Grace: An Eternal Beloved Novel (Eternal Beloved Novel Series) Read online

  Grace

  An Eternal Beloved Novel

  by

  R. Rodriguez

  Kindle Edition

  Grace

  An Eternal Beloved Novel

  by R. Rodriguez

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2011.by R. Rodriguez

  Discover other works by the author R. Rodriguez at http://www.facebook.com/rrodriguezeternalbeloved

  Kindle Editions, License Notes

  This book is licensed for personal enjoyment only. This e book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by: Victoria Larsh at Tarnished Press

  Cover photography from: dreamstime.com and Alicja Kruk

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Preface

  Foreword

  Chapter 1:Abyss

  Chapter 2:Chagrin

  Chapter 3: The Well Inside

  Chapter 4: New Beginnings

  Chapter 5: Dario

  Chapter 6: A Foot in the Door

  Chapter 7: The Magician

  Chapter 8: Killer

  Chapter 9: Void

  Chapter 10: Visions

  Chapter 11: Discovery

  Chapter 12: Home

  Chapter 13: Oasis

  Chapter 14: Boomerang

  Chapter 15: Weeds Never Die

  Chapter 16: Appearances

  Chapter 17: Letting Go

  Chapter 18: Escape

  Chapter 19: Revelations

  Chapter 20: Bliss

  About the Author

  Excerpt: Chastity

  Dedication

  To my father, Efrain, who is my strength from eternity and my mother, Rosalina, who is my strength here on earth. Also to my hubby, Angel and my kids, Allan and Allyson. Thank you for being my inspiration!

  Love, R.R

  Preface

  There once was a little girl from a small town in Illinois who posed for her daddy’s camera. Her innocent face was framed by short wavy auburn curls. She was the picture of innocence. Her smile beamed at the world, inviting it in. She sat back on the comfortable sofa cushions without a care in the world.

  “Little girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice.”

  There was love in her life. There was security. There were possibilities. There was an open road. You could tell by just looking at her face.

  Until the clouds crept in. She was as beautiful as ever, inside and out. She just lost her way. Life happened. She tumbled. She fretted. She fell. She got up again. She died a million deaths. She flew.

  That little girl was me.

  Foreword

  “I always thought that I’d die young. It was a feeling I had since puberty. It was a dark shadow in my background. In fact, I searched for death repeatedly and it didn’t fail to find me instead.”

  -----Grace

  Chapter 1: Abyss

  I stood on the ledge of the famous Chicago Skyway Bridge. Standing rod straight was uncomfortable for me. It felt almost unnatural. I usually stooped in a very fashionable Gwyneth Paltrow kind of way. My reasons for this were probably nowhere close to her practiced stance.

  I had to thank my natural disposition for feelings of worthlessness. It was said to be a hereditary trait that hit every other sister in every other generation of women on my father’s side of the family. I was the lucky one in my household. My sister Jane was perfectly chipper.

  So what if my present state of being was determined by a family condition? A long list of hereditary traits ruled over my brain chemistry, deciding the true potential I’d ever be able to reach. How could I beat that?

  The ache in my back paled in comparison to the overwhelming pain that hammered inside my chest. It should have been familiar to me by now. I had been living with it for quite a few years, but recently it had become overbearing and all consuming.

  I lifted my head to eye the thick cluster of clouds overhead. The sky seemed to be in tune with my gloom. I could tell that it wasn’t quite night yet, but the day was recessing. The sun was setting behind the thick wall of clouds.

  A cold gust of October wind hit my face and I breathed its icy gush. My long hair streamed behind me, as straight as I was standing. This was exactly what I needed to numb my senses. To make me realize for a minute that there were forces in existence way stronger and more powerful than those pulling at me from the inside.

  The sun descended a fraction further and I stared off into the distance, not really seeing the evening scene unfolding on the edge of the water front. I was oblivious to the trick or treaters who were starting their costumed chants around Chicago neighborhoods.

  I was submerged in the emptiness that had resided in me for the past six years. Ever since I hit puberty, a stupor of dissatisfaction and inadequacy had enveloped me. My parents never addressed it specifically because, I think, it was an embarrassment to them.

  This was it. There would be no more overbearing pain and best of all, no more dull ache in my heart. If nothing else, there would be freedom. There would be release. A total deliverance from my anguish. That’s what I’d been longing for ever since it started.

  I closed my eyes feeling the tranquility and utter calm that permeated in my being. It was funny that I should be feeling this way at this moment because I had always been utterly afraid of heights. Up to the category of phobia, even.

  That’s why I had chosen it to be this way. In a manner that would totally shock my present state. In a manner that would leave no doubt in my mind that there would be no turning back. On my eighteenth birthday.

  I surrendered to my choice and lifted my arms, like a bird about to take flight. I envisioned myself plunging forward into the dark water effortlessly. My body being swallowed up whole after the force of gravity propelled me into its icy depths.

  I had researched. I knew that I’d feel as if I’d hit a concrete sidewalk instead of a smooth dive into a soothing oasis. But I didn’t fret. Apart from the assurance from my source that the pain would be felt for only a fraction of a second, I was at this time, on this night, ready for whatever had to happen in order for my pain to be extinguished.

  No one would witness my fall. When I read that they’d be closing the whole east section of the Skyway, I saw it. I saw the window of opportunity opening specifically for me. The scheme just crept into my head. A fraction of a second of pain seemed tolerable in comparison to a lifetime or an allotment of indeterminate years of incomprehensible suffering.

  I was completely numb. Completely uninhibited. Completely at terms with my impending demise. With the possible repercussions of my decisions, too. Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, and the rest, all vowed for eternal life, but their respective versions had developed such a debate in humanity that nations were either dying or killing for it.

  If the means really justified the glorious end, as it was said, then surely my violent finale would be forgiven for a deliverance from anguish in this eternal punishment called my life. I guess I had to believe this in order to go through with it.

  I opened my eyes to look to the far west end of the Skyway, as if to gaze one last time at the banal routines of the life I’d be leaving behind. Quitting time traffic. Row after row of cars creeping home after a hard day of labor, or people going to a costumed affair with friends or lovers.

  I sh
ould have felt apprehension that I wasn’t somehow following the established proceedings of human daily exercise, but I didn’t. I felt relief that I didn’t have to pretend anymore. That I didn’t have to continue my robotic interpretation of life.

  It was then that I heard it below me. A deep guttural sound to my right. It cut through my focus, making me lose my balance ever so slightly, but in the wrong direction. My feet shuffled back onto the ledge and I reflexively bent my knees in a half crouch to keep from falling back onto the rubble of the construction on the bridge. I became irritated by my vivid imagination. It had interrupted my carefully laid out plan.

  The apparent hallucination didn’t stop its low deep growl, though. I turned my head and squeezed my eyes to make out the source of the sound in the near darkness. All I caught was a glimpse of movement. A black shadow that crossed behind me. Its snarl snapping at me. I felt it before I saw it.

  My mood shifted from tranquility to unfathomable fear. Raw and unprecedented fear. Not the kind of fear one might have when embarking on a new endeavor, say, but the fear one experiences when encountering a presence that is out of place and far removed from its natural environment. A presence you usually see in a horror movie.

  It was a panther. Black and lithe in its movements. Its eyes shining yellow in the night. It rubbed its smooth body against the side of the bridge. I cringed inwardly, unsure of what it would do next.

  The panther retreated from the ledge and circled around the rubble as if trapping an imaginary prey. Its gaze never leaving my eyes. It stared me down. It seemed arrogant and powerful in its prowling. It was prowling me, I realized.

  Additional fear gripped my heart and again, an all too familiar sense of resignation. Resignation at the definite discovery that I had no real control over my life, or my death for that matter. As carefully as I had conjured my final hour, this unknown creature had, with its steely eyes and menacing stance, come to ruin it. I did not know if it was real or imagined, but I did know that I had the urge to escape. Escape toward safety. My mind had become too aware of the danger I was in. I felt nothing of the numbness that I had wallowed in before, when death seemed welcoming and soothing to my tortured soul.

  My eyes began to dart aimlessly in different directions, trying to find the quickest route of escape. I carefully turned around to face my unexpected predator and I fully appreciated its musculature and frame. It was a magnificent creature. It was larger than I’d thought. It kept its circular pattern in front of me. Eyeing, measuring, taking me in, as well.

  My heart stopped. If hell existed, this must be its gate keeper, I thought. If I were to imagine a sure way to be taken by Satan himself, this would have been it. I guess my grandmother was right.

  “Better keep your eyes on the heavens, Grace. Don’t let the bad side of you get the best of you.” Her voice reverberated between my ears.

  Well, I guess she’d be awfully disappointed or… gloating with the confirmation that here I was, with the worst of me getting the best show.

  I had the strongest desire to run for safety right then. Wasn’t it ironic that what I perceived as a valiant act of liberation was only a reflection of my true cowardice? The coward in me was surfacing fast once challenged with true unavoidable danger.

  I suddenly began to summon all the prayers I’d been taught by my grandmother. My family wasn’t particularly religious in reality. Our trips to church on Sunday were more a matter of appearances and proper upbringing of good Catholic children. Grandma was the only one who seemed to really believe in all the prayers, beliefs about God’s protection, and following a saintly life.

  I summoned Psalm 23 and was surprised to learn that I knew it by heart. I chanted it in a low voice.

  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

  He leadeth me beside the still waters.

  He restoreth my soul.

  He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

  Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

  Thou anointest my head with oil.

  My cup runneth over.

  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life

  and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

  I simply recited the whole thing over and over in my head, hoping that it would keep me safe, but the panther bared its teeth. When I reached the end of my silent prayer, it stood still and its mouth opened into an unashamed sneer.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. I never thought that I’d be afraid to actually see it coming. After all, I was intending to make it come myself.

  “It’s not the same to call the devil, than to see him come.” My grandmother’s favorite quote to soothe my never ending bouts of “capriciousness”, as she called them, rang so true at this moment.

  The panther retreated. No, it recoiled like the chamber of a shot gun and lunged forward. It moved too fast for me to escape physically, but my mind did invoke the will to … fight or flight. Fight it was. I crouched down on the ledge holding on tight to the edge of the rail that protruded onto the bridge and tensed my body for the impact.

  The crash was phenomenal. The panther hit my head with all of its force. I felt the whole weight of its body on my head. I could smell its pungent animal essence and something else; something unnamable. It filled me with sheer aversion. I felt my head reel back. My body uplifted and swerved back by the impact. I lost my footing. Why did I choose to wear my stiletto heeled black leather boots to end it all? I now wondered.

  Oh yeah, because although my goal was to throw myself into the depths of the Calumet River, hopefully my boots would weigh me down enough so that no one would find me and maybe they would just think that I’d decided to uproot myself and start a new life elsewhere.

  I had enough self awareness, though, to pair them up with a gorgeous crimson wrap dress. One thing that was a constant with me was to save appearances at all costs. How ludicrous it all was now.

  I seem to have been balancing on my boots fine when I was about to throw myself into the abyss, but now, they failed to have the same function as before. They gave way under me.

  I felt a thousand rays of pain as my chin slammed onto the steel ledge where my legs had been. I must’ve bitten my tongue or broken all of my teeth because I perceived the warm unsavory taste of blood in my mouth.

  The creature never stopped in its descent. After it impacted me, it fell away towards the dark water. I never heard a splash. The pain I felt now was exclusively because of my failing struggle to hold on to the ledge with my full weight suspended from it. Miraculously my hands were still holding on. I gasped for air as I felt my legs pulling me down all on their own. The gravity I had counted on to speed my journey to the murky water, now seemed only too eager to comply with my former wishes.

  I tried to push myself up and forward to no avail. I was barely holding on and my chest was too constricted to allow enough air in to heave myself up. My arms felt like they were being pulled at the sockets and indeed they were being extracted by the pull of my weight.

  I tried to tighten my grip, but by now, I was practically holding on by my fingernails. My fake acrylic fingernails, at that, and they were too short to offer any leeway.

  I felt immeasurable pain when one of them popped and ripped out. It took half of my natural nail with it and my eyes burned with hot tears. A tortured wail escaped my lips. As the excruciating pain began to numb my mind, barely a whimper escaped my shallow gasps.

  Thank God the humiliation I felt would be over soon, I thought. I’d be getting my wish after all. Dying on the thirty first of October at eighteen. The witches, the goblins, and ghosts would be no match for me tonight. I’d be the new live corpse. The cadaver girl that appeared in her high s
chool yearbook as the most beautiful, most likely to be famous – as voted by her fellow senior classmates.

  If they only knew my secret… If they only guessed about the despair that was buried under my perfect skin and my deep emerald bedroom eyes, as my admirers called them.

  “You can’t even imagine how compelling you are, Grace. It’s as if you’re the center of the universe and the rest of us are obliged to gravitate toward you unconsciously.”

  How empty those words sounded to my ears. It didn’t matter that my first love professed them fervently as we gazed at the stars on top of his car’s hood during a hot Carbondale summer. They just didn’t ring true.

  I must be a spectacle now, with my ridiculously long hair matted with the blood that kept oozing from my mouth. The scrapes I must have, I thought. A length of leg was exposed above the protection of my mid calf boots. It kept slamming into the hard steel.

  My usual fruity scent was obliterated by blood, dirt, and the insufferable smell the panther had left on me with its deadly path. I surrendered to the void. Heavy tears joined the repertoire of regrets and I breathed in the only gush of air that fit into my compressed chest.

  This was all so senseless, so stupid. I saw that now. But it was too late to take it back. There was no reaching up to untie the knot from the ceiling fan in grandma’s patio terrace. There was no wobbling around like a zombie in school the next day after downing a feeble cocktail of my mom’s pain killers the night before. There was no going back. This was it. As I prepared to stop trying to win over the impossibility of my plight against gravity, I closed my eyes once again. This time, I didn’t feel the same peace and tranquility from before.

  This time, my heart was racing out of my chest. Fear paralyzed rational thought and resignation overcame elation as my strength left me. I shushed the overpowering desire to live that arose in me and began my final countdown.