Fading
A story which has been rattling around in my head for a while. They could be furs but that doesn't matter in a story like this. A forty-five minute, one-way commute through the country every day gives one much time to think. Perhaps too much.
Marked adult for language and because kids don't really need to be dealing with this.
You scrabble for your phone with your opposite hand; your usual hand is doing something unusual and is not available. Of course, it would be helpful if your hand wasn't wet and you could actually hold on to something. Finally, digging nails into the soft case, you manage to snag it and, despite the slimy red trails you're leaving behind, you manage to enter your PIN on the third try.
You know the number you should be calling but you dial home instead.
The phone rings and you can feel the pressure growing in your head. The phone rings and you can feel the pressure in your chest. The phone rings and you can feel the pressure of gravity pulling down on you. The phone--
"Hello," she says, her voice biting and accusatory.
You open your mouth to talk but it's difficult to make a sound, to take a breath. You imagine her pulling the phone away to look at the caller ID and you'd be correct.
"Goddammit, Greg, where the fuck are you?"
You can hear the odd cars passing by, slowly, but even that's becoming muffled as your other ear fills. No doubt she can hear them, too, and knows you're in the interstate, likely thinking your dialing was a mistake. It wasn't but she isn't who you want to talk to.
"I swear, Greg, if you're with that Casey bitch we're through. You hear me? We're fucking through!"
Casey, your secretary and years your junior, invaluable to your work and devoted to her husband. To say the thought never entered your head would be a lie but you have too much respect for her and yourself to ever think about saying something.
"Dan...Danny," you finally manage to breathe. The air tastes of metal and smells of gasoline. You can feel a slow streaming trickling down your nose.
"You think I'm going to put him on the phone? Don't think so, Greg. Get your cheating ass home if you want to talk to your son. Worthless sack of shit...."
You let her go on, too, too tired to argue. There's so much wrong with her statement you don't want to think about but your brain is also tired and it locks onto the memory, the knowledge what she's saying is wrong. It's not you who cheated...it's not your son. You took time to keep your business running, to provide a place for her even though you knew she was screwing the neighbour while you were gone, because if you had no place then she would leave you for sure. When Danny was born eleven months after the last time you two had sex you knew he wasn't yours. The blonde hair and blue eyes looking nothing like either of you but you raised him and cared for him as your own, as any decent father would, and said nothing. He was as much your son as anyone's, right?
Oh, God, why do you have to be thinking about this now? You just want to tell him one thing and then you can go, escape the world slowly tinting red through burning eyes. The belt is holding your body in place but your spirit is free to wander.
"Danny, please," you say wetly, hoping, praying she can hear the pleading in your voice.
"What kind of piece of shit father doesn't want to talk to their child in person? I knew I should have listened to my mother and never fucking married you. It's all about you. We've never...."
You wish she had listened to her mother, too, but it's too late. Too late to take back what you said, too late to take back a history which only left you with one bright, shining star in this world...and he isn't even yours.
And now it's too late because you can hear the sirens in the distance, though you know they're too far away to do any good. The embankment is steep and you would be difficult to remove, pinned up against the trees, legs held in place by something which once resembled a steering wheel. You're hanging like the pinata life has treated you as...and you only had one thing you wanted to say before you go.
Now, she realizes it, too. She can hear the sirens in the background as the phone slips from your hand. "Greg?" she says with unaccustomed care. "Greg, where are you? Greg, answer me!"
But it is not her you wanted to talk to and as the world fades away you have lost your last chance to ever say I love you.