The Angriest Angel

Chapter 32

Chase could not fall asleep.  He tossed and turned for what seemed like an eternity, flipping onto his side and forcibly closing his eyes, only to wind up lying on his back, staring at the ceiling in frustrated failure.

The pain in his leg was ignorable, but the day's events were not.  Past bouts of insomnia taught him how futile it was to ignore the myriad of thoughts running through his head.  They toyed with his attention, taunting and provoking him with provocative mystery, not allowing him to relax.

Chase was very conflicted about Avery and her people.  Their interest in him was strange, to be sure, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something much bigger in play.  He was tired of asking himself questions that he couldn't answer; so for now he was content to just let things play out.  But his thoughts kept coming back to Avery.  Somehow she had gotten behind his walls, and he had no idea how that had happened. 

He always kept people at a distance.  It was a topic which had been covered to death with his psychiatrist.  Her explanation was that trauma from his childhood had left him feeling undesired and discarded, leading to a classic fear of abandonment.  As a result, he now pushed people away before they could push him away. 

When he married Sarah he thought he had overcome a lot of his psychological issues.  She had reached out to him, got to know him, and accepted him.  Things were good for a while.  But when she filed for divorce, his bitterness was resurrected with a renewed strength.

So Chase went back to what worked—keeping people at arm's length and trusting only in himself.  He didn't need anyone, anyway.  Avery was an exception only because spending time with her was not his choice.  It was forced upon him.  But the fact remained, she had gotten behind his walls, and that was no small thing.

He couldn't deny the fact that the more time he spent with her, the more he liked her.  And the more he liked her, the more he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Was it all an act? 

He knew that she wasn't acting—that much was certain.  But it was undeniable that she seemed a little too good to be true.  She was intelligent, moral, humble and honest—a preposterous combination in Chase's estimation.  She was also beautiful, which was a problem in itself.  Luckily, his cynicism and general contempt for society went a long way toward managing any attraction he felt toward Avery.  But how long would that last if she continued to turn his pessimism on its head?

All of that aside, the most surprising and troubling thing about her was her ability to make him believe in himself.  Nobody had ever made him feel that way—not Sarah, not even his doctor.  Embracing such a feeling was dangerous—feelings were as fickle as people, and their abandonment no less painful. 

He thought back to his childhood—recalling a time which was profoundly connected to Avery's belief in him.  He was ten years old.  His father had been gone for more than three years, and with each passing day Chase had become more incorrigible.  He was incapable of staying out of trouble, managing to alienate and anger every authority figure in his young life.  Punishments meant nothing to him—he didn't learn lessons the way other children did.  It wasn't until well into adulthood when he finally understood why.  His ADHD diagnosis came with the knowledge that he was born with an abnormal physiology in the brain—including the reward center, which was critical for learning from mistakes.

It also wasn't until adulthood that he realized he had been a victim of child abuse. 

At the time, it was simply life as he knew it.  Chase's mother rotated punishments with the desperation of a parent at her wit's end.  When she wasn't beating him, she was berating him—riding him down and insulting him until he cried.  If he tried to talk back, she forcibly put dirt in his mouth.  If he tried to avoid her, she beat him with her shoes.  If he tried to lie, he was stabbed with a fork.