Across Acheron

Session 14

I somewhat find it funny now. I mean, there I was sitting with a gun to my head and all I thought of was earning Keenan’s favour once more. He knew how to make himself the center of attention without even trying.  

I forced myself to speak so I didn’t have to think of anything that dealt with him. “What are you talking about?”

Cillian ran his big hand through a thick field of brown hair, his sigh bouncing off the basement walls. “I’m sending you off right this time, Jack. That’s the reason you came back, wasn’t it? Last time I didn’t fix you, but now I can. Now you can go peacefully.”

I shook my head, keeping my ground. “I’m not touching her, if that’s what you’re referring to. I don’t care what you think about me, but that’s not right. Doing something like that is awful.”

I expected him to shoot then; to pull the trigger and get it done and over with. But he continued to stare as his expression contorted into something distressing, like he expected me to listen to him without questions. As if he deserved more respect than I was giving him.

That look would’ve worked on me weeks ago, but I knew I didn’t owe him anything. I never did and I never will.

“What happened to the Jack I knew?” Cillian’s voice was nauseatingly quiet. “The one who liked following me around everywhere and always wanted to learn something new? I don’t even remember when you first started getting sick. If we had known sooner, none of this would’ve ever happened.”

He was trying to start on me again; to see how much he could push this situation further until I snapped. When I did, he would have the perfect reason to shoot. He was attacking me; I had to do something, he would say. He would keep telling himself that until he could sleep at night, just like he did two years ago.

“You’re nothing but a coward. You’re no better than me; always hiding behind false tales and images that you created to make yourself feel better. You’re doing the wrong things and trying to say that it’s for the good of other people. If I’m sick, then what the hell are you?”

Cillian shook his head, his breathing increasing with speed. “You’re just disgracing us, Jack. You’re putting shame on the entire family.”

“Then kill off the fucking shame!” I retorted. “You can’t see anything past what you want to believe, can you? I don’t want to be fixed. I don’t even want to be here, but I am.”

I quit talking then in fear of letting the tears slip. I never opened up to him like that, not once since I stepped through the front door. I suppose that’s what he wanted; a peak into my mind before he killed me.

I didn’t know why I admitted all that stuff to him anyway. I suppose I just wanted to give him a chance to be somebody different; someone who knew how to hold and care for someone and say I’m sorry once in a while. But Cillian would never be that man. All he knew was to play make-believe and find someone to blame for his faults.

“Sleep with her,” he pressed.

“I’m not sick, Cillian. I don’t need any fixing.”

“I said sleep with her, damn it!”

“I’m not sick!”

“Well you’ve goddamn might as well be, because I know Ma didn’t raise no dick sucker!”

My throat closed shut when he said that. I knew that he had said it once before in a memory that I so desperately wanted to get rid of. It didn’t hurt as much back then, but now it tore a piece out of me that I thought never existed.