forgiveness (book one)

explosive

vi.

explosive 

Grief had turned me bitter.

That, mixed with toxic guilt, created a deadly cocktail that fueled a boiling time-bomb in the pit of my stomach. It waited to detonate, ticking and bubbling endlessly beneath the surface. The explosion erupted every so often in a hot mix of anger, a kind of sudden fury that I couldn't even begin to control.

I had dropped out of college. This anger-fueled bomb hidden in my stomach made me feel uncontrollable, unstable, and dangerous. I didn't want to be around people anymore. My grades had been slipping, anyway. My semester GPA had nose-dived down below a 1.5, and the university had been filing a letter of eviction when I announced I was leaving.

Now stuck at home with my parents, I felt as though I was traveling through a mine field inside my own mind. I side-stepped past thoughts of Ana, and I leapt over old memories of the accident. Two years had gone by since she died, and I hadn't been able to put myself back behind the wheel.

Of course, I didn't stop myself from reaching for the alcohol. That was more to blame than the car itself was, right? If I hadn't been shit-faced drunk that night, I wouldn't have driven us head-first into a tractor trailer.

But, stupidly, I couldn't seem to stop the drinking.

My mom was the first one of my family to try and stop it. She waited until my dad was at work – he was more afraid to look me in the eye than she was – before cautiously starting downstairs.

I was holed up in the basement, only coming upstairs whenever I was forced into sitting with my parents for a dinner that I didn't want to eat. Her footsteps creaked against the old wooden steps, so I stuffed the bottle of beer I'd been drinking from in between the couch cushions. It was only 1 in the afternoon, and I didn't want her to know how bad it had gotten.

But it was clear my mom knew exactly what I'd been doing; she chose not to call me out on it, but the worry lines that creased further in the corners of her mouth and between her brows said it all. She paused at the bottom of the stairs, and her voice was soft as she told me, "I – I need to talk to you."

I let out an exhausted sigh, but it melted in the air between us and I was sure she hadn't heard. I listened to the sound of her footsteps against the slightly molded carpet, continuing to look down at the magazine on my lap instead of up at her. She sat, cautiously, on the cushions of the pale blue armchair diagonal to the couch. I didn't glance up, but I could practically hear the tenseness in her posture as she balanced on the edge of the chair.

"Your father and I, we...we wish you hadn't quit school." Her voice was hushed, even in the silence of the basement, as though she was worried I would explode at the trigger of loud words. I flipped the page of the magazine, the glossy page slipping under my fingers. "You always did well with your grades. College was good for you."

I didn't say anything. How could I respond to that? My grades had crumbled beneath me in the last few months of school, because I hadn't been able to drag myself out of bed every morning to bother going to class. I had turned into a single disease that plagued the university; I had become disinterested in learning, or contributing in any kind of social life, and I was the only one on campus with that sort of mindset. No one had wanted me there any more than I did.

"It wasn't working out," I said.

I could tell, in the silence that followed, that she had been expecting something more from me. My mom shifted against the armchair's cushions, and I knew I was making her uncomfortable. But everything felt heavy and weights seemed to drag at my eyelids and limbs, and I didn't have the energy to make an effort. I never had the energy for anything anymore.

"I know it's been hard for you," my mom half-whispered, after the long interval of silence had beat a pained ringing into my eardrums. "But I also know about the drinking. You can't live like this, Jacob."

I let go of the magazine and lifted my hand up to rub my face, digging the heel of my palm into my eyelids. A prickle of disappointment – disappointment towards myself – nudged at my gut. I hadn't wanted my parents to find out.

The air in the basement was thick. I didn't know what to say, and I couldn't turn my eyes towards her. I knew I wouldn't be able to stand seeing her expression.

"You can't blame yourself for what happened." I heard the way her voice caught against a lump in her throat, and I shut my eyes as though that would tune the sad note out. "You have to forgive yourself, honey."

I wanted to. I really did. But how could I stop blaming myself, when I was drowning in an ocean of guilt, tumbling through dark waves of self-hatred with no way to pull myself out of the water?

"I wish I could, mom." I could hear my voice starting to crack and splinter as I spoke, so I swallowed hard. I had to hold it in. Just until she went back upstairs.

I tended to fall apart only when I was alone.

"But why can't you?" she pleaded. "It was an accident. You can't go your entire life always hating yourself for what happened. Ana died two years ago. You're allowed to move on."

"No, I can't," I snapped, tossing the magazine down onto the scratched coffee table a bit harder than I'd meant to. My tone had become blackened by anger, because the time-bomb was ready to burst inside my chest. "I can't forgive myself, because no one else will. Ana's parents wish I died in the accident, too, just so I wouldn't be a reminder of what happened. Her brother would kill me if he could get close enough. And I see it in your eyes every time I look at you, mom. You know it wasn't an accident. It was my fault."

The bomb swelled beneath the surface of my skin and finally released. Hot anger flooded my stomach and white flashed through my vision. I stood and kicked the table blindly, scarcely feeling the polished wood give beneath the sole of my sneaker. My mom was still sitting, stunned by the furious outburst that even I couldn't be sure what had been triggered by. Red in the face and fuming and angry at no one but myself, I spat, "I'm going out."

I stormed upstairs after the detonation of the time-bomb had released its worst, leaving behind much more than a crater in my wake.