end to the branch and jump. Once more it goes black in my eyesight.

Opening my eyes, I'm back in my room and the reality hits me.

I am dead. Forever left to live out my days with the assholes that put me here.