Sweet Dreams-49 Tears of My Childhood

Chapter 49

I put my head to Alex’s and we sit there just breathing while he get’s it together and he finds the strength. It’s actually a pretty big deal the he’s even gone there with all of his family around and I’m going to chalk it up to maybe me having my freak out moment stirring things up in him with this in his head coming up.

Though part of me’s kind of eager to think that maybe him and me being together did this. It’d be sweet to be true but it’s not that likely. We’re close, we’re in love but this is trauma from way before I even entered the picture.

So its way more likely hey…you’re girlfriend just triggered your PTSD!

You just got to love when the voices in your head are experts in snarkcasm.

I’ve no idea how long it takes before he’s nodding but it was about nine tissues before he’s able to see and breathe worth a damn and he’s nodding. “Okay…okay I think I can do this.”

He’s got that roughened guy been crying sound in his voice and it sinks into my heart a wriggles the owy stuff in there. I want to just go and fuck off somewhere away from everyone for awhile and pull him in the back seat and pull his head onto my lap and just make it better.

Oh he’s got me so bad y’know when I want to be the person to do all the corny and mooshy stuff and make it all better for my S.O. I don’t think it’s just a girl thing either; just a relationship thing and maybe women get to that sooner.

Okay we do but that’s not a good thing because unless it’s a two way thing a lot of people are just going to like have open license to walk all over you and then play hacky sack with your heart.

Don’t trust I Love You being said to you. Lot’s of people say it. Mom used to say it once she had here fix and then when jonsing she’d be taking a lighter to my fingernails while I was passed out asleep waking me with the pain and smell of me cooking and she’d start screaming where’s her money.

Trust I love you when they actually show you that they do.

When the hold you through a freak out and take every hit you dish out and still are the person to wipe the blood off your knuckles and smile and make you laugh as the bandage you up.

I take his hand in mine no matter that my fingers and knuckles are aching and I get the flowers in the other hand and we walk together into the area where Elizabeth is buried.

There’s a whole difference like I said before between this cemetery and daddy’s. I’m not too fond of the fact that even in death we’re not all that equal or rather the families aren’t. I suppose death doesn’t really care but still. It’s a lot more of the same.

Moira and George follow us and Adam is with April further behind still but he’s here. And he said he wasn’t going to be so that alone to me says a lot even if it looks like him and April went a few rounds verbally on the way here.

She’d have too, they’re Donovan’s and they’re as stubborn as Irish gets.

Okay I’ll say this, it’s a nice grave. A nice bit pinkish grey marble headstone with a heart design and pillars built into the sides of it or carved. There’s a birch tree just close enough to be pretty and someone had lilac bushes planted right behind it. There’s no flowers this time of year but it’s still sweet.

I’d like that, you’d see some bushes in the yards and stuff of some of the older houses in places I lived and I always thought that they were pretty.

Yeah when I die someone plant me with some white lilacs. That’d be nice.

I’m allowed to be a little morbid right? Second graveyard today.

We walk right up and both set the flowers down at her grave and we stand there in awkward silence for awhile and then Alex sits down on his knees and he reaches out and touches the headstone. I’m biting my lip as he finger traces over her name and he’s shaking and then the date…and I can hear the hurt sniffle-sob that tries to come out…but get’s lodged somewhere in the pain.

Over and back, over and back, over and back three times he goes touching the whole loving mother part.

He does that choked of sob thing again….

Fuck…

I sink down beside him on my knees too and go right beside him that tight my side’s touching his and I slip my arm around him as much as I can. I can feel the muscles twitch and tremble with nerves when I do.

“Hey Mrs. Donovan…I brought Alex by. You’re boy’s here.”

Alex shakes…he shakes and he says as sobby broken voiced as a guy can get. “Hi Momma…”

Yeah and I’m crying too.

God damn it just the way he sounds is tearing me up inside.

“Its Alex mum…I’m…I’m sorry I’ve been away…just things, thing hurt way too much and I was just too hurt and too scared and…and…I didn’t want to be here mum…not hating you and I don’t…I don’t… I don’t want to be here now because it still hurts mom…it just still hurts and…and…I can’t see you mom…not past the night mares…not without a picture...”

“Hunter…she…she said that you were trying…It’s just that you were so hurt and messed up that you were trying to keep me with you or something. That you wanted to keep the one good thing in what was going on in your life with you…”

“Did you mom? Did you?”

He does the really bad wet guy sobby sniffle and goes to use his sleeve and I have a wad of tissues there instead that I was using and I give them to him.

I rub his back as he’s trying to get to where he can talk and he can breathe again. I look at the graveyard.

I sniffle a little too. “Look you were a mess Liz and I’ll cut you some slack for that okay…but I’m glad it’s just you here. I hope you’re glad too because you’ve got one hell of a son here lady. Alex is quiet and thoughtful, he’s passionate and he’s caring…if there was one person here on this planet that I can honestly say makes me want to be a better person it’s him.”

“Y’know you’ve got a bonafide real angel with him right? Trust me Liz I know because he pulled me out of the gutter and he saved my life so…”

I reach out and I put my hand ontop of her headstone.

“So no matter how badly anyone says that you were, that you screwed up, you did one amazing thing…you made Alex…”

“My Alex and every time I think about my life and if he was in it or not in it and the way things are now there’s this big fucking lurch there in my heart and it’s just…”

“I won’t Liz…I won’t…I’ll be there, I won’t lose him, I won’t walk away, I won’t hide from him and if I have too I’ll walk back through hell all over for him…”

Big sniffle…

“I’ve got him Liz…he’ll be okay…I promise.”

Alex wraps both of his arms around me in this huge hug and he pulls me tight into him in this kinda painful bear hug…only kind of painful…it’s bruising tight but he’s really hanging onto me for all he’s got like he’s hanging onto me for dear life and he plants his face into me shoulder and he’s crying there now as hard as he can and I just shift my weight a little from knee to knee to sort of rock us back and forth and let my own tears fall as we’re just doing that…

I can hear the others crying too…I kind of tune them out because right now this is me and Alex and a shit ton of pain that he needs to get through because…because he’s lived buried in this for way too long.

I take my hand and I slip it over his and I keep rocking.

Again…it’s awhile but that doesn’t matter, I lean my head against his where it’s on my shoulder and just whisper to him.

“Keep you eyes closed and just breathe okay hon…….just feel us…me holding you and you holding me and the smell of the trees, the lawns…feel the sunshine?”

He nods into my shoulder.

“Good…now just sort of picture all of that and she’s in there too…right there Alex…right there in the sunshine only she’s really smiling at you…like she used to and not because she’s bombed or high but she’s just good…she’s watching you and seeing the great guy she’s got and she’s just smiling hon…she’s just good…cause you’re good…it’s all she needs babe…it’s all she needs.”

He’s sobbing again into my shoulder but in there…muffled in there I can hear this faint little.

“I…I can see her.”