The Pain of Letting Go

Story Info
Sometimes holding on is worse.
12.5k words
4.28
116.6k
63
Share this Story

Font Size

Default Font Size

Font Spacing

Default Font Spacing

Font Face

Default Font Face

Reading Theme

Default Theme (White)
You need to Log In or Sign Up to have your customization saved in your Literotica profile.
PUBLIC BETA

Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.

You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.

Click here
StangStar06
StangStar06
5,797 Followers

Hi folks, it's been a while for some of you. Those of you who are reading this on Literotica missed last week's story. Now that you know that there was a story, most of you already know where to go to find it. And I'm sure someone will mention it in the comments for those of you who don't. You can also send me an E-mail and I'll tell you if no one does. Anyway, the only reason I'm mentioning that story is because there was a bit in it that tied off the loose ends left over from Shame, Shame, Shame. It was also a very good story, but on to this week. This week's story is a shorter piece that came from and Idea suggested by a reader. She doesn't want her name mentioned but she knows who she is. I hope she likes what I've done with her idea. This week's story was edited by CallieFornia. SS06.

* * * * * *

I left the motor running, although no one was around to hear it except me. Actually, I left it running for me. I didn't need to hear it to know what it sounded l knew the sound by heart. It was as familiar to me as my own heart beat. The deep throbbing sound of my Mustang's 5.0 liter modular V8 funneled through a MagnaFlow exhaust system. It was like music to my ears. I love that sound. I'd recorded it and used it as the ring tone on my iPhone. But today the sound served a different purpose.

Today the deep throbbing acted much the same way that the peanuts character Linus' blanket or a child's night light does. The sound of my motor served to keep the bad things away even though it was broad daylight and the sun wouldn't go down for hours.

As I stepped off of the black top surface of the driveway and onto the first step of the porch, I looked back to make sure that my Mustang was still there. I caught a glimpse of the pewter paint and turned back towards the house. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the key. I stuck it in the lock, the way I'd done on countless occasions before. It still fit.

I gave it a slight pull as I turned the key to the right and the door was open. The afternoon sun was still bright enough to provide all of the light I need to see. As I looked across the now almost empty expanse that I'd called home for so long, I got a lump in my throat.

I wondered for the ten thousandth time if I was doing the right thing. I had laid this parquet floor myself. I looked into the kitchen and remembered the way I'd skinned my knuckles when I hung those cabinets. There was still a tiny hole in the floor that I'd drilled to attach the water hose from the refrigerator to the water pipe in the basement below.

All of the closets were mostly empty. I was just passing through to pick up any lingering remnants of what I thought would be my life.

Even the house seemed sad. As I climbed the stairs, I saw the little things that only someone who'd lived here would notice. The wood of the stairs was actually a cheap but sturdy pine that had been stained to match the expensive flooring in the living room.

The kids had been allowed to do whatever they'd wanted with their rooms. My daughter's room was still immaculate. The boy as I now called him had left his room a mess. Even at twenty three years old he still acted more like a child than his seventeen year old sister. He'd simply taken everything that he wanted and moved it into his dorm room at college. He'd left the room a mess in his wake.

I guess it didn't matter. The house was sold, so its condition was no longer my problem. As I looked at the walls of the room I used to sleep in, I almost collapsed. I had painted those God damned walls at least ten times. That bitch was just never satisfied.

As I looked around the empty room it was almost as if no one had ever lived in this room. No one had ever slept here. Even I began to wonder at that point. Did anyone ever live here? Did anyone love here and raise a family here? Was the life I remember real? Or was the whole thing, the life I knew all just another lie, like her wedding vows?

Tiny signs around the room signal powerful memories that even now I question. The line scored into the paint of the back wall. The headboard on the bed was there. The paint was scraped away from the wall because every time I fucked her, the headboard knocked into the wall until it scratched all of the paint of behind it. Of course at the time I thought I was doing something else. She called it making love. I thought we were sharing ourselves and I thought it was special.

I'd thought I was signing my life away when I bought this house. Claudette wasn't working and had terrible credit so her name wasn't on the mortgage. Besides at the time she was pregnant so we had to get out of that apartment and move into a place that was big enough for us to have a family. I thought at the time that sixty thousand dollars was too much for the house but Claudette loved it. I'd gotten almost twice that when I sold the place last week. I got one hundred and ten thousand dollars for it. And I didn't have to give Claudette a fucking quarter. To the victors go the spoils they say. But somehow I don't feel very victorious. In fact I feel just the opposite. I feel like the biggest failure, the biggest loser and the biggest fool, all rolled into one.

If as they say, "today is the first day of the rest of your life," my reply would have to be why bother? I've lost almost everything. Everyone I speak to seems to think that I won...

I hear the creaking of the door downstairs as it opens. I quickly turn and realize that I've turned too quickly. The sharp pain in my still injured knee reminds me that I still have a long time to go before I'm in the shape that I once was. I walk more slowly towards the door and the stairs. As I get to the top of the stairs, I see her looking around.

"Claudette, you have no right to be here," I hiss. "I believe the restraining order still prevents you from coming anywhere near me as well."

She looks like hell, which in itself should make me happy, but doesn't. I spent a large part of my life loving this woman with everything I had. I made a baby with this woman and we'll have to see each other for her alone for the rest of our lives. But as she looks up towards me even her tears fail to move me. The pleading tone in her voice brings only bile into my intestinal tract. Can I really hate her that much?

"I heard that you'd sold our house," she said. "I probably would have bought it, but you left me virtually penniless, as you know."

"The only thing I know is that if you don't leave, I'll call the police," I said.

"Oh my Roberto," she whined. When Claudette was upset she pretended to be more than part Italian.

"In the first place I'm not YOUR anything," I said. "And in the second, my name isn't Roberto. It isn't Robert, either. My name is Bob; Just plain Bob. And I'm still waiting for you to get the hell out of here."

She paused and wiped her eyes although I didn't see any years.

"It must be wonderful to be perfect," she said. "How does it feel to be the only person on earth who has never made a mistake? The rest of us have to live with our failures and the things we wish we could take back. But you're above it all."

"Fuck you," I spat. "Even after all of these years you don't know a thing about me."

"That's just it," she said. "I thought I did. I thought that you loved me and we could somehow work this out. But you've changed. Even after you caught..." She halted in mid sentence as if she was afraid to summon the memory.

"What changed you?" she asked.

As I looked into the eyes of the woman I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with, I realized that I was still coming to terms with it myself. I'd tried explaining the changes in me, to her and everyone else several times. But perhaps after twenty plus years she just thought I was going through a temporary attitude change brought on by the accident that had nearly killed me. Maybe she hoped that I'd change back at some point and become the easy going guy that had loved her and allowed her to take advantage of him for so many years.

As she stood there in front of me, waiting for an answer, I thought back a few months prior to that moment. I'd been driving my jeep down a rain slicked road and I was driving way too fast for the road surface and the conditions. I was upset and just wanted to get away from all of the problems that were piling up on me. I'd just left the medical clinic that had serviced my family's medical needs for as long as I could remember. The news I'd gotten had driven me even further over the edge.

I say even further over the edge because I was already going through hell. My family had recently been ripped apart and this was just another brick in the wall of bullshit that I was expected to endure.

Suddenly, the jeep's back end fishtailed. I jerked the wheel, trying to halt the skid. The four wheel drive system only meant, in this case that there were four wheels sliding dangerously close to the edge of a steep ditch. With what sounded like an almost human-like screech the jeep went over the edge of the ditch and plummeted off the road.

It flipped over violently several times and came to rest on its roof. The airbag had gone off on the first flip and the next few times the steering wheel impacted my chest. My head was still spinning and I looked out of the window. I realized even with my head as fuzzy as it was that there was another drop and the jeep was leaning towards it. I hit the clasp on my seatbelt release and fell onto the roof of the cabin.

Jeeps are pretty much bullet proof and a strong validation of that was the fact that the buttons to lower the windows still worked after all of the impacts and rolls. I was slightly confused by the fact that the windows opened upwards, but I scrambled out just as the Jeep started to slide off of a sheer drop. Just as I thought I was clear of the Jeep it fell. I breathed a premature sigh of relief as the heavy vehicle slipped off of the edge.

Unfortunately, my elation was too early, the edge of my shoe was caught on the lip of the window and I was dragged over the edge with the Jeep. I scrambled and tried to grab the edge of the ledge because I was already hurt seriously. I wasn't sure I'd survive another fall especially without the Jeep's heavy frame as protection. I clawed at the ground trying to grab anything I could to arrest my downward plunge. About ten feet down my side hit a heavy root that stuck out the side of the sheer wall. I grabbed at it for dear life with both hands. The falling Jeep tried to rip my hand off of the branch, but luckily my shoe came off before my grip failed.

The sound of the Jeep impacting the ground another ten or twelve feet below me was so loud that I felt the collision between metal vehicle and earth as well as heard it. Several small parts that broke loose during the impact had hit me and something ripped into the back of my leg, just above the knee.

The crash was so loud that I was sure someone had to have heard any one of the several impacts. The last one was especially loud so I was sure that at any second someone would be coming to rescue me. While I hung there, I tried to take stock of both my situation and my injuries.

I was having trouble breathing and it felt like I was trying to breathe water on one side. It also hurt to breathe. I was sure that meant that one of my lungs might be punctured and that I'd probably cracked or broken a rib or a few. My hands were bleeding and I had a headache. My neck was also sore. Lastly my leg was bleeding where the small piece of the Jeep that had struck me after the crash hit.

I looked below and the Jeep was a wreck. It appeared to have folded in on itself and several sharp appearing spars, probably parts of the chassis that had snapped at the welds protruded through what was left of the roof. Trying to land on that wasn't an option.

If the fall didn't kill me or further injure me in my weakened condition, being impaled on one of those spars would for sure.

I tried to call out for help, but could barely summon enough breath to hoarsely yell. In terms of volume, my yell was barely louder than my normal speaking voice. I knew I couldn't hold on for long so I kicked and shinnied my way up the branch. As soon as my ribs touched the branch I dropped back down and barely held on. The pain had been so intense that I'd nearly blacked out. There was far more wrong with me than I'd suspected.

My hands hurt from trying to hang on. As I grew weaker, so did my grip. I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to hold myself on that branch.

I told myself that I could and would hold on for as long as was necessary. I had never been a quitter and I wasn't about to start now. This was when it really counted. This wasn't some stupid sporting event. There was far more at stake here than mere bragging rights or some dumb trophy. It also wasn't just a business deal where the outcome would only yield a client or two or maybe a few dollars. This was serious. It was life and death and being a quitter in this situation would be the end.

My lungs burned trying to breathe. Breathing got harder the longer I held on. My hands burned and the muscles in my forearms screamed in agony, but I held on. Then my mind started to take over. My mind told me to just let go. What was the point? I asked myself. My life and family were already ruined far beyond repair. The relationships with everyone I held dear had been destroyed. What the hell was the point?

Every second that I held on was agony. And it was a long sustained agony as one after another of my body parts started to ache and then fail. On the other hand if I let go, there would be one brief instant of pain and then there'd be no further pain. Not only would I stop feeling the pain of all of the injuries, I'd stop feeling the pain of all of the emotional hits my life had taken recently. I tried for a few seconds but I couldn't think of a single reason to go on living. "Fuck it," I said silently. Maybe I'll do better in the next life.

At the last possible instant, I saw the face of the one person who would be hurt if I died flash before my eyes. But it was too late. My brain had already sent the signal to my aching hands to let go of the root. Even if I did try to retain my grip it was just futile. My fingers no longer had the strength to hold my weight for more than a very few seconds more.

The human organism is nothing if not resilient though. Survival is bred into us. Even as my hands failed, my legs kicked, causing me to start swinging. At the top of my swing, my fingers failed and instead of dropping onto the sharp metal and hard surfaces of the Jeep, I arced outwards and landed on the dirt a few yards away from it. My landing was not pretty. I also wrenched my back doing it. I tried to stand up and couldn't.

Breathing had also become even more difficult. I tried to check myself over and when I got to my waist I felt something very hard. At first I thought that I'd broken my pelvis and it was sticking through the skin. Then I realized that it was my phone. It took me nearly ten minutes to pull the phone out of its case.

It took me longer than that to punch in my security password and unlock the phone. I made a mental note to myself not to ever use a ten digit password again. With the last of my strength I managed to hit the nine and the hit the one, twice.

The voice on the phone gave me hope that I might still survive. But at the same time, I needed to let go again. The darkness was calling me. I realized at that moment that I'd discovered something. My body was going into shock. I was feeling less and less with every passing moment. If I had somehow managed to hold on for a few more moments, I'd still be in agony. Clearly the pain of letting go wasn't nearly as bad as the agony of holding on in a bad situation. It was strange but in the last few moments before I died, I had discovered something that could have eased my life.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" she asked.

"Car...fell...fell off cliff," I gasped as the blackness took over.

"Sir, did you say that your car went off of a cliff?" she asked. "Sir, are you still there? Can you stay on the line?"

I don't remember anything after that until I awoke. I'm told that I was out of it for nearly a week. I had a cracked skull, several broken ribs, and a punctured lung as I'd suspected. My shoulder was wrenched. I had a deep cut and the piece of metal in my leg had to be surgically removed. My neck had been sprained by the airbag and I had a concussion. There were also, of course, numerous contusions and bruises and scrapes. But all in all I was pretty lucky.

My iPhone had saved my life. The 911 operator was able to trace my phone and get an ambulance to me. The rest was easy.

As I opened my eyes, medical technology took over. All kinds of alarms went off as needles and readouts spiked indicating brainwave activity, increased respiration and a stronger heartbeat. In short as soon as I regained consciousness, they knew about it.

It almost seemed as if the people worked for the machines, because as soon as the bells started to ring, the biggest, fattest, ugliest nurse on the planet looked up from her crossword puzzle and crossed the room.

When I was young we used to talk about pie faced girls. They were girls with round flat faces and no redeeming features to make them even semi attractive. The nurse glaring at me couldn't be confused with them because at least pie is sweet. Her face was round and flat with her nose spread out almost from cheek to cheek and she had the sourest expression on her face that I'd ever seen. A large mouth with little or no lips stretched into a frown as if she was pissed off because I had the audacity to wake up while she was doing her fucking puzzle.

Obviously this woman did not choose a career in health care because she wanted to make life better for sick patients and ease their suffering. When I saw the pissed off expression on her face, I closed my eyes again.

"There's no use trying to fake it," she chirped in a disproportionately high voice. "I already know you're awake."

She pulled out one of those electronic thermometers and for a second, I wasn't sure that she didn't intend to stab me with it.

After taking my temperature she checked several other things and then started taking to me again. "You gave us quite a scare," she said. "You have several family members who've been coming here every day to see you. We finally got them to go home and take turns coming in."

"Who's here now?" I gasped out.

"Your wife has been here almost the entire time," she said. "She's been sleeping in the waiting room. We finally got her to go home for a nap and a shower. She really was starting to stink."

"That bitch has been stinking for most of her life," I quipped. "A shower won't help. Who's here?"

"Your son and your daughter are in the waiting room now," she said. "Your parents will be here in about an hour to relieve them. And your brother will be here when he finishes work for the day."

"Tell my son and daughter that I can only have one visitor at a time and send my daughter in," I said. "When I'm done talking to her, tell him that I'm exhausted and too tired to see anyone else today." she looked at me strangely but she left the room.

A few moments later my daughter walked into the room. She was torn between being glad that I was awake and crying because I was hurt so badly.

"Daddy, are you okay?" she asked.

"Heather, everything hurts," I said. "My hair hurts."

"I'm so glad you're okay," she said. "They told us about all of your injuries and they were really worried that your concussion might've been worse. There was a possibility of brain damage and memory loss, but I can tell by your corny jokes and that smile that you're going to be fine."

StangStar06
StangStar06
5,797 Followers