Fault Line [Completed]

Chapter Twenty

This is it . . . the last chapter. Thanks, all of you, who have stuck with this story. I hope this chapter finishes with a strong note . . . Wish me luck. 

The train ride to Michigan was longer than I was used to. Not a lot of people were on this ride so there wasn't much talking.

I spent the entire ride reading a book that I found before the train left. It was pretty good. Now, I'm just hanging out around my hometown, watching as the people go to their homes, to their families, to their loved ones.

I'll never have that.

I decide that I need to see them . . . all of them.

I guess I should start with the ones that tried to help but didn't understand.

Visit number 1: Stacy Neuman.

Walking to her house wasn't that bad. In fact, it was like going down memory lane. I went to her house when I first needed to get away from this place. When the police first wanted me behind bars.

And now I am standing on a corner block, facing her house. She just entered her house a few minutes ago. She is eating some lunch with her mom and younger sister. They're smiling and laughing, like a family should.

After seeing how happy Stacy seems, I move on, to some more happy of places.

I walk down the streets to my second visit . . . my old home. The one where everything started.

The house looks empty, like the family that just moved there left. Maybe they did. I wouldn't blame them. I would've moved out of there too.

I continue to walk down the road, passing my old neighbors who I never really cared for. I pass the park that holds the tree that I fell out of about a week ago. The same park where I spent a lot of my childhood. The park where both my mother and father watch me grow up.

I still wish I could go back. Back to when our family was normal, before Jordan grew up, before Dad had his accident and Mom found a way to relieve her pain towards that. Before everything that ever happened . . . happened.

My path ends and I am standing in front of Aunt Mallory's house. I know that she and the girls are inside. If they're not at the park . . . they're here. Aunt Mallory is probably trying not to smoke in front of the girls, but I know that she is failing miserably. 

I circle around to the back of the house, where I as secretly as humanly possible, climb into a tree to watch the girls. They usually come outside at this time and if I'm lucky then I'll be able to see them.

I finish climbing the tree right when the girls come running out of the door. I watch as they play, not even knowing that their lives are so messed up. Both of their parents are dead, Jordan is too busy with college to visit them, and their older sister is a messed up psychopath who killed their mother. But they don't know about the abuse! They don't know about the pain I had to bear to make sure they lived a somewhat normal life.

They don't know about all that I did for them.

***************

I left Aunt Mallory's house after the girls went inside for a snack. I am now walking to a part of town that I don't really go to. The part of town where the river runs through. I take a seat on a bench that overlooks the river, one where I can let myself think about everything clearly.

I can finally make my decision.

But it's just that the book . . . the book . . . it keeps coming into my mind at all hours of the day and I can't shake the feeling that I'm not even with the world. Like, the word is going to tear me down because it doesn't agree with what I did. Well, I did what I had to do. No matter what anybody says, I ended my pain and ended hers too. Shouldn't the world be grateful?! I saved two peoples pain! We don't have to suffer anymore!

I can be free because I don't have to worry about my mother anymore. I don't have go to bed crying myself to sleep. I don't have to wake up fearing about what will happen that day! I don't have to worry about my mother because she's dead!

And I killed her . . . 

I killed my mother . . . and she's never coming back. The girls will never grow up with a mother to raise them. I took the only chance of being raised by a parent away from them. And for what?! No more pain. Only to bring the pain to the girls.

I get up off of the bench and walk over to the bridge. I take slow and precise steps. I don't know why, I just do. It's like now only the small things matter to me. What would my life still be like if I didn't kill my mother? Would she still be abusing me? Would I have told the police about her? Would I have done nothing? Would nothing have changed? Maybe Lizzy would still be alive. And Jordan wouldn't be concerned about me. And I never would've met Richie. And maybe Aunt Mallory would be a little more put together.

Maybe . . . everything would've been better if I didn't kill her. Maybe if I told the police about her, my life wouldn't be hell. Always running, never staying in a place for too long. Not really trusting anyone. Disguising myself, changing my identity. I really do believe that my life would've been better if I didn't pick up that knife and I just fought back enough to tell the police about her.

I place my hands on the side of the bridge, its rough texture feeling like nice to my rough hands.

What I did was wrong and now I have to do what's right. It's the only way to get even with the world.

I made my decision.

I throw my bag over the bridge and into the river. I smile and watch as it passes underneath the bridge, never to be seen again. This is it.

I push myself up onto the edge and watch the water rushing quickly beneath me. I have never felt so alive until this moment. I look up to the sun, to the trees, to the birds calling to each other singing such a soft tune. I smile the widest smile that I have ever have smiled before.

And then I take a step forward.

The air passes up my body and I feel like I'm flying. My expression turns to a normal one and I close my eyes. And finally . . . I feel at peace.