Into This River I Drown

by T.J. Klune

Part of me feels none of this needed to happen, that Cal shouldn’t have been put in the impossible situation of deciding between the lives of two men. My father didn’t need to die. So many things didn’t need to happen but did because of God. Because of his games. Because of his design.

So much of life demanded sacrifice, I knew, and the only way to make it through was to take one step at a time, one day at a time. She needed me to help her back up, and I was the only person left who could.

“I’m tired,” I say. “I’m tired of everyone telling me about choices. I’m tired of having to make choices. I’m tired. The choices I make don’t matter. Nothing I do matters. How can it? God can just take everything away whenever he wants, so how the fuck does anything I do matter? It’s just a game, Nina! It’s all just a fucking game!”

“I think this is the real test. For you. For Blue.” “I’m scared.” “But loved.” “Yes.”

To say you have faith is one thing; to see evidence of it with your own eyes is something else entirely.

How do you say what’s in your heart if your heart is something you haven’t known for years? How do you give yourself completely when all you’ve done is bury yourself in grief? How do you come back from the dark when it’s all you can remember?

“Here I am! Right here! Right here in the middle of your fucking design, your goddamned pattern! I’m begging you. I’m begging you with all that I have. I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked of me, so you fucking give me something back. You give me something in return!”

“I’m sick of your fucking games! None of us have deserved what you’ve done! You take and you take and you take, and you give nothing back! You dangle any chance at happiness right in front of our fucking faces and then you snatch it back right when we think we can have it for our own. I don’t care if love is sacrifice. I don’t care if that’s the only way we can recognize it. I know what it is, I know what it can do, and I won’t let you take love from me. Not again. Not anymore. He’s mine, you bastard. He doesn’t belong to you—he belongs to me.”

There were times I wondered just how easy it would be to fill up my pockets with stones, oh Lord, and walk into the river and let myself drown. I wondered how hard it would be when the river closed over my head and the light became murky and I opened my mouth to inhale the water. It would have been easy, I think. It would have been hard, I know. But it would have stopped the pain. It would have taken me away from my head and heart. It would have only taken moments for it to be over, and that seemed easier than a lifetime of agony.