Heavenly Heart~Chapter One

Chapter One

Dane

Life is like a box of chocolates, as the saying goes; you never know what you're going to get. Never in my life had I heard a truer statement. Everyone was dealt a different hand, the cards defining the course their lives would take. It can't be controlled or altered, that pesky foundation to which our lives are built. Some had it good, living prosperous lives filled with nothing but happiness and fulfillment. High-end jobs and mountains of money lingered in their future. Others weren't so lucky. They received the lousy hand, the twos and threes in a game of High Card. The cards that led to pain and hardship, struggle and despair, and buckets of it. These people, robbed of the sweetness in their box of chocolates, struggled with illness, with addiction, with a family who didn't love them.

I was just one of those unlucky people.

My box of chocolates was bitter, and my cards were torn and bent and crooked. From the moment I was born, my life had taken a turn for the worst. My mother, a proud, young woman happy to mother a beautiful baby boy, had taken one look upon me at birth and handed me right back. She'd handed me over to him, my father, and as soon as she was released from the hospital, packed her bags and left. At first it was subtle, but as the years went by, and I aged, the more prominent my father's deterioration became. Anger seeped inside his heavy heart, consuming the loving fixtures with overwhelming darkness and ravaging the love he may have once held. He delved into substance abuse, drinking away the sorrows invoked by my mother's departure. There were some nights when he'd converse with himself in the mirror, mistaking his reflection as my mother, and others when he didn't come home at all.

If it weren't bad enough having an alcholic for a father, the abuse that followed whenever he was in a drunken state sure sealed the deal. In the only way he knew how, he took his hurt out on me. With fists of steel, he would pelt me senseless with my mother's betrayal. It didn't matter what I'd say, how much I begged, the blows would still rain down. His rage never ceased thoughout the years. If anything it intensified, escalating in severity until it reached its peak, this very moment. Yet, the beatings weren't nearly as painful as the words he'd shout.

For years this had gone on, and years after it would still continue. I felt there was no way to escape it. If I ran away, he could easily have me tracked and located before I even made it a mile. Reporting him to the authorities wasn't an option. How does one accuse a man whose considered a hero, a tighly-knit member of society, of domestic abuse? You can't; it's an impossibility. When you're a highly-respected police sheriff such advantages-or disadvantages, in my case-are privy to you.

As I laid in a sticky, puddle of alchol, showered in broken glass, it occured to me that it would never go away-the fear, the abuse. There I was, seventeen-years-old, and still shuffling through life like a zombie, like I wasn't alive. Didn't have blood pumping and pulsing through my veins. It dawned on me then that it would never stop, that after all these years, my father had been right. I'd spent all that time and energy trying to expel the hateful words he spat in his drunken stupor only to realize in the end that he'd been right. My life was a wasted existence; I had no chance, no future, no purpose. What was the point of living if my reason for being on this earth held no meaning? I didn't have anyone to love and care for. I didn't make a difference in anyone's life. I didn't have anyone or anything to live for.

The realization left my heart aching, protesting the task that I must complete with its lies and falsities. Yet I gathered the strength, the energy, extracting it from my drive to finally end this constant suffering, and propped myself up on my elbows. Shards of glass scattered off my chest and cracked against the concrete of the patio. The cuts and scrapes disseminated sporatically about my body argued against the movement. Blood trickled down my forehead and spattered onto the ground.

Blinking rapidly, I cleared the foggy blur that obscured my sight before my gaze locked on that vile object that had started it all.

A beer bottle, cracked and dripping, laid beside me. The same beer bottle my father had thrown at my head in a fit of rage. The glass had shattered on impact, encouraging the destructive liquid encased in it to run down my face in rivets. Momentarily blinded, my father had tackled me like a linebacker through the glass of the sliding glass door.

Lifting the half-broken bottle by the neck, I let out a pyschotic shreik-which would have probably landed me a spot in a mental hospital-and chucked it at the siding of the house. It smacked the ground and burst into millions of tiny splinters. Crushed. Fractured. Broken.

Ironic how the same words could be used to describe me.

I stumbled to my feet, swaying and staggering as my vision blurred yet again. Knees buckling beneath me, I threw myself at the table sitting a few feet away, leaning my weight against its smooth, wooden surface. My stomach lurched as the world tilted and tumbled like a gymnast executing an intense performance.

Doubt bubbled below the surface, ripping and clawing at my gut feverishly, but I quickly tamped it down, blowing out its heating embers as one would a candle. A fresh wave of determination arose within me as my mind wandered back to my father's words.

Useless.

Nobody.

Unlovable.

"Your own mother couldn't even love you, so how could anybody else?"

His words fueled me, lighting the coals that propelled my body forward.

Step by step, I grew closer to my destination-the pier. Lawn chairs toppled over from supporting the brunt of my weight. The beautiful wildflowers blooming were torn from the ground, violently ripped from their roots by my trampling shoes as I careened into the garden. The white picket fence snapped, and I stumbled over its wooden frame, falling face first into the garden dirt. The earthy aroma invaded my nostrils, churning and roiling my stomach from its sharp, natural scent. The swirling, jerky motion from the fall rattling through me did nothing to calm the storm; it antagonized my gag reflex, triggering the stomach contents to make a reappearance. My throat burned, my eyes watered, and my shoulders quaked.

Swiping a hand across my mouth, I clambered to my feet, feeling even worse than before. Still I continued on, finally reaching the rotting wood of the pier. I crawled to the end of it, the splintering wood cutting into my hands. The fresh cuts blended with the former ones, slicking my palms with another sticky layer of what I can only imagine to be blood.

I peered over the edge of the pier, watching the water lap at its wooden boards. The full moon, an enormous, silver sphere in the darkened sky, reflected off the waves. A gentle breeze blew threw the night, rustling the leaves and tousling the ends of my brown hair. It was calm, peaceful-a beautiful end to an ugly existence.

With one last look at the scene, I sent my weak body into the icy cold, lake water. The beauty of the sight that loomed before didn't extend to beneath the surface. It was dark, the crystal clarity above tarnished by the murk that lurked below its glass-like surface. Dirt and floating debris stung my eyes, further obscuring my sight.

Before I lost the nerve, I inhaled, engulfing the water, forcing it down my lungs. A searing, burning sensation lit up my lungs. Pain like no other tore its way through, clawing at my insides as if I'd swallowed a razor blade. Liquid lava poured down my throat, scorching everything its in path.

As panic settled in, my body thrashed and writhed, rejecting the water's intake. My arms flailed, and my legs spasmed wildly. Instinct was kicking in, fighting the sweet relief I knew I'd feel if only it closed its eyes and accepted its watery grave.

Finally, the struggle slowed until it stopped altogether. I was sinking, my weakened body descending down into the eerie unknown. Black spots danced before my vision, assuring me that this was the end, that I would succumb to unconsciousness and finally be free.

A golden glow rippled through the lightlessness, illuminating the expanse and sandy floor cached within the darkness. They really aren't kidding when they say you see the light, I thought, realizing that this must be the end of the road, of life, of pain. I wonder if Heaven will be as breathtaking as it's said to be. The thought was confirmed when the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen emerged from the celestial light.