Author's Note: The title of this interlude comes from lyrics to the song "Demons" by Imagine Dragons. R&R, and enjoy!

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Interlude 6 - Where My Demons Hide

Erik

It was well past sunset; that was all I cared to think about, however distantly. But then, my cell phone began ringing where I'd left it on the nightstand, and the noise caught my attention quickly, doing so nearly out of nowhere, when otherwise I had been almost entirely distracted by everything and nothing at all. I'd felt so incredibly terrible that day, and in turn I had considerable trouble focusing on anything of substance - namely, nothing beyond the confrontation that I had with my father earlier and its direct aftermath really captured my attention long enough to calm me down after the fact. Nothing responsible helped me move past any of it on my own. Rather, I was drawn in by that all too familiar pull toward resignation, toward that old destructive means to attempt to compose myself, and I was ashamed of that. Yet I was significantly more ashamed that I'd stopped off before returning to my hotel room in the first place, planning all the while to do something about my increasing agitation myself and have it over with. Because something had to give one way or another, or I'd completely lose my mind, I was sure. I was more than ready to ignore everything else. But I froze the moment I recognized Christine's ringtone, and in the next instant, I rushed across the room to answer her call before it was sent to voicemail.

Josie's voice sounded over the line first, to my surprise - and when I heard her talking, chattering on excitedly about her day, I smiled at her endearing nature, yet felt like breaking into tears for it all at once. Missing her as much as I did then truly felt like a weight on my chest, a suffocating and unrelenting thing that I just wanted to fight off and ignore altogether; being away from my child - no matter how short that time actually was in the bigger picture - was absolute torture for me. But even so, knowing that her great-grandfather's death was still at the forefront of her thoughts, I didn't want to upset her that much further by unintentionally clueing her in to exactly how bad I was feeling. So I opted instead to force some semblance of child-friendly enthusiasm into my tone for her sake, at least for the span of our conversation. If nothing else, for the most part I'd believed that I was fairly successful in keeping her spirits up, regardless of how my own wavering sense of optimism might have suffered in the exchange. We spoke only for a little while longer after the initial greetings, talking to one another easily until we'd inevitably found ourselves having to say our goodbyes and I love yous for the night; from there, I waited, listening through the shuffling sounds that indicated the moment when Christine was taking the phone back from our daughter.

Once again, the stress I was feeling all throughout that day - the stress that had been steadily building inside of me ever since I'd first received the phone call informing me that Gene was gone - had made my initial reaction to hearing my wife's voice that much stronger, certainly more so than it might have been under different circumstances. And by that point, I'd needed to mindfully tell myself that it was imperative for me to regain and hold onto my composure - or at least as much of it as I could possibly find, all things considered. I needed to be able to make it to each following moment. Only when I was entirely sure that I could keep my voice steady was I ready to recount everything Nick said to me during our meeting, though I ultimately decided to omit the more unsavory details of the encounter. But otherwise, I hadn't left anything else that he'd said out of this discussion, firmly believing that Christine had the right to know everything about what my father decided in terms of our family. All the while, I'd maintained the same false calmness that I'd kept when I was talking to Jo, and despite my anger at the overlying situation, I seemed to have accomplished the illusion once again.

Still, Christine worried over the words themselves, and asked almost immediately, "Nick can't actually get visitation though, right?"

"Right, he can't," I said, beginning to pace the room as I continued, "And anyway, I really think he was just trying to get a rise out of me more than anything else."

She sighed, although she didn't respond directly - but I still noted the tension in her voice when she murmured, "I wish you were already home."

"I know, sweetheart. So do I."

"How're you handling everything else?"

"As well as I can. I hate it here," I shrugged, momentarily forgetting that she couldn't see me - but honestly, I was grateful she couldn't witness that I was carrying my own tension.

"I know, Erik," she responded softly, "I know you do...Just try to get through the issue. You'll be back here with us soon."

Attempting relatively lighter topics, we spoke for several more minutes after that; then, near the end of the conversation, she offered to call me back over FaceTime. But I immediately decided against that form of communication and declined; for the time being, I truly didn't think I would be able to handle seeing her right there in front of me. I knew it would be too painful to see her - too painful to hear Josephine's voice approaching the video call in the background, stalling her bedtime by conveniently remembering something that she wanted to tell me - but still never able to reach out for either of them. And yet, even though I knew I wasn't strong enough to see their faces then, I honestly ached to be with them all the same. It was killing me. I just wanted to be with my family; this loneliness wasn't something that I was accustomed to - not anymore. I'd been alone so many times before that point in my life, but now that I had something so incredibly valuable to come home to, now that I knew what I had to lose, being away at all was a distinctly bitter sensation. I wanted no part of it.

Sighing, I hung up the phone after a few drawn-out goodbyes had passed between us, every last one of them spoken on my part simply to delay the end of the call as long as I could. But when it was over - when there was nothing more that I could reasonably say without alerting my wife that something beyond my grief for my grandfather was wrong with me - I was alone in the room again, and therefore left unwillingly isolated with my thoughts. Sitting at the table and glancing once more at the liquor that I'd only just purchased that afternoon, the glass bottle still held within its brown paper bag, I quickly forced myself to look away again, hanging my head in my hands - a final, desperate attempt to fend off the inevitable. In the next moment, I'd tried with every ounce of strength I had left to bite back the urge to down the whole fucking thing all in one sitting, to surrender and completely shut the rest of my mind off for the night. And as I did so - as my staggering resolve finally gave way to the resignation I'd been fighting for so long to deny - I kept telling myself that I was only going to make this mistake here in Tennessee, that it was just a means to get through dealing with Gene's estate and Nick's confrontations, and nothing more. I wouldn't take this mess back to Chicago with me - I wouldn't come home again as a drunk.

And I knew that was a goddamn lie, even if I wasn't yet ready to admit as much.

Denial was as commanding in my mind as it always was in the past - though in spite of its obvious presence then, part of me was still inclined to seek out and kill whatever it was inside that foolishly wanted to fall into darkness. My wife and my daughter deserved better - I would do well to remember that. Yet in spite of it all, I picked up the bottle anyway - what I'd knowingly set into motion at the bar with Nick was powerful, whereas I was incredibly weak. I was weak, and I was selfish. Because I knew so much better, and my family deserved better that any of this, but all I wanted was momentary peace.

No matter the cost.