Kairos - Blood (MxM) | Book 2 | ✅

25.Choices

"Sir, you're dreaming. It's just a nightmare." The words reached me despite the loud thumping of my racing heart.

Henry sat beside me in the car. His hand tightly held on to mine.

I glazed over our surroundings and found that the car had been parked in a rest area. The whole city sparkled below us, in the valley. A gray-blue sky warned of an impending sunrise.

Some idiot was panting his lungs out in the car, blurring out the entire side window.

Henry squeezed my hand, "Sir, it wasn't real. Whatever got you so worked up was only a nightmare," he tried to reason with the heaving idiot.

I scoffed and wiggled my fingers out of his grip. Now that it was free, my hand felt chilly. Yet a phantom sensation of Henry's hold remained so I massaged the fingers to make it go away.

"Drive, Henry," the whisper shivered out of me.

He started up the car. Its rumble echoed through the emptiness inside my chest.

Where the heck am I, anyway?

A serpentine road stretched before me. The area seemed vaguely familiar, and given the proximity to the city, I could easily guess my whereabouts. Point View. The shortest and most humble of the mountains in this county. Worn and polished by eons, it held out a defiant finger of rock at the heavens. The tip cradled a few B&Bs for lost tourists. Our car slithered down that finger, back to the highway.

I swallowed a knot of nauseating feelings, and let out an awkward cackle.

"Out of all the places, Henry," my words laced with chuckles, "why did you bring me here?"

"Sir?" he uttered confounded throwing glances my way.

"Eyes on the road. We wouldn't want to take a dive off a cliff like my parents, would we?" I snapped.

"No, sir," Henry responded quickly.

His back was stiff and those hooded eyes kept a faithful watch on the winding road ahead. But the furrowed brows spoke volumes to his confusion.

"I know it's stupid," I started and moved to light up a cigarette.

"What is, sir?" Henry opened up the car ashtray for me.

"My guilt. It's old and comfortable but only because I've been living with it for almost two decades." I puffed at my cigarette. "Do you know why my parents were driving down this road in the middle of the night? I was flunking 9th grade and they found out about it."

Toxic gray swirls enveloped me. They curled and danced, filling up the space between the dashboard and us. A humming sound soothed over my bristled nerves as the smoke twirled into the closest vent opening.

"Nobody argues like a Latin woman. Couple her with a Scotsman, and you're bound to have some fireworks. I've been hearing them crackle and burst since I was born." I gestured to the road as if my parents' car was right in front of us. "My mom and dad were really at it. I can almost hear them. They argued their way into a damn literal pit."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir."

"Yeah, yeah. That's not why I'm bringing this up. It's about my guilt. I'm sick of it. I've known for quite some time that it's childish to feel responsible for what was, in fact, an accident. You'd think the guilt would subside or at least fade a tad, right?"

"Yes, sir," Henry answered.

"Well, no. It festers and boils, breeding inside me like a virus, like poison, like-" I sighed rubbing my forehead. Why was I ranting on and on about this?