Excerpt: The Road is Only So Long

from Chapter One:

He was angry. He was free. He yowled into the empty night and the night echoed his anguish back to him. Bret stood, facing the wind, the stars, the trees, the lonely play ground equipment boldly, confronting all that he'd allowed himself to lose. And he walked amongst them, through them, past them, under the constant gaze of the moon and stars unchangeable and distant like the girl who'd left him alone so many wasted years ago.

He hummed tunelessly to the buzz in his veins. Bounced while he walked to the beat in his temple, pounding with the left overs of the club. He shambled and bounced, making his way, finally, home. What home that it was. The empty cavern that housed him, that he made his bed in. Empty except for the memories that echoed off the walls. The apartment was barren. She'd taken most of what made the place livable. Now, it was thread bare. Crumbling paint and dusty floors. Tattered sheets for curtains covering windows that only light could seep through; their seeing eyes long ago blinded by filth. Bret's home was tidy only in so much as there was nothing to pick up or straighten.

He walked the creaking wood floors and cast his gaze here and there on his way to the worn mattress that served as his bed. He stripped off his clothes quickly and fell into what comfort the old bed could offer. The light, he left on. For the first time, he couldn't pretend he wasn't alone any more. In his small two room apartment in this little city, on the old worn mattress that he'd shared with Jenna; he was alone. Alone. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Nothing about the night differed from any other night. The stars held no secrets, the wind whispered no clues, the sky held its cold gaze unmoved by the futile yearning of a pathetic young man. A young man that was much too old for all of his twenty six years. Nothing on the outside had changed one bit. The music still pounded in his temples, the alcohol still sang in his veins.

Bret almost laughed, but that concept was so foreign that his body struggled with the thought and no attempt was made. But his heart beat strongly in his chest and his skin stretched across his bones, his lips pulled into a thin line that slashed his face, the corners of his eyes crinkled. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Maybe in a month, he would wake fully. He would dance and smile. Maybe next year, maybe in two years. He would smile and laugh. And find himself whole again. Regretful and ashamed of the pathetic boy he'd left behind in a dark park. Not even remembering why he'd let himself become so.

from Chapter Two:

Brian constant in the back ground. Not hovering, but always there. If I turned my head just so, his shadow would stretch across the floor and flicker away before I could completed the turn. He hid until I called for him. And he would come. Submissive and passive with those pitying eyes and hopeful gaze that would eat away at my flesh. Not speaking with words. A look. A gesture. A simple turning of his body, he spoke loudly to my soul. Beckoning me to come and sleep next to him. His warmth was my warmth. I hated him if I could hate. I loved him if I could love. I savaged him brutally at any opportunity and he offered himself up to my appetites most taboo.

I, deaf to his pleading. Was he crying out to me or because of me? Could I rouse myself to care about either one? I had lost myself many years ago. And there Brian remained to remind me constantly. Steadfast by my side, tethered there by some sort of guilt at my corruption. Vain of him to think he was the cause of it and not some coincidental and innocent bystander in what ever course had placed us where we were. In this circle of never ending loathing and self loathing and addiction to each other. His need of punishment for self imposed guilt. My need to inflict punishment on an easy victim to slake my desire for what had become forever unattainable; my inability to understand what exactly it was I had lost. The monster I had become, the empty skin of a man; dead and rotten on the inside.

Brian, once beloved. Cherished beyond anything dwindled to the shadow of a man. Still beautiful; ethereal. Like a horrible angel set to watch and note my further descent into hell. The fall that had beckoned me, seducing me with the soft glow of a warm fire. Willingly I had went. Against Brian's sorrowful protestations. He followed me. And I gleefully damned us both.