Repented And Born Again

PRESENT

The smoke of that cigar, laced with a chocolate scent, burned into my nose even though he was across the street. The scent was the same: the cigar lit, resting on his lips, lifted in a smile. A small smile, soft and gentle. Not like that frightening smile he had on his face that night that still sends a chill down my spine. 

Elijah M’Call still looked the same even seven years later. His black hair was slicked back from his face, dotted with gray. His grey eyes were wrinkled at the corners from age. His shoulders were still broad beneath his tailored suit, and black leather gloves covered his hands.

He still looked and dressed the same. Nothing had changed.

After that night, I had cut every tie with this man. I made sure I never heard a word from him or received a single penny. I moved into Jacob’s house, and his mother accepted me without a single complaint, letting me stay until I could rent my own place. 

I didn't speak to my mother for two years after that. She came to my school and Jacob’s house and begged to see me, but I never agreed. It wasn't her fault. I know it, but a part of me couldn't accept the fact that she still stayed with him even after what he did to me. She didn't divorce him until two years later, and that's when I agreed to see her.

For years, I haven't felt the pain in my wrists. Even though it took a really long time for my wrists to heal, and before I could even use them to play, the pain had vanished for years. But seeing this man again brought it back out of nowhere.

My wrists throbbed with the pain even though nothing was broken anymore. I felt sick to my stomach, dizzy. And when he started crossing the street toward me, putting his cigar away, the feeling only got worse. 

Three years. 

Only three years later could I finally start playing hockey again. Not because my wrist hadn't healed yet, or the pain was still there, but because every time I picked up the stick, I saw his face staring down at me with those dark eyes and a chilling smile. Every time I thought about skating on the ice again, nerves racked through my entire body, and I couldn't stop shaking. 

But Jacob had been there. He was there and still fought for me even though I had given up on my dreams. He never stopped believing, and he always told me how it felt to play on the ice. But I still couldn't pick up the stick again. 

But then I discovered something: how sex made me relax, how it took my mind off things. I tried it before practice, and that was how I found a pattern, a ritual. A ritual that helped me get back on the ice again. 

It was insane, and people raised an eyebrow when I told them, but they didn't understand. I was the only one who knew how it felt, how the voices quiet down when I was between a woman’s legs, how the shaking stopped. 

Some people found it disgusting; some just called me a manwhore, and I agreed with every single one of them, but it helped me. It helped me get to this place where I had more money than I knew what to do with, and I'd achieved a dream. I could move my mom to anywhere she wanted to go. She could tour the world, and I wouldn't even break the bank to make that come to pass. 

But here I was, seven years later, and I was seventeen again, with wrists that hurt, and pain I had never experienced in my life again, and the man I had loved was the one inflicting that pain.

“Jackson,” my father called as he got close to me. I just stood still and stared at him, my hands shaking, wrists hurting. “You are one hard man to track down.” 

He was standing two feet away from me, staring at me with a smile, and he made a move, like he was about to hug me or something. I took two steps back, my teeth bared at him like I was a wild animal, and he stopped, raising his hands, his eyes shining with pain.

He had no right, none, to have that look in his eyes when he had done that to me, clear-headed and very aware.

“It’s been seven years, son,” he said softly. 

“It has,” I said, my voice hard. “Seven years is a lot of time, and maybe that’s why you seem to have forgotten that I am no longer your son. You lost every right to call me that after that night.”

His eyebrows were pulled together, the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling further when his expression turned tight.

“I have regretted that night every single day of my life for seven years, Jackson,” he whispered, and the pain was evident in his voice. “I have beaten myself down for it, and come to realize that you were right. You were right, and I needed you and your mother. I needed my family, and I couldn't see it then. I was arrogant, foolish, but I've seen my mistakes now. I have learned from them.”

“Good for you then,” I said, my voice trembling with barely constrained rage and pain. “Good for you for realizing your wrongs, but what now? What do you think is going to happen now? You will confess how sorry and wrong you were, and the world will go back to being filled with rainbows and sunshine?” 

I shook my head when he opened his mouth to speak. 

“No, Elijah, that’s not what’s going to happen. Even to this very moment, all your poison-filled words you spat at us still haunt us.” I pointed at nothing, not taking my eyes off him. “My mother is out there still trying to prove a point even though she hasn't heard from you in years.” I pointed at myself with a finger that shook, and a hurt wrist that was beginning to piss me off. “And I'm still here with a ritual I created to survive your ghost.”

He flinched like I'd struck him, his eyes wide, his shoulders trembling slightly.

“So you can be sorry, Elijah,” I went on, my rage and pain now bleeding into my voice, no longer wanting to be held back. “You might have repented and been born again, but it’s not going to change shit. It’s not magically going to make everything alright as if they had never happened. So I suggest you go back to whatever life you’ve been living, and I will try to do the same.”

I turned my back to him, walking away, flexing my wrists and willing them to quit their shit. This wasn't the time. I had two hours to my game, so this wasn't the fucking time! And it was fucking worse when I couldn't have sex. The only woman I wanted hated my guts, so I would have to find another way to get my heart to stop racing. 

“Jackson!” he yelled, but I kept walking and didn't look back. “Jackson, give me a chance!”

“You already had your chance,” I whispered as I kept walking, towards my game, towards victory or failure.