Beacon in the Darkness

29. Torment

Foreboding silence hung heavy in the room, stretching to the furthest corners and filling every void like creeping fog. Shawn sat perched on the end of his bed, his head down and his trembling hands thrust into his hair. The skin of his chest felt as though it had shrunk a few sizes and now squeezed uncomfortably against his ribs, making it hard to breath. He closed his eyes and drew in a slow, pained breath, willing the tightness to abate and the pressure swelling inside to lessen. Dropping his hands from his hair, he raised his face to the ceiling. The fan above whirred and pushed cooling air down onto him, refreshing his heated flesh.

Dull, golden light filtered through the curtains, pooling to the floor below the window. The last sign that the day he'd been dreading had finally dawned. In the darkness, surrounded by nothing but the girl he loved, things seemed simpler, less urgent. But now, with the light filling and overtaking the night, the reality in which he'd created became true and nearly unbearable to accept. He knew his decision was the best one for everyone—even if it didn't feel like it to him. Hurt, pain, and disappointment had come to be expected in his life. It wasn't what he wanted, it just was. There was no changing the course of his destiny—at least that's what he'd always told himself. That he wasn't good enough, or deserving enough to have what other people had.

Family.

Friends.

Love.

In the past, he'd embraced it, moved on, and just accepted that was how it was. But this time he didn't want to do that. He wanted a life all his own. He wanted . . . more. He needed more. He deserved more.

His fists clenched at his sides and he drew in a sharp breath, anger flooding through him and filling the emptiness that had been present ever since the night before. Memories of the look on her face, the trembling of her voice, the tears falling over her cheeks, washed over him and fueled the overwhelming urge to hit something.

He'd hurt her.

Something he'd promised himself he'd never do. Seeing her cry, witnessing her pain, and knowing he was the one who'd caused it, was more unbearable than anything else about this whole messed up situation. It wasn't enough, apparently, that everyone he loved was in danger because of him, but he had to hurt them all—maybe irrevocably—to protect them. It wasn't fair. Life wasn't fair. But he already knew that. He'd lived that truth for twelve years.

It didn't matter that God had, for whatever reason, decided to hand him a steaming pile of crap to live in to begin with. But He just had to keep dumping it on him, over and over until he was buried miles beneath it. One would have thought, given the circumstances, that he wouldn't believe in a God who would allow that. Who would stand by and watch as a small boy listened to his mother die, witnessed his father being taken away, and allowed monstrous people to take him in and beat what innocence he had left out. For so many years he'd believed just that—that God couldn't be real. But if that was true, if God wasn't real, then how was he sitting there, looking down on the most beautiful girl, watching her—in her perfect innocence—dream, knowing she was in love with him. Something he never thought he would experience. A lost and broken soul, drifting aimlessly through life, having no reason to connect, no reason to believe he was worth a damn.

Until she walked into his life. Well, more like tripped into it.