An Incest Birthday Ch. 24

"Is that what you think? Your life is over?"

"Rita shunned me from her life because of everything Ashley did. Rita! My Rita! Do you know how bad that hurts?"

"From what I saw she was crying her eyes out hoping you wouldn't die, that doesn't look like she shunned you from her life to me."

"Of course she doesn't want me to die, I'm still her family, but it's not like things will go back to the way they were before all this happened, you can't unring a bell."

"I can recall Stephanie offering words of forgiveness, you don't think Rita will do the same?"

"Stephanie is different than Rita. We're not related, we're not twins, and we weren't in love, she and Chris just finally admitted that to each other. With Rita, everything was real, it was perfect, she was everything I ever wanted, and all that was taken away in one night."

My anger had finally started to die down a little as my head cleared and I thought about the situation. My mind didn't feel clouded as much anymore, and I still thought I was making the only decision I could make.

"It's not over Randy, you can still fix this, you can still get your life back."

"What life? Rita doesn't trust me anymore. I don't wanna go back to a life where I can't be with her, not after everything we've been through, I can't do it.

"So you would rather stay here and wither away, is that it?"

"It's not what I prefer, this place is no better, the only thing remotely good about here is that my left hand stays warm, which is nothing at all to brag about, but being here beats being around Rita and not being able to be with her."

"Death is never the better option. No matter the situation. No matter whose fault it is."

"IT'S ASHLEY'S FAULT! THIS WHOLE THING IS ASHLEY'S FAULT!" I yelled, a small bit of anger coming back to me.

"Even if that may be the case, it still..."

"There is no even if, it is her fault! She took Rita from me and she put me in this place, double fucking whammy. I hate her, I hate her so fucking much."

"You hate her, yet you still stepped in front of a bullet for her with no hesitation."

"Yeah tell me why I did that, because I have no fucking clue why I did."

"You did it because regardless of your feelings for Ashley, it was the right thing to do, plain and simple. You took control of that situation. Trust me, that made a big difference."

"Not big enough. Look around, she put me in my grave."

"That's only true if you make it true. Don't lose the will to fight, it's not over yet."

I dropped my head. "For me it is. I have nothing to go back to."

He stood silent for a second and gave me a disappointed look as he started to fade off. "Get comfortable here, because if you continue to think like that then you're already dead."

He disappeared again and I was left along again in the dark with my thoughts, which is what I wanted at that moment. I didn't feel like talking about it anymore, I just wanted to sit there with my thoughts and wait for whatever was gonna happen to me to happen. It wasn't like me at all to just concede like this, but I honestly thought I had no better option. Sometimes death is easier. Why would I wanna live a life where I have to be around the one person I wanna spend the rest of my life with, but I can't have? Not to mention if she starts dating other guys and bringing them to the house around me, that would just eat me up inside. It was better this way, for everybody, it might not seem like it now but down the line everyone will see it differently.

It's hard to keep track of time in a place that's so empty, so I had no idea how long I'd been sitting in that spot for. Without the need for food or water here, and besides the pain when I was being shown the memories, there's not much cause for anything to be wrong, so I just sat there, a paranoid prisoner trapped in my own mind, waiting for something, anything to happen. I was beginning to think nothing at all would ever happen, that I would just stay in this dark room forever since I'd basically agreed to it anyway, but then out of nowhere I heard something, something faint but it was definitely there. It wasn't like the sound my conscience makes when he reappears, this sounded like, if I heard right, an actual person. I sat quiet and tried to focus on the noise, which started to get louder and closer the more I paid attention to it, it was definitely a person, a girl, and by the sound of it, it sounded like she was crying. There was no other sound, just the continuous crying playing over and over on a loop, or at least that's what it sounded like. I don't know where it came from, or how long it would last, but it definitely made me curious, seeing as it was the only sound I heard in who knows how long other than myself. I started to get a little antsy, and almost right on cue, I heard that familiar whooshing noise along with all that light gathering back into one spot, my conscience.

"What's that noise?"

"That's your life Randy."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"That's what you're leaving behind."

My enthusiasm dropped. "Oh. Figures it would only lead to more pain."

"You don't get it do you?"

"Get what? I don't see what I'm missing."

"You're so blinded by anger that it's killing you, literally. If you're that intent on staying here, in this black empty space in the back of your mind forever, then I can't stop you, but you're making a huge mistake thinking your life is over."

"Trust me, it is. If you saw the look on Rita's face you'd know too."

"I did see the look on her face, and it wasn't a look that showed any distain towards you."

"Then you must've been looking at another Rita, because my Rita hates me."

He stood silent for a second. "I see. It seems you've made up your mind, and no matter what I seem to say against you, you still won't change it."

"It's easier this way, for everyone. I know what I'm giving up."

"Do you? Ok. Since your mind is made up, I'll leave you alone and you'll never hear from me again, but before I go, I want you to see exactly what you're giving up."

He points his hand out to a random spot and a rectangle of light starts to form. It's fuzzy like how a TV screen is but it starts to clear up, and when it does, the image that shows up on screen completely caught me off guard. It showed me, laying in a hospital bed, hooked up to a machine with all sorts of things in my arms, and sitting in the chair next to my bed was Rita, holding my hand, wearing the exact same clothes from the night I was shot, bloodstains and all.

"That doesn't look like a girl who hates you to me. She hasn't left your side since you were shot, hasn't left that room even to change her clothes. She barely eats, barely sleeps, and washes the dirt off of herself in the sink with a sponge, and when she's done, she always goes back to that chair and holds your hand, which is why it feels warm all the time."

I was floored. I didn't know what to think. I looked down at my left hand and closed my eyes, trying to fight back tears. I didn't know what to think of myself at that moment. Before I had time to let anything sink in he turned on the sound, and immediately I could hear the crying again. The crying from before was Rita, as she was doing now on the screen before me.

"Randy please wake up!" Rita cried as she put her hand on my cheek. "I love you so much, I need you here with me, I can't do this by myself!"

She put her head on my stomach and continued crying. It was hard for me to keep watching because I hated to see her like that, in so much pain, but I forced myself to, after all the choices I was about to make I had to watch, to see what my killing myself would do to everyone around me, to see how it would affect them.

"Please Randy, come back to me! Please!" Rita said, lifting her head off my chest, still crying.

I continued to try to fight back tears as the screen faded back into darkness and my attention was brought back to my conscience.

"So, you still think you're better off here, or have you finally come to your senses?"

I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. I sat down and cried, thinking about how stupid I was, and how I was about to make the dumbest, and last decision of my life. I actually preferred dying over seeing Rita again. Words couldn't even begin to explain how stupid I felt. I was so overcome with sorrow and guilt I didn't even wanna look at my conscience, I was ashamed. Here I was thinking my life was over and Rita wanted nothing to do with me, when the whole time she stayed right by my side begging me to come back to her. I needed to be slapped in the face, hard. Really hard. Multiple times.

"Why didn't you show me this before?"

"I didn't think I needed to, but when anger clouded your mind, it became clear that I had to. It's not the best way to overcome Anger, but you did it...right?"

"After seeing what I put Rita through, definitely. Man I've been so fucking stupid, who knows how much time I wasted..."

"You've definitely wasted a good amount of time, but you still have enough left to fix this."

It's always funny how things become clear after the strangest situations. "I finally get it I think. My confusion led to my becoming angry, and my anger almost got me killed, lucky for me you showed me what I was giving up and snapped me out of it, even though I feel like shit about it. It's amazing how simple it seems when I'm not a raging testosterone head."

"It's the stress that does the job, it feeds off the anger, but now you buried it, and in the process conquered the next obstacle, Sorrow and Understanding. There's just one left to go."

"Ok, I understand that I shouldn't react with pure anger, but what? Do I just forgive Ashley for what she did? She played a big role in all of this, am I supposed to just let that go?"

"As hard as it may seem, yes."

I was a little put off to say the least. "I don't know if I can do that. You're asking me to forgive in a situation where it shouldn't even be an option. She's the reason I'm here, remember?"

"And she's the one who can get you out of here."

"If it were you, would you be so quick to forgive?"

"Considering what happened I wouldn't be quick to forgive no, but I would forgive. So much time has been wasted here just being mad, it's time to let it all go. Nothing good would have come from all this suffering if someone doesn't learn from it."

"I doubt she'll learn anything, you know first hand what kind of person she is."

"You might be surprised, having a gun in your face tends to change people."

"Umm, this is Ashley we're talking about, not any other person on the planet."

"Yes, the same Ashley who minutes before the incident you told you hated, but still protected when the guy pulled a gun on her, a person just doesn't forget that, not even Ashley."

I sighed. He was making too many good points and if I kept trying to find a loophole it would look like I was trying to go against him, so I caved. "Ok. I'll give it a try, but I'm only doing it for Rita, not Ashley. But I have another problem, what about the guy who shot me? I hope you don't expect me to forgive him, because that is definitely not gonna happen. I will never forgive a person who intentionally tried to kill me, no matter what you say."

"I would never ask you to forgive him, nor would I expect you to, but don't dwell on it. it happened, and there's nothing that can be done about it. Don't let it crawl its way back into your life and eat at you, besides, he won't be seeing the light of freedom for a long, long time."

"This won't be easy."

"I suspect it won't, you're in the home stretch, but it's worth it in the end once you walk through the door. You have one more obstacle standing between you and your freedom."

"I'm guessing you saved the best for last huh?"

"That's always how it seems to play out, but you're ready for it."

"I hope so, I'd hate to have went through all that for nothing. So where do I go from here?"

"You'll figure it out. Just go wherever your feet take you. I'll be waiting."

He faded off again and once again I was standing there alone, but I felt different this time, noticeably different. I felt like I had enough energy to do the iron man three times in the same day. I still couldn't see, but I could feel my left hand still radiating that warm heat, Rita, still sitting at my bedside, waiting for me to wake up. That was all the inspiration I needed, I wasn't a quitter, and I was gonna prove it and get out of here if it was the last thing I did.

My conscience told me to go wherever my feet took me, and for some reason my feet told me to just get up and go, don't think about it, just go, and that's what I did. Even though I still couldn't see anything, I looked off into the distance and started jogging, not knowing if I was going in a straight line or not, I was just going. Slowly my jog built up speed until I was fully running, not knowing where I was going or if I was even going in the right direction, I just kept running, not even getting tired or anything like that, I was running full speed to I don't know where. I closed my eyes and ran, the whole time I kept thinking about Rita, and what it would be like to see her again, to hold her, to kiss her, to tell her I loved her, anything, I just wanted to see her face again, and I was gonna do whatever it took to happen. I must have gotten distracted for too long because I opened my eyes and saw myself coming up on a big white hole in the floor. I stopped and looked down into it, but couldn't see anything. I looked around the rest of the room and saw the usual blackness I'd grown accustomed to, so I figured this to be my destination. I took a deep breath and jumped in, hoping this to be the way out, and I was now anxious to get back to my life.

The effect of me falling felt like I was hovering in one spot. There was no noise, no wind, no anything, just me falling or floating or whatever I was doing for a while, until I finally felt my feet touch down on something solid. I gathered myself and as I was doing so the room lit up bright white, and it showed itself to be about the size of a racquetball room, with no doors or windows, just four walls and a ceiling. As I said that, a path that led to a slideshow of all my happy memories lit up on the floor, and the door from my dreams, the chained door with the A on it lit up across from it, still as tightly locked as it was in my dream. I walked to the door with the A on it, all the locks were tightly secured and wouldn't budge, even a little, and then I walked over to my memories, which weren't locked or had a gate or anything, in fact they seemed to glow the closer I got to them. They weren't just childhood memories, there were also memories after Rita and I became an item, like the beach, lying in the back of the truck, the cabin, everything good. There were even things I didn't recognize, like new memories or something, memories we haven't made yet, because I don't remember eating dinner in the park at all. Maybe it wasn't just memories; maybe it was also the direction my life was supposed to go in, me looking into the future, showing me my life as it was supposed to happen.

It seemed like the obvious choice, if not the only choice, the locks were still on the A door and according to my conscience I did everything right up to this point, and the door was still locked, so what choice did I have? I walked up the path to the memories and it continued to glow as I moved closer, but something just didn't feel right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about this was wrong, like it was too easy, like I missed something. I backed off the path and walked backwards so I stood between both walkways. What was I missing? I did everything right, so why were the memories even there, and why was the door still chained? I was beginning to think I would never get out of this hellhole, that no matter what choice I made it would be the wrong one. I thought hard about everything, anything I could have missed or overlooked, but I had nothing, nothing but a locked door and a path that looked too good to be true. I was truly in hell.

Hell. Hell! HELL! It dawned on me, with that one word I'd managed to figure everything out, the entire game I'd been playing became clear. Heaven, hell, and the real world. What is heaven, at least the way it's associated with us? Bright lights like the path when I walked on it, and good memories as it showed on the screen, only the good memories I might add, meant to look perfect, but actual life isn't perfect, which means that path doesn't give me my life back. And what is hell? Hell is pain, loneliness, that small glimmer of hope of escape only for it to be engulfed in darkness. I was living my hell right now, being trapped in my mind, going through everything I went through to get to this point, it was hell getting here, and Rita was my small glimmer of hope for getting out of here. That leaves the door, the door to the real world. It's still chained for a reason, and that reason is Ashley. Even though I said I would try to forgive her, I didn't completely mean it, in fact I'm still a little angry at her. The door knows I didn't mean it, it is my mind after all, I can't trick myself, not in this place. That left me with a small dilemma. Would I truly be able to forgive Ashley, I mean truly forgive her for everything she's done? I want to say yes, but I don't think I could. Could I forgive a person who damn near ended my life? I needed a reason to, and it occurred to me I had one, the best one of all, Rita. My love for Rita far exceeded the hate I had for Ashley, and I told myself I would do whatever it took to get back to her, and I meant it. I took a deep breath and thought about every rotten thing she'd ever done to me, down to every detail, mentally locked it in a box, and threw it out of my mind. Clean slate. As of right now none of that stuff happened. Like my conscience said, if I ever wanted to see Rita again, I would have to do something I never thought I'd do, and this was it. I walked to the door, stood straight up, completely focused, and with every good and true intention, I let all the anger I had left for Ashley go and spoke from the heart.

"I forgive you Ashley."

Not long after I say that I can feel air push through my lungs, and I felt a lot of stings of pain, and my mind felt at ease, I felt alive. The plain white of the room filled with color and all types of doors with pictures and phrases from memories and everything on them along with stairs filled the room as it expanded way beyond the small room I was just standing in. The door with the A started to glow, and one by one each lock broke off in a glowing light explosion until there was nothing left but a doorknob. I had done it, I'd figured out the riddle for my life, and I solved it. I smiled to myself, proud of my accomplishment as the familiar light surrounded the room and gathered itself in place right in front of me, and when it formed my conscience was standing there, smiling back at me.

"I knew you would figure it out."

"Took me longer than it should have, but yeah I did. I had to sift through a lot of mistakes."

"Everyone makes mistakes, at least you learned from yours."

"I had a little help. If you hadn't shown me the image of me in the hospital, I don't know what I would've done. I probably wouldn't be standing here right now."

"You definitely wouldn't, but it all worked out for the best."

"Wait a minute. You helped me! That almost slipped right past me, you literally helped me!"

He laughed a little at me. "Don't tell anybody."

"I thought you couldn't help me, that I had to do it on my own?"

"Technically speaking, I am you, I am what makes you, you, so I didn't break any rules. I was allowed to help you once, but only once, and from where I stood you needed it."