Vile Boys (Spine Ridge University)

This is the day I feared would come.

I pull him to me and hold him tight, letting him release all of the pent-up anger and anguish in my arms. He screams and cries, then punches my shoulders.

“It’s not. Fucking. Fair.” PUNCH! “She was supposed to LIVE!”

His wails go through marrow and bone.

When I look up, Crystal is also crying, and she slowly comes to the ground too and wraps her arms around his belly, placing her head on his back.

“Let it all out,” she whispers.

His screams become louder and louder until half the people outside have come to check what’s going on, but Blaine shoos them away to keep Caleb safe in our arms.

Right now, there is nothing anyone can do for him except be there in the moment and allow him to feel the grief he’s been holding on to for so long. The desperate hope we all knew was in vain, suddenly vanishing into thin air.

Crystal

Nothing can prepare one for this amount of grief.

At some point in our lives, we will all feel this devastation, this gaping hole we’re about to fall into. There is no escaping it, no bargaining, no exceptions. Trying to claw at it will only make it harder to let go.

I understand that all too well.

Grief is releasing all the love you kept inside you and relinquishing it to the void.

What’s left is unchangeable memories, fitting inside the little hole in your heart.

And with time, each of them will be able to put a smile on your face again.

I take a deep breath as we walk into Caleb’s mom’s room, where his dad waits for him. His father holds his mother’s hand, gently rubbing it as though he believes she can still feel it somewhere.

I squeeze Caleb’s hand, and he looks at Ares and me before releasing us. His movement is unsteady but focused as if the only thing keeping him walking is his undying need to be at his mother’s side. She is the last thread of pain holding his family together.

Ares places his hand on my shoulder and whispers, “It’s okay if you want to leave. I know it’s hard for you. I can take it.”

I shake my head. “I want to be here for him. I’m the only one who understands what it’s like.”

He nods. “I’ll respect your wish.”

And I whisper back, “Let’s just be here for when he needs us.”

Caleb

I approach my father, who stands from his seat. We stare at each other for a moment while my heart slowly begins to bleed. He releases Mom’s hand and holds out his hands to me, and with tears rolling down my face, I run into his arms.

I have never wanted to hug him this hard before, but now it feels like I can’t get close enough.

The one thing that connected us is now gone.

There is nothing that could’ve prepared me for this day. Nothing.

“Mom …” I mutter into his chest.

“I’m sorry, Caleb,” he says, but I can hear him cry too.

He buries his face into my shoulder and bawls just like me, but in each other’s arms, we find relief.

Memories flash through my mind of her smile, the way she picked me up when I was a kid, how she cooked the most delicious pancakes, of all the times she made me laugh and rubbed the bottom of my back when I cried, and all the ways we danced whenever I was feeling down. Oh, how she loved to dance.

I miss her so much even though she hasn’t been present these past few years. I still talked with her, I still felt her presence, but now?

I turn to look at the body lying in the bed, her skin gone pale gray. She looks like a shell of what was once a living, breathing human being. As if her soul has already vacated long ago, and all that’s left is a husk, eyes no longer reflecting any light.

I breathe out a ragged breath and grab her hand, sitting down on her bed, before I lean over to kiss her on the cheeks.

“I’ll miss you, Mom. I hope you’re able to dance up there.”

My father hugs me from behind, and I place my hand on his, the severed connection between us renewed.

I turn my head and look into his tearstained red eyes.

“She’s gone,” he murmurs.

“This is what you wanted, right?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No.”

“You’ve already replaced her!” I yell, my frustrations finally out in the open, and it makes his eyes widen.

“I … Is that how you see my relationship with Crystal’s mother?”

“Don’t pretend it isn’t true,” I say. “You were still married to Mom, and then you decided to abandon her.”

His brows furrow as pain strikes his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Caleb. Even though your mother isn’t, I’m still here. I always will be with you. I won’t abandon you, no matter how much you hate me. I will—”

I fall into his arms and hold him so tightly I can’t breathe.

“I have never wanted you to feel like I was replacing her. I was just trying to stop the wound in my heart from growing,” he mutters. “I’m sorry, Caleb. I’m sorry.”

He hugs me just as tightly, refusing to let me go when I try, and it moves me.

“I love you,” he says. “I fucking love you, Caleb. I mean it. With every inch of my soul.”

And it breaks me.

Tears roll down my cheeks as I bury my face in his shoulders and let out all of the grief and rage I’d been holding on to until nothing but a vapid shell was left of me, just like my mother.