The Things We Bury - Part 1: In Anticipation of the End of the World [Completed]

Chapter 10: Rough Waters (Parts 6 & 7 of 9)

"At night when I try and sleep, I can't stop thinking about all the bad things I've done.  I wonder if there is any way to be forgiven.  I was taught to believe in God and Jesus, but I have trouble thinking of them as real.  They're like the President.  He's just an image on the TV screen, not a real person.  Like, at any moment someone could tell you he's made up like Santa Claus.  God's like that to me.  I know I should think of him as being there—being there for me, but It's easier to believe he isn't.  Because if he is real, how does any of this make sense?

"And even if he is, will sorrys or prayers ever make up for what I've done.

"I guess that in the end, I'm not looking for anyone's forgiveness.  Having someone tell me everything is okay, will make nothing okay.  What I want...

"What I want is to reach back into the past and stop those things.  I want to do it with my own hands—feel it with my own skin.  Actually touch them and know that these things have been undone.  After that, it wouldn't matter what happened to me.  But I can't do that, can I?

"It's like this one time when I was young.  I was playing with a necklace my mom had given me and it broke.  The glass beads spilled out on the driveway and some of them shattered and exploded as they hit the ground.  The end of the thin, useless string was in my hand and I couldn't hold back even one of the beads.  Watching my present fall apart in front of me, I wanted to throw up.  My only thought was a wish to rewind time and undo it.  It's like that.  I know you'll say it was an accident like all the other things were accidents.  But does that change anything?  They all still happened.

"I have a demon in my head I can't control.  It wants me to do things, and for a while, I was so mad at everything I listened.  But I've been fighting it.  I don't want to hear what it has to say anymore.  I want to be good.  I need to control it so no one else dies."

R.J. sat with his chin in his hand.  She was right: he would have told her it had been an accident.  But that wasn't what was on the forefront of his mind.  His thoughts were locked onto the image of reaching back in time and physically seizing your mistakes.  He could see a dozen milliseconds, where he could have done something differently and Jamie would still be alive.  If only he didn't go on that date.  If only he had listened to Horus and put a second person on watch that night.  If only he had put an end to Jamie's clandestine conversations when he first learned of them.  If only—if only—if only.  It was a tide of regrets washing over him every time he closed his eyes.

And if he let it, that tide would become a flood—a deluge, as he wound back through time to all those moments in his life when he should have done something differently.

There was a long silence and he realized that she wasn't going to speak again unless he said something first.  "It's not like you ever thought about doing those things.  You say you have a demon—we all do.  There is something within all of us that guides us toward evil.  Just like there is something that guides us toward good."

"No, that's not what I mean," Amy said.  "There is a demon in here with me."

"Are you talking about the wolf?"

"No.  But they're connected.  I'm not sure how.  It was urging me to change that night.  And I didn't stop it."

"Do you think it's something you can control?  The change, I mean."

She thought about it.  Amy was cross-legged on the bed, or at least she had been when R.J. had walked into the OC.  They never talked face-to-face.  They didn't meet at the window in Horus's office and R.J. didn't watch her through the one-way glass.  They spoke using the enclosure's intercom, as though over a telephone.  They never discussed why this arrangement felt so natural.  Perhaps each of them was happy to talk without being looked at.