The War Within

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

“Mom, it’s okay, you don’t need to go out right now. I don’t need anything. I just want everyone to be here- together.” I told my adoptive mother as she headed over to her car.

“It’s your birthday, Jacob. How many times do you turn eighteen? Only once. Now I’m going to go pick up a little something I ordered for you a few weeks ago. It should be there by now.” she said as she opened her car door.

“Why didn’t you just have it shipped to the house?” I asked in confusion.

“Because I didn’t want you to get it earlier and find out what it was. You’re such a mischievous one, just like me. So that’s why I had it shipped to your father’s restaurant instead.” She grinned mischievously.

“They said to allow two to three weeks for shipping and as of today it has been three weeks. So it should be there by now. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t worry, you’ll have your gift before you know it.” She smiled again - knowing full well that it was not the gift but her presence and the whole family together that I wanted - and then drove off to the restaurant.

I sighed inwardly. I had never fully recovered from the way my birth parents had died. Due to that I could not quite get used to having people leave and then come back to me a little later and still be alive. I was finally starting to overcome my fear of my adopted parents dying but it was not an easy process. I still hated it when anyone left and I was not with them.

I walked back into the house all the while trying to be strong. She was not going to die in a car crash. What were the chances that I would lose her too?

Later that day, Jonathan and I sat quietly at the kitchen table feeling nervous while our dad paced back and forth with the phone in his hand pressed against his ear in what looked like a death grip. What was going on? Where was mom? She should have come back home over an hour ago.  Several more minutes of intense silence elapsed before our dad finally turned to us with a heartbroken look in his eyes.

“We need to go to the hospital right now. Your mother was in a car accident. The doctors say she might not make it.”

Before the rest of the memory could continue to play its course it took a different turn adapting a more dream like quality. Suddenly, I found myself sinking down into a black hole.

No, I was not sinking. I was being pulled.

A hand wrapped around my ankle and pulled me into the black. I didn’t put up a fight but allowed the darkness to consume me. I fell and fell and fell until I met a giant blood red hand that caught me before I could be hurt any more than I already was. At first the hand seemed tender, gentle even, but as soon as I began to relax and take comfort the hand squeezed so hard that my lungs burned and my ribcage felt like it would explode from the pain.

Just as I was about to slip into unconsciousness and death, a blinding white light stretched out like a saving hand waiting for me to reach out and take hold of it.

I struggled to move one of my hands out of its restraint. I had to get to that light. Whatever the cost, I had to get to the light hand.

The blood hand squeezed tighter the more I struggled, but the more it squeezed the more my desire to escape grew.

The light hand moved closer to me. Close enough to touch.

All I had to do was get one arm free and I’d be able to grasp that saving hand.

In a desperate frenzy and longing for freedom, I barely managed to break one arm free and reach out for the light hand. I moved my hand to grasp the light hand.