Last Kiss Goodbye • Teenage Juice Ortiz

81 - The Arms of a Father

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THE PRESENT

Juice had the feeling his head was about to burst. The pain was so sharp he didn't even realize where he was. Only when he sat up straight and rubbed his stiff neck, he discovered that he was sitting in a shed. A sour smell tickled his nostrils. Puke. Numbly, he registered a pool of vomit next to him. There was an empty bottle next to it. 

Where did he get it? 

The pounding of his head was too heavy to dig into his memories. Pulling up his knees, he pushed his face against them. For a while he kept sitting that way, until the door opened. How much time had gone by, he didn't know. 

Through a haze, he saw someone crouching down across from him and laying a hand on his knee. 

"You can't keep sitting here, Juan. Please come inside."

June... It was June. His sweet, beautiful June. The light in his life, which he'd wanted to see one last time. Was she real? Probably not. Countless times he had fantasized that she had returned to him, that she had found him and wanted to stay with him. 

It never happened. 

With glassy eyes he stared at her. All of a sudden, she was gone. 

Of course she was. She was just a figment of his imagination. 

He nearly bawled. 

And his head was pounding, blazing. 

Maybe it wasn't because of the booze. Maybe someone shot him in the head. He might as well have done it himself. Even fucking up a suicide – that would be typical him, right? He was a failure. He couldn't even kill himself properly. 

Again, he sensed someone was near. With an empty glance in his eyes he looked up. 

There she was again. His angel. 

Although he knew she wasn't real, he smiled. It felt like he could die in peace now, as if he had waited for this moment. 

She talked to him, although her words sounded incomprehensibly far away. And she pressed something against his hand. 

A glass. 

He stared at the contents. Water. 

"...an? Do you hear me?"

Finally, he shook off the numbness. "Yeah," he answered hoarsely. 

She held out her hand. He wanted to grab it; then he saw the painkiller in the palm of it. 

His angel, always so caring. He took the pill, put it in his mouth and swallowed it with a sip of water. Suddenly he realized how thirsty he was and he downed the glass in one movement. 

"Please come with me, Juan." She was on her knees in front of him. "Take a shower, put on some clean clothes and take a nap on the bed."

He nodded blankly. 

It didn't matter what she would say to him. Even if she told him to go back to Charming or to turn himself in; he would do it. Her voice was enchanting, he couldn't resist it and he neither wanted to resist. She had always known what was best for him. 

Wobbly, he stood up. She wrapped an arm around him to support him. His body was stiff, but he knew he could walk without her help. 

He however didn't want to. He wanted to lean into her, wanted to be close to her. She smelled so good; flowers and a sweetness he'd never been able to identify... and there was this other fresh scent he couldn't define, which gave him a familiar feeling and made the hairs in his neck rise.