A/N: I'm so painfully unsure about this chapter. I had it all in my head because I've been waiting for this entire book to write it but translating it into words is HARD. SO SO HARD. So if it's shite or poorly written then i'm sorry. 

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The world couldn't stand to be in silence when it's all I needed for just... five minutes. Five minutes to slow down my thoughts because I knew they would never be silent. No matter how busy I was, no matter how indestructible the walls that Liam built around me were, I couldn't drown out the world around me and it wouldn't stand still for even a moment.

Mum passed away, and nothing changed. My entire world felt like it came apart in the space of a moment, but the rest of world went on like nothing had happened. Members of the church tried to send their condolences but I didn't want to hear about it. My heart felt like it was going to implode and seep into my lungs. Every breath felt painful and forced, while the sound of its beating drummed in my ears.

Liam walked beside me, matching my pace the entire slow and arduous journey to mum's place. He lightened up the mood with casual conversation, and I did my best to respond no matter how much I felt suffocated. Even on my way to fall through maybe the deepest pits of despair, Liam helped to lift my spirits and keep my mind somewhat occupied.

"And what about your next game?" I asked. "It was my fault you missed it. They're gonna let you play in the next one, right? You won't miss out on nationals, right?"

Liam tightened his arm around my shoulder and gave me a reassuring smile. "It's not your fault, you idiot. Of course they'll let me play. And you'll be there, won't you?"

"Just try keeping me away from it a second time," I said. "God'll have to take away my dad this time for that to happen."

Releasing my shoulders, Liam sprung around and stared at me in shock. "Too crude?" I asked, looking sheepishly up at him. "Better not tempt him."

I watched his face carefully and nervously, gaging his reaction, but sighed with relief when he burst into laughter.

"So you were secretly a dark humour kinda guy," he said in fits of laughter, pretending to wipe tears beneath his eye. "We won't tempt the big guy, I swear. You'll be at my game for sure."

Accepting his reassurance with a nod, I lifted his arm and put it back around my shoulder. Liam snorted and pulled me against him, giving me a tight squeeze. "You've come a long way already," he said. "We can't call you Jude the prude anymore."

"You were calling me that?" I asked with surprise.

"Not to your face," he said casually and looked ahead with a nonchalant expression. It's not like I could get offended when it was nothing but the truth, so I sighed and made a mental note to keep being less of a prudish bible thumping jerk.

Mum's house came into view and the walk suddenly grew more tense with every passing step. Liam seemed to notice my hesitation and went quiet with me, like he was allowing to process my feelings. I didn't want to do this. Getting by these last few weeks was only made possible thanks to his distractions and going along with my every whim, but if he respected my space and went quiet like this, then I was only going to be forced to face everything.

I suddenly doubted that I was ready and regretted this decision. It's not until Liam let go of me and stepped in front of me, clasping his hands on both my shoulders that I realised I'd stopped rigid in my tracks. My feet didn't want to move. I looked at Liam's green eyes staring seriously at mine, then looked past him to mum's house just short into the distance.

The place I once knew as home was in plain sight, looking just as it did the day Josh chased me out several weeks ago. It didn't look like my memories or the feelings I got by being back here. It still looked like the picture-perfect family home mum and dad turned it into during their early married years. The grass grew a little long, but that's to be expected when a house stopped being a home.

"You're sure this is what you wanna do?" he asked, forcing my attention back to him.

I gravely shook my head because there was no way in hell that this was what I wanted to do. There are five hundred thousand things on this planet I would put before doing this, including skydiving without a parachute. "Yes."

Liam couldn't help but grin. "I'm proud of you, Judes," he said, scruffing up my hair. "Let's plan ahead real quick. If it gets too much, what're you gonna do?"

I shrugged.

"Who's someone you can contact who'll make you feel safe?"

"Dad," I said. "You."

His smile was infectious. "Right. And if you get so overwhelmed that you needa leave before you even think about contacting someone, where're you gonna go?"

"Dad's or yours," I said.

"Right. And if something happens that's an emergency, who're you gonna call?"

"Dad, you," I said, knowing the answers were always gonna be the same. Maybe this knucklehead just wanted some validation or something.

"Or police," he said, clicking his tongue with disapproval. "Don't fluff around with emergencies, got it?"

He deliberately tripped me up because he probably figured my responses were automated without thinking them through properly, and the realisation made me let out a curt chuckle. Sometimes there was just no getting passed this guy, and the more I realised that with every passing day, the more my world opened up one little bit at a time.

"Last thing," he said, very seriously as he stood back upright and folded his arms. "Choose a safe place and carry this thought in there with you. Maybe it'll give you a little bit of courage and reminding to get you through."

I released his arms from his chest, buried myself against him, and pulled his arms behind me into a hug. I didn't need to look at his expression to know he'd be completely surprised, but he supported my weight as I relaxed against him. This. This was my safe place. Liam looked down at me in confusion and I watched his face turn beet red. One of the crazy qualities of him being a redhead, there was no hiding his embarrassment.

"Got it," I said, smiling up at him. "I'll go the rest of the way alone. Thanks for coming this far with me."

Liam nodded wordlessly as I walked towards my house and through the white picket fence. I could smell mum's favourite rose bushes that lined a portion of the fence. When I let myself inside the door, I was met with a musky smell since the windows were all shut and everything was kept airtight. It made me cough as I opened the windows and kept the door open to let more stale air escape.

The house was silent. It wouldn't change when five PM rolled around and mum was due to be home. It wasn't going to change when Josh came bursting through the door to hound me about something or brag about his accomplishments. Those memories were ghosts now. I trekked up the stairs, clutching the rails while my body started to tremble. It was sweltering up here while all the hot air lifted and collected here with nowhere to go, and I felt my neck and chest slowly accumulate and drip with sweat.

My bedroom door was open and I could see the end of my bed. An apparition appeared of me lying face down and Josh on top of me. I trembled and clenched my eyes shut, trying to make those ghosts disappear. My palpitating heart felt like it'd implode and seep into my lungs, and I started to choke.

The sound of mum's slaps on my cheek echoed through my soul, taking me back to the morning she let me down. When she tried to convince me that I wasn't deserving of happiness and friendship, and that I'd throw away my relationship with God if I ever hoped for such things. My mind was tired.

I wanted to remember those happier times when she'd kiss my head and tell me she was proud of me, or engage in casual conversation after school, but those times were always only at the expense of my happiness. God forbid I said the wrong thing she didn't wanna hear, I'd be fearing for my soul. And what's more, Josh would always have room to chime in.

My breathing grew heavy and rapid while my body continued to shake. I entered my room and felt the floor creak with every step, reverberating through the hall like ghosts were walking too.

"This is fine. This is completely fine," I said to reassure myself, but knew full well that I wasn't convinced. I pushed the door out of my way and walking straight to my desk where dad had left the box of condolence letters. As I opened the small carboard box and lifted out the first one, I was only met with a crushing disappointment.

Sprawled in fancy cursive writing with fine ink pen, somebody had written, Psalm 9:9-10. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.

If these words weren't so cruel, I'd almost be tempted to laugh. "Have never forsaken those who seek you?" I muttered, wiping my eyes as tears started to fall. "Isn't that exactly what you did when you let mum die no matter how badly she devoted herself to you?"

I bunched the letter into a loose ball and tore it apart before letting the pieces fall around me. I ripped open another one and was met with yet more disappointment. James 1:2-3: Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance

And,

1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

These messages didn't offer me any sort of consolation or guidance. They were patronising, filled with pity in the loosest of terms. God really said these things, then took my mum's life. To test my faith, to increase my perseverance. The absurdity was laughable, and in my poor attempt to lighten my mood, I stared up at the ceiling and snickered. "Why not just give me a bigger fucking homework load then?" I said to the ceiling. "Hm? Instead of all this fucking bullshit?"

Even though I was here, back in the home I grew up in, I knew that mum still wouldn't come back. I'd do anything for the chance to say goodbye. Coming here was a bad idea. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't ready to face this, and no matter how many more letters I read, I knew they wouldn't help me. All of this was so stupid and painful. I dropkicked the box and watched it fly against the wall, making dozens of letters fall and scatter across the floor. Watching the mess unfold gave me the tiniest bit of satisfaction, but not nearly enough to feel an ounce of reprieve.

Overwhelmed by this anger and betrayal that consumed me, I yanked out my desk drawers and threw them against the wall. A photo frame shattered against the wall and fell to the floor, getting my attention. I walked over and picked it up, not caring about the shards pricking or catching on my fingers. It was a portrait of me and mum when I was younger, probably from a time when me and Josh still got along like best friends.

It was a time I couldn't remember well and only heard about through mum or dad.

My fingertips slowly brushed across her face, seeing a different woman in this picture than the one I spent my life with up until now. This woman looked so loving and full of hope, not full of lies and bullshit, fearmongering, and manipulation. This young and innocent face controlled every aspect of my life.

She didn't care how I got hurt, or who the ones were to hurt me. She made Josh carry secrets so painful and heavy for years, while keeping those same secrets from me. She betrayed my dad long before their divorce by sending off her own signed version of my birth certificate. She forced me to be close with a strange man she didn't know, and chose to trust him enough with my life and innocence.

"You were supposed to protect me," I whispered, but I choked on every word that poured out with my endless stream of tears. She put me in more danger right up until her last moments, and then she went ahead and fucking died. "You were supposed to protect me!"

Did she think that dying would atone for her sins? My face was hot and filled with tears. My head felt like it was burning, like I'd melt into the floor if I couldn't alleviate these emotions. When I saw my reflection in the mirror, I saw my face was as red as the devil. My stinging eyes were nearly swollen shut. Everything that I hadn't let consume me both recently and over the course of my life bubbled up to the surface. I picked up the fallen drawers and threw them so hard against the wall that I spun.

The years I spent blindly devoting my life to a paradox, the friendships I rejected, the people I hurt and let down, the energy I spent guarding myself against anyone who didn't believe what I did. How much of it was true? God couldn't save my mum. Then why'd she swear until her last breath that he would? Why'd she feed me false hope my entire life? She became a stranger then left me with no closure.

At the end of the day, the pain, guilt, and filth I felt meant absolutely nothing.

I swiped everything off my desk then hauled it so hard that it tipped and collapsed. The mirror smashed on its way down, shattering my warped reflection into a thousand pieces. I gripped my bed covers and pulled so hard that everything from the drawers to the dozens of letters flung up and crashed against me. Even now, I was so caught up in the past that I didn't know how I'd ever recover. Would mum look down on me and ever be proud? I'd never get anything right.

"Stop holding me down!" I screamed, choking on my words.

As I picked up another drawer to throw and suspended it into the air, arms wrapped around me and turned me towards the door. I dropped it and flailed my legs, crying and trying to get out. "You were supposed to protect me!"

"Jude!" I could hear dad's voice. He swung me around and pulled me against him, holding me so tight that I couldn't break free. "You're safe now, Jude."

"Let me go!" I screamed, struggling to get out his grasp. "She left me!"

Liam came through the door and looked at me, horror-stricken, so much that I immediately stopped struggling and let my body droop in dad's arms. I couldn't believe he stuck around and found me like this.

"Jude..." he gulped, approaching me cautiously at first, but broadened his steps until he was standing directly in front of me. He cupped my cheeks and rested his forehead against mine, stroking my hair out of my face, including the strands that were dried to my tears. My anger and adrenaline left my body at once as I relaxed into his touch. Dad released me, catching me off guard as my body slumped against Liam's with exhaustion. He stroked my back and whispered reassurances. "You've done so well, Jude. You're okay now. You're okay."

I took a deep, shaking breath and emptied my mind once more. My body still shook, but there was nothing left inside me to explode. Liam helped ease those last remnants just by coming back for me, like that's all it took. I clutched his arms for balance and looked back at the mess I'd made. Everything was upturned and strewn across the floor.

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire.

And there I went, signing my soul to the devil.

I started to collapse under my own weight, but Liam guided me safely to the floor. I became overwrought with difficulty breathing. Dad stroked my back and prompted me with different breathing techniques, and Liam never left my side either. Was this how people usually dealt with their feelings? It almost felt wrong not to be reminded about my one-way ticket to hell, but I felt so strangely comforted. Was this really okay?

When I'd calmed down enough and started using the sleeve of my shirt to wipe my runny nose and tears, dad kissed the top of my head. "I'll get the car ready," he said, standing up and stretching his legs out in front of him. "Don't worry about your things, alright? We'll make sure you get everything you need."

Silence hung in the air between Liam and I after dad made it out of the house, broken only by my sniffling and jagged breaths. His gaze flickered to the ground, unsure of how to break the silence. His long lashes touched his face before flicking back up towards me. His eyes had darkened, frowning with concern and intent. Something compelled me to move. 

Driven by unspeakable impulse, I leaned forward and pressed my lips on his. Liam tensed with surprise but didn't pull away. It only lasted seconds before I pulled away, smacking my hand to my lips. I couldn't believe I'd done that, but I couldn't bring myself to regret it. Look, mum. Who has the greater sin? 

If I was going to hell, then I may as well go down by proving her right.