Beauty in the Ashes

“Don’t lie to me, Caelan,” she warned.

“I’m as okay as I can be,” I grumbled.

It was the truth. There was no way I could be entirely all right with this. I’d avoided this place since the police carried me out. My grandparents had gone to pack up my stuff since I refused to set foot in the place. So, yes, the last time I’d been here was when… I swallowed thickly, not wanting to go there. I didn’t want the memories to overwhelm me. I wanted them to stop. I didn’t want to have to remember that day anymore.

“If you need to talk about it, I’m here for you.”

“Shut up!” I screamed, my voice filling the small confines of the car with its ferocity. “You’re not a fucking shrink, Sutton! Just stop!”

She frowned, but stared straight ahead, shoulders squared. My words didn’t faze her. Sutton wasn’t afraid of anything.

“You don’t need to act like a jerk,” she said calmly, turning the blinker on and making a right. “It was a simple statement.”

Only Sutton could put me in place and make me feel an inch tall with her words.

I glared out the window, choosing not to make a comment. For once, I’d let her have the last word. I didn’t want to fight. Not now. I just wanted to get this over with. My chest had already tightened with fear and we weren’t even there yet.

“We’re almost there,” she said five minutes later, listening to the directions from her GPS system, since I refused to utter them.

“I know,” I snapped, my tone harsh. “Don’t you think I fucking know where the house is?”

She sighed dramatically, letting me know I was wearing thin on her nerves. That was fine. She was tap-dancing across my last nerve as well.

“I’m beginning to think this was a bad idea,” she muttered under her breath, not caring whether or not I heard.

“You think?”

She smacked her palm against the steering wheel and glared at me briefly before her eyes returned to the road. “Should I turn around?” She asked, her tone biting. Yep, she was pissed. But I deserved her anger for my behavior.

“No,” I muttered, bowing my head in shame like a small child. “You were right. I need to do this.”

“Mhmm,” she murmured, tapping her fingers to the song playing on the radio.

“You know,” I started, “maybe, since I’m doing this, you should think about contacting your parents.”

Her fingers immediately stopped tapping. “Absolutely not.” The words tumbled out of her mouth without a breath in-between. “I took the leap by telling them in the first place, I don’t need to put myself through even more heartbreak. I couldn’t…”

“You couldn’t what?” I prodded.

“I won’t be able to handle them rejecting me a second time. It hurt enough the first time.” Shrugging her shoulders lightly, she continued, “I believe we can only handle a certain amount of heartbreak.” Frowning, she added, “I’ve met my quota. Anymore would just…crush me.”

I hated hearing her speak so negatively, but I understood.

The closer we drew to the house, the more nervous I became.

Sweat broke out across my body. My palms grew damp and I rubbed them on my jeans.

I really needed something right now. Anything. All of it. I’d take any high to knock me out at this point. I wanted oblivion. I found my fingernails digging into the skin until it drew blood. Sometimes physical pain was as freeing as the mind-bending numbness brought on from drugs.

“Caelan,” Sutton called my name, trying to pry my arm away. “Caelan! Stop it!”

It was like she spoke to me from a tunnel. I heard her, but she sounded far away. I didn’t want to listen to her anyway. I needed to feel the pain. I needed to focus on it, let it seep inside me, so that the other stuff wouldn’t matter as much.

“Caelan, you need to stop! You’re hurting yourself!”

I continued to ignore her, focusing instead on the sharp sting on my arm and the rapid beating of my heart.

The last five years of my life had been leading to this.