Broken- And Fixed Again- (A Jamilton Fanfic)

Chapter 9: Broken Promises And Twisted Memories

//TW: emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, self-harm, suicide, self-hatred, manipulation and gaslighting, death, trauma, swearing\\

Thomas

It's almost funny, how old memories deceive us so easily. In our desperate attempts to block out the suffering of the present, we look to the comfort of the past, hoping that somehow, we can erase the paths we've already walked and find a new solace, write up a new ending to a story that has been completed almost a million years before.

But it's remarkably hard, to try and forget. To rewrite a past as well as a future. And in the end, even the most magnificent change will never truly alter all that much.

For in the end, we all still die.

And yet, we clutch onto these memories, hoping somehow that we can turn them into our present, that we can rekindle their spark and relight a fire that has burned out so long ago.

We clutch onto these memories because they are all that we have, and they are all that will follow us into death.

~•~

There's one memory in particular I like to revisit, one that reminds me both of what I've lost and what I once had. It's torture to see that small butterfly of hope fluttering through my mind, only to wake up and watch as it gets crushed between two unforgiving hands that were created only to inflict pain.

But I hold onto it, still, for it makes me smile. And on days like today, I need that glimmer of all that came before.

Neither of us could've been older than six or seven. It was the Fourth of July, and the Madisons, Skeltons, and Paynes had come over to watch the fireworks with us.

I remember the sweet smell of the smoke of the fire as Dad started grilling hotdogs.

Oh, Dad.

I miss him so much.

I remember the feeling of dried watermelon juice against our faces, the rewards of a previous plunder in which we snatched them from a group of angry mothers.

I remember the cool, almost relieving evening compared to the hot summer day we experienced that morning as well as the anticipation for the fireworks to go off.

I remember the way the grass tickled my bare palms, dancing in the easy breeze drifting across our own forgotten hilltop as we sat together, staring up at the endless sky above our heads.

I remember the gentle lull of his voice, though I could not tell you what we were talking about. It must have been stupid, something completely trivial compared to the words that leave his lips behind closed doors nowadays, but back then, those few things we shared together were my entire world.

We were children. We were blind to the world, unaware of the way our futures would intertwine, would tangle together in this awful mess it had become. We were unaware of the simple truth and all that it meant, happy to live our lives in blissful ignorance, happy to never have to know firsthand what suffering really meant.

It was always Thomas and James.

Never apart. Always together. One in the same. It was a fact of life, one that we never questioned, one we just assumed would always be true regardless of what happened. I was his and he was mine, and as long as we had one another, we would never need anybody else.

He promised me the world. He promised me a sanctuary I would always have when I needed one, a safety net to catch me when my wings snapped in half in the middle of a daring dive. He promised me that I would have him, even without murmuring those words, even without ever knowing he had made that vow.