Long time no...um, post : )
Next installment in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
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The rattle was displaced by a clatter. Either he had a mutant rodent on his hands or another visitor entirely. He'd lay a wager on the latter. Adam dropped the leftover items from his grandson's closet and approached the bookcase, confident that he'd find the boy on the other side. Part of him was relieved - the rational part. And, yes, another part was a little smug that AJ would seek out his real home.
The vengeful part.
Neither of those parts were in control now, however. Adam instead was commanded by the part of him that stood frozen, the part that was still too weak to put an end to the vacant, haunted corridors within this house's walls…the part that only made itself known on the sweat-soaked nights when he was certain that the next stuttering convulsion in his heart would be the last.
That part of Adam retreated into the deepest, darkest corner, where it lived every day. That part watched as its well-coiffed counterpart pressed against the wall and stepped into the tunnels.
That part lunged, then fell back against its chains as it laid eyes not upon the grandson, but on the prodigal son, returned.
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"You know, this is the point in the movie where the big hulk of a guy uses his linebacker's shoulder to smash that thing into firewood."
"I'm thinking that hulky fellow didn't craft his door from a forest of reinforced steel." Zach tapped on the metal to prove his point, turned, and shrugged. "Besides, I'm a hockey guy. That comparison's not gonna work with me." He advanced on her, a smile dancing on his lips. "There is another time-honored cliché that individuals trapped in dire situations take part in…"
Kendall rolled her eyes, popping open the bottle that had helped get them into this little predicament. "I would hardly call being stuck in a wine cellar with your uncommunicative spouse a 'dire situation.' But you're right." She put the wine bottle down and advanced on him this time. She wanted to be sober for this. The semi-smile bloomed full. Putting her arms around him, she leaned forward and whispered one sweet nothing in his ear: "we can have a heart-to-heart…"
Before she could add the 'talk' to her suggestion, he was out of her arms and back at the door. She didn't need the mutter or the sudden tenseness in his shoulders to know that his own smile had quickly taken a hike.
"Maybe we can try to get the boys' attention again. I know Ian probably wouldn't wake up if a UFO descended on the house now, but Spike –"
Her hand on his shoulder stopped what was, for him, a rambling diatribe. Not now. Something without its own distinct voice told her that tonight was different. He needed to do this.
If they had any chance, they needed to do this.
"The boys are okay. In the morning, Zach. Tonight, we talk."
After a long pause, he faced her. The next words were part resignation, part resolution: "Should I begin before or after I shot your brother in the head?"
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Things must have taken a bad turn. But then, that's us, right? Not the bad, but the turns. The twists. It keeps things interesting. I don't think people like us are really meant for the straight and narrow. Not in our makeup.
I know what you're probably thinking right now. At the end of the day, we always had that connection, didn't we? We knew each other, too well, and sometimes – a lot of times – that blinded us.
You've always been my best friend, so I think I have the right to tell you this: 'Don't do it.' Don't blame yourself for mistakes we both made, for the things that we couldn't control….or even for some of the things we could. Don't use that amazing iron will that comes so natural to build up your fortress again.
And don't do what I did. Don't lose yourself, because I happen to think that the world needs a few more kick-ass stilettos.
Maybe this whole final words deal is an excuse to put down the things I want to say - the conversation I want to have. I don't know if I'll ever get the chance, or find the courage to do it in person. I hope I will.
That night at the mansion, it changed me. But that's not really true. It reset me. Maybe that sounds self-centered and fundamentally crazy, considering how others in this town lost so much more. But it's my truth.
I never told you this, but I looked into someone's eyes that night and I watched the life fade away. That night, when we finally got into bed, both staring at the ceiling, those eyes were all I could see.
And all I could think – all I still think about – is how she never got the chance to make things right.
We've spent so much time fighting to be together, and maybe the biggest fight didn't come from Hayward or Annie or when we lost each other. Maybe it came from fighting against ourselves. We got past lies and games and posturing and past those times when we thought we couldn't drag ourselves out of bed the next morning. We did that together and in the process, we built something pretty great.
When we tried to recreate that pulse-pounding, tear your guts out kind of love that got ripped from both us, that's when we stumbled. Ultimately, it wasn't the twists or the turns, but the everyday.
You'll always be the greatest friend I had or will ever have. That's why I can tell you, with love, to get out of your own way Greenlee Smythe. I want you to be happy. I want you to be you.
Don't think or reflect or hesitate. No regrets, ever. It's yours for the taking, so take it. Grab it with everything you've got. Grab every morsel of life like there's no tomorrow….
Greenlee began to lay the letter on the table. Her gaze trekking to the ceiling, she instead placed it over on her chest.
Over her heart.
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"Let's start with one moment, because that one moment defines all the others…the moment when I had my finger on the trigger. He's frantic, moving like a trapped mouse does in that instant before it gives up, before it just settles and waits for the inevitable. At some point, I know that I'm waiting for that instant, too. I'm waiting for my mark, my chance….I think - I think I can even pinpoint it: the moment when I cock my head and zero in. During that moment, I don't see the guy that sings Ian to sleep with rock songs or the kid I once hugged and called brother.
I see a target. I see a heart that isn't full of love and loss and confusion and all the things that make us so achingly flawed, so very human. I see a piece of meat, a means to an end. And it's done. Has to be. When I tell them I need that heart, it's an expression of the most fundamental need I'll ever have in my life. I can tell your family, tell the cops, and maybe even tell myself I did a selfless thing that night, that I saved lives. Truth is, I did the ultimate selfish thing because without that heart, I lose you, and I lose the one thing I spent most of my life convinced I didn't have: my own heart.
You want an explanation, that's….that's the best I can give.
You want an apology…..not sure I can ever give that."
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He braced himself for the punch or the cutting condemnation. He would have welcomed it. For a moment, his dad's eyes – illuminated by the bright light of AJ's room – promised just that. And the anger, the rage, it was still mixed in with that tiny, that absolutely giant thing that always left JR reaching for more.
Then it was all gone, just as quickly as it had come….replaced by something far more familiar: that cold, immovable wall from which only a drift of chilled words emerged.
"What in the name of God are you doing here?"
His response was simple, and the only well-worn truth he had to offer: "I want to see my son."
"How did you get here?"
JR realized there were probably a million answers to that question, most of which he didn't have. He settled on the most straightforward one. "I…hitchhiked. Amazing what people will do for a sad-sack in a chair." He held that accusatory stare, even when every compulsion, every base instinct pushed him to look away. "I will turn myself in. I just need to see AJ." The crack, the weakness emerged despite his best efforts to swallow it. To smother it. "Please, Dad."
"You can't."
Old commands, old disappointments…new cuts.
"He's gone."
JR discovered, in that moment, that he did still have warm blood…it ran cold in an instant. "What are you talking about?"
"AJ ran away. I…I thought you were him."
Those words only tore more, because the last, the last thing he ever wanted - He pushed past his father, and straight into an unforgiving, unmoving wall.
It was here. And he should have been assaulted with memories….with sights, sounds, smells: a thousand sledgehammers leaving him bruised and bloody at once. But he'd done what he'd always did best….he'd run. He couldn't even do hell right.
"I'm scared for him." JR looked up at his father, whose head was pressed against the wall, maybe trapped in its own version of hell. "I'm scared because he's part of us."
It was then that Adam finally unleashed everything that JR had convinced himself he needed.
"You sniveling, whiny little bastard. Are you going to blame it all on Daddy again? Are you going to blame me for the fact that you're a drunk, pathetic murderer…that you're finally as much of a man physically as you ever were otherwise?"
JR wanted to scream at Adam to look him in the eye, to drill every word into every pore. He wanted to ask him if that was all he had, because he deserved so, so much more. But his father's head just hammered softly against the wood, the only sound in the agonizing silence.
"She was….she was standing near me. The last time I looked, she was smiling." With those words, Adam finally gave him the eye-to-eye contact he craved. And at that moment, JR wanted nothing more than to be struck blind. His father stalked toward him, hand now hammering at his chest. "Were you aiming for this? Is she gone because you couldn't hit your real target?" He grabbed JR's resistant hands and pushed them to his throat. "Here's your chance, son. Take it."
JR pushed blindly, and Adam landed on his knees. "I'm sorry, are you? -" His reaching hand dropped.
Adam was still, his voice anything but. "I still hear them echoing: the shots. The last one, it went off beside me. I remember thinking, 'let it be over. Please dear God let it be over.' And it was so quiet after, so quiet. But it wasn't the end, only the beginning. When I looked up, I saw you laying there, my boy. And all I could think, aill I could chant again and again was 'don't let him die. Don't take my son away…' That voice hitched, then recovered as Adam's eyes rose once again. "So yes, I know a little something about lost sons. Too much."
Apologies and confessions and the all-too-common things left unsaid remained unsaid. JR could only watch as his father got up, dusted himself off, and tried once again to unlock the hidden door. Keys, it seemed, were one of the many things they could never keep.
Promises were another.
JR joined his father. "I'll – we'll save AJ."
No matter the price paid, that was one promise he would keep.