Page 8 of The Voices are Back

-Text from Aodhan to Bowie

AODHAN

I rubbed my chest where the ache for Morrigan St. Pete always resided. Sometimes it was more evident than others, but at that moment in time? It was there, and it was fierce, and it was likely going to stay that way for a while, based solely on the way she’d left without a backward glance in my direction.

Ever since the moment that we’d broken up, I’d wanted to take the moral high ground I’d been able to scrounge up back.

I wanted to pull her into my arms and hold on tight, never letting her go.

Yet, I’d persevered.

And after all this time, she’d dropped out of college? Where had she been? Why hadn’t she come back sooner?

“What the hell just happened?” I asked more to myself than the woman that was still serving customers, customers who were acting exactly the same, as if the owner of this establishment hadn’t just passed the fuck out in front of them.

If I hadn’t been following her, unable to help myself at the sight of her, she would’ve hit the floor so hard that her body could’ve broken.

Yet, I’d been there. I’d caught her. I’d missed the holy hell out of her.

Having her in my arms, even passed out, had been like a dream come true.

My phone beeped, signaling it was time for me to leave.

Today was my day to take Bowie to practice, and to get him there on time, that meant that I would have to grab my dinner now, or I’d be late.

But my heart was still physically aching, and I couldn’t make myself leave.

“She does this all the time,” the woman, Theresa, as Morr had called her, said. “And to be completely honest, I could tell she was severely uncomfortable being in your arms. She doesn’t like it when strangers touch her when she can’t do anything to stop them.”

That was a fuckin’ kick to the gut.

“I’m not a stranger,” I said.

She looked at me with raised eyebrows as she said, “Aren’t you?”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but quickly closed it. Because she was right. Morr was a stranger to me now. We didn’t know each other anymore like we used to. Had we, I would’ve known that her hair was changed, and that she couldn’t function like a normal adult because she had diseases.

Hell, when she first started showing signs and symptoms of the diseases when she was younger, her dad hadn’t cared. Her mother, who had been fresh out of prison for trying to kill herself, and accomplishing killing one of her unborn children in the process, hadn’t cared either.

The only person to worry about her had been me.

But she’d said that they’d gotten better.

She’d said that she…

I trailed off as I realized she’d given me what she thought I needed to hear. Because I’d been letting her go, and she knew I’d be guilted into keeping her if she informed me she wasn’t okay.

I would’ve never left her side.

But what she didn’t realize was, I hadn’t wanted to let her go. All I’d needed was that little kick to allow me to keep her. To let me know that I wasn’t going to ruin her dreams by keeping her.

Had I had that…

Well, then I wouldn’t have my son.

And what did that make me when I wasn’t sure what the tradeoff would be? Where I couldn’t say that I would’ve chosen my kid all day long and twice on Sunday over Morrigan?

Fuck, I was a piece of shit.

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