Page 13 of Courageous Demands

Hearing silence, he opened the front door and stopped.

Mrs. Kendall was sitting there on the couch with a blanket over her lap – and had two cups of coffee waiting on the end table beside her.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Alec retorted. “No satin? No lace? No saggy boobs flopping every which way to Sunday? Does this mean I’m not getting frisked or fondled today?”

“Sometimes a girl just isn’t in the mood,” Mrs. Kendall said flatly. “You boys at the station are hard to please sometimes, I swear. Everyone nags me about the lipstick, the hugs, the muumuus, or comments on my curlers, but the one time I try to be nice? – It just bites me right on the buttocks and not in a good way.”

“Is there a good way?” Alec chuckled, thoroughly amused at this unexpected side of his mother’s friend and vastly relieved. He could handle sass and a smart mouth.

“If you are doing it right, yes. Now, sit down for a few minutes and let those other cretins stew in their britches. How are you doing, kiddo? I haven’t seen or heard much of you around town, and your mama is worried. What’s going on with you?”

Alec accepted the cup of coffee that she pointed at – and sat down with a heavy sigh on the couch nearby. He didn’t know if it was because his guard was down with her actually being ‘real’ around him, if it was lack of sleep, the entire debacle with Willow, or yesterday’s belly flop through a roof… but for the first time in his life, the words just came out.

Poured out.

Niagara Falls had less pressure flowing than his mouth did. The words flowed out of him as Alec stared at the cup in his hands and unplugged his radio.

“I’m falling apart,” he whispered hoarsely, looking at her – and then his eyes widened as if he realized what he’d actually said aloud. “Please don’t say anything to my mother or anyone else. I don’t need the questions, people prying, or the gossip. I just need…”

“You need someone safe to talk to,” Mrs. Kendall said gently. “You want a cookie, honey?”

“Are they laced with drugs?”

“Nahhhh, I keep all my snort, blow, and meth in an underground bunker with a padlock. But on Friday nights, it gets really freaky around here, and we break out the ‘big guns’ - Wheel of Fortune and my bed at seven p.m.”

Alec gave her a nervous smile, realizing she was teasing him back – and saw her leaning over over to lift a glass cloche, pointing at the cookies. He plucked one and didn’t bother to ask what it was because it didn’t matter. He felt like a young lost boy who just wanted a cookie, his mama, and to make the bad guys go away.

“Spill it, kiddo…” Mrs. Kendall smiled softly. “Nothing leaves this room.”

“I fell through a roof yesterday and…”

“Are you hurt?” she blurted out, looking concerned immediately.

“My pride,” he chuckled, looking at her briefly. “But something else too – and I don’t know how to even begin. Did you ever have a moment in your life that felt so pivotal, like nothing was going to be the same from here on, but it hurt at the same time? I mean, people always say, ‘If I had a chance to do it all over again’ – although I’m not sure if I would.”

“That’s because they’ve never had something vital or precious ripped from them before you were ready to say goodbye,” Mrs. Kendall said hoarsely, making him look up at her – only to see her eyes were glassy with emotion. “No one knows how hard it is to have your life that you thought was in control, suddenly flipped like a pancake… and what you thought was going to happen – didn’t. It was like Fate said to Karma, ‘Hold my beer,’ and your whole world goes from Terrific to Tragic within seconds.”

“Yes…” he whispered in shock.

“And you are left standing there, wondering what just happened, and every ounce of your being is screaming in pain silently because there aren't enough words to describe it.”

“That’s exactly it… and I don’t know what to do, where I went wrong, or what I said. All I know is that every time I say something, reach out, or even think about opening that doorway where I know I’m going to get roasted or broiled emotionally – everything in me screams out in protest, silently. My mouth starts running. I start physically leaping away, and that’s the opposite of what I should be doing… but it’s so hard,” he admitted, his voice quiet. “I keep seizing up, and it’s getting me nowhere – robbing me of other things that I desperately want.”

“Like what?”

He let out a weird laugh, half-choking, and half-sobbing, looking away from her and trying to pull himself together mentally.

“Alec, I promise you are safe. It’s just you and me, kid.”

And that was all he needed to hear. That ‘dam’ in his soul was already springing leaks everywhere, and he couldn’t plug them fast enough. No, everything was coming out whether or not he wanted it to.

“When I fell, all I could think was that I would never have a future, never hold my own kid, never ask what happened – and that realization hurt so much,” he whispered hoarsely, putting down the half-consumed cup of coffee because it was rattling against the saucer, his hands were shaking so badly. “I’ve never experienced fear, regret, or horror like that before – and I can’t seem to shake it.”

“You want a future for yourself, and that’s natural.”

“I want to mend the past, figure out what I did wrong so I can fix it, and move beyond this hurt inside of me. There must be something awful within me that made her run…” Alec got quiet, looking at Mrs. Kendall, who handed him a tissue. “I should go.”

“You should take a moment for yourself to breathe,” Mrs. Kendall replied gently. “They’ll knock on the door or barge right in when they are worried about you. Trust me on that one.”

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