Utterly Alone
The lock clicked open and I entered the house. Someone was typically home, so I halted my footsteps to listen for any noise that would indicate the presence of family members and found none. It was eerily quiet, which was somewhat strange, but I welcomed the silence; recent events weighing heavily on my mind.
Avoiding my father took top priority, before I could actually clean up. If he had seen me in this condition, I would have been facing a long, torturous lecture; punishment notwithstanding. He never worried about my physical health and well-being, but his frustrations and disappointments usually stemmed from knowing and understanding his son. My passionate stubbornness, youthful recklessness and lack of respect for the consequences of my actions in certain situations, would often cause him grief. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the situations I found myself in. I simply chose to blaze my own path, regardless of the possibilities of doom.
This fight would be one of those kinds of situations.
Sliding my shoes off, I padded through the wooden hallways in my socks, checking the commonly used rooms and found no one around. Sorting through a quick checklist in mind, I looked at my clothes and realized that I needed to hide the evidence. Recalling that I had laundry to do, I bound up the stairs to my room and stripped off my shirt.
“Shit, there’s blood on it,” I muttered to myself. “Guess this is going into the wash too.”
Grabbing my dirty clothes, I headed back downstairs to the laundry room. It would take a few minutes to fill the washer, so I took the time to put together a story if someone questioned me about my injuries. As the tale formed in my mind, images and actions of the fight flashed through it as well. Poring over the frames locked inside, I knew that I had hurt him pretty badly. A pang of sadness and guilt came along with those images, as the power of my father’s words echoed through the core of my soul.
“Your skill in martial arts is exceptional. You’ve been trained since you were very young to hone those talents, but to also temper them with discipline and patience. What I’m afraid of is that you end up losing control or you act recklessly and end up severely hurting someone else, possibly even killing them. There are things in this world that time and money can’t heal. Try to keep that in mind.”
Those words, words I had heard time and time again, but had disregarded as the words of a worrisome parent, sank into my gut. It was the kind of gut check I wasn’t prepared for, nor welcomed. My vision overflowed with guilt as the consequences of my actions steadily became real to me.
What if I had snapped his neck? At one point, he did go limp in my arms and those were metal lockers. What if I had damaged his head or face so badly that I disrupted parts of his nervous system? It wasn’t impossible, having seen such an event during a tournament some years ago. My actions could have done permanent damage and I would forever reap the repercussions of such a calamity.
Listening to the sound of rushing water, I hung my head as those torrential feelings swept over me. The introspective lesson that I learned hurt more than any lecture my father could ever give me. My shoulders shook, as a chill ran up my spine and I put my face in my hands.
“I really need to make better choices, at least make decisions when I’m calm and collected,” I said to myself.
Sighing, I grabbed the laundry basket to head back upstairs. I knew that I couldn’t tell my family what happened, lest I felt like facing the wrath of my father. I had lost Jess, lost my heart and now lost my head. I couldn’t turn to my family, and my friends probably wouldn’t understand the burden that I carried. Some day someone would, but until then, I put it aside, filing it away in a memory archive.
Turning the corner, I trudged through the house, feeling dejected and utterly alone.
Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.
