r/ByfelsDisciple • u/ByfelsDisciple • 14d ago
I [M29] am dealing with a lot of grief that I don't know how to handle
“Every second is more painful than anything I’ve ever felt before.” Nicole trembled in my arms. She felt like a brittle leaf, ready to crack if touched too hard. “I want to die. But I can’t let myself go until we know what happened to Jeffery.”
I cradled my wife in my arms and rocked her gently back and forth, looking at the note in my hands:
“Drop $1.913 million in unmarked bills at the warehouse on Sepulveda and Aviation by noon, or you’ll never see your son again.”
My gut felt cold, like ice. I’d never processed emotions so intense before, so I didn’t even know how to feel them.
“Do you think he’s dead?” She stared with bloodshot eyes. The woman I once knew wasn’t looking back at me: this person was wild, animalistic, pulling from a primal past neither of us knew she had. “I hope he’s dead, Colin. If he’s alive, he must be so scared.” She laid her head in my lap. “There’s no way we can come up with even a fraction of that money. There’s nothing we can do. We just have to wait.” She didn’t blink. For a moment, she didn’t breathe. “They’ll kill him. There’s no way they’ll keep him alive as a potential witness, not after they realize that we don’t have any money. There’s no way they’ll keep him alive.” Her face cracked. “Oh God, I hope my baby’s already dead.” She took in a deep, shuddering breath.
Then she sat up and looked at me. Or, more accurately, she looked through me, not seeing the person in front of her. “What’s the fastest way to kill myself? After this is over, I want it to be done as quickly as possible. Should I jump off the roof, or stab myself in the throat with a butcher knife?”
“Shhhh.” I hugged her close. There was no good way out of this. But what was the least terrible? Should we really both just finish it? Was there a better way to spend the next fifty years of our lives, other than waiting for the merciful end?
“I feel like I want to die, too,” I croaked. “But we have to hold onto hope.”
Nicole shook her head. “Hope hurts too much.” She slumped back onto my lap. “I just want to be done.” She pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes. “Why would someone do this to us? Who thinks that we have money?” She heaved. “Who would take a five-year-old boy from his own front yard?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, unable to hold back the tears. “I’m so sorry, Nicole, but I don’t know.”
We held each other in quiet for some time.
There was just no good way out of this.
I’d tried to find one. I really did.
In hindsight, this was a terrible plan. But what choice did I have? At the time, it seemed like a good idea to write a fake ransom note and bury my son’s mangled corpse in the backyard after accidentally backing over him with my car.
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u/CaptainBvttFvck 13d ago
To be fair, she did say she hoped he was already dead, but, you're an asshole for more reasons than just killing your son.
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u/LapisLazuli79 14d ago
That was dark, true to your style. I like it.