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There’s a stillness in the silence, not so much fragile as it is heavy.
He was fine as long as he was moving.
It’s difficult to breathe, and he knows it isn’t from the dust of the grave not even ten feet from him in his basement.
The weight of the air in the room, like the weight of the concrete placed upon the body.
Alan’s been dead weight for days.
This is the only way things could’ve ended, Sam tells himself, as he feels his body begin to shake. It starts somewhere deep in his belly.
The weight of the shackle around his ankle.
Alan gave him no other choice.
Sam is a survivor, and Alan was nothing more than an obstacle.
Dead weight.
Like all his other victims.
He feels it in his nerves, like a string that’s been plucked.
What emotion is this?
That’s something they should’ve covered in therapy.
He did what he could. Alan left him no choice. He did what he could. Alan left him no choice. He did what he could.
The room is so quiet. He feels it in his hands, both hears and feels when the air gets caught in his throat and he gasps.
Alan left him no other choice.
Alan, now buried, too far out of reach from the bed.
He was always out of reach.
He did what he could.
He’s certain in this. He had to protect his mother. Alan knew what he was doing, Alan was going to expire soon anyways. Alan wasn’t doing his job. Alan forced Sam’s hand. Alan left him no other choice. There was nothing else Sam could do, Alan left him no other choice.
But why?
The choked sob, the absence of tears but his body trembles anyways.
Why did Alan choose to do that? Why did Alan stop doing his job? Why did Alan stop helping Sam?
All those sessions. All those hours spent. All those confessions.
Not just the murders, but the real shit. The vulnerable shit. Sam told him so much; about his father, about his abuse, about his ex-wife and the kids and feelings. Things he’s never told anyone, things he can hardly admit to himself but he shared it so freely to a man who was never intent on listening in the first place and now Sam is openly sobbing, and the chain jingles as he pulls his legs up to his chest and wraps his arms around his knees, in the very bed where Alan used to lay.
It still smells like him, and that’s the worst part, being haunted by everything that could’ve been, except not really because it’s all just a fantasy in his head. He tried so hard to ignore the reality in front of him, because he needed to believe he could actually make this work.
He’s so fucking foolish.
Pay a therapist to listen to him? Did he really think he could get someone to care? With what? With money? Transparency? Honesty? Hope? Did he honestly think he could chain a man here in the basement, to this very bed and think he could somehow convince him to love him? To see him, as he truly is?
For a moment there he started to think he could. For a moment there, he thought Alan saw him, really saw him, and embraced him. There was no judgment.
Learning experience.
How to be empathetic.
Sam bought him a printer. He’s spent his whole life begging for love.
He thought it was different, because Alan wasn’t throwing fists at him. But the walls were still there. He still got shut out. He was still left on the outside, wondering what he did wrong, wondering what the rules are to the sick and twisted game. His father never listened, there wasn’t a single plea for mercy or excuse that Sam could give to stop the impending punishment. There wasn’t a single plea for mercy or excuse or threat that Sam could give that would make Alan let him in.
His father subdued him. Alan placated him.
Cowering in his own embrace, rocking on the bed as the chain jingles with the movement Sam isn’t sure which is the worse evil.
Violence, he understood. Violence is the way of the world. It’s in the way predators hunt prey, the way the strong overtake the weak, the way stars are devoured by black holes, ripped apart atom by atom. It’s in the hands he understood to fear, the hands he learned to fight back with.
But Alan’s hands…
Old. Harmless. He didn’t do any hard work. They looked soft. Warm, even, the way his sweater and beard and smile looked so warm.
Sam thought he was in control, let his guard down.
Why?
If he knew he was going to die, why not let Sam do it on his own terms? Why fight back like that? Why fight at all? Why not continue in his passive existence, wallow in his pathetic submissive behavior into the sweet, merciful and gentle death Sam promised to give him?
Alan’s actions revealed everything.
He didn’t trust Sam- why else would he take his death into his own hands? He hated Sam, wanted to get away from him on his own terms.
Everything was a lie.
Well, not for Sam.
It was all one sided.
Sam, trying so hard to better himself for someone who didn’t give a damn about him.
Just like with his father.
Always trying to be better, to do better, to be the type of son that didn’t get hit. He wanted to be a good boy, tried so hard, tried until he learned there’s no point in trying because his father’s wrath will come like the dawn of the rising sun and there was never anything Sam could do to stop it.
And maybe Alan’s death is the cold, empty, bitter night.
The silence weighs heavy on Sam. He lets out a heavy sigh, one that provides no real relief and he allows himself to fall back into the bed before rolling on to his side and curling into the sheets. He gathers up the pillow into his hands and in equal measure shoves it into his face and buries his face into it to breathe in Alan’s scent as deeply as he can.
The heavy silence rings in Sam’s ears. It feels like a void, insatiable and ever yawning.
This is the truth, he thinks.
That division has always been there, between him and Alan.
Him and his father.
Those walls, the silence, it’s like mirrors.
And what Sam sees reflected back to him is someone who will never be loved.