Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 1 of 60

Eduardo stood on the porch of the house he had walked away from at nineteen. The roof sagged. Both front windows were broken and patched with crossed boards. His mother's rocking chair sat where she had left it, one runner cracked. He had come back to fix the place and claim it before the county sold it. He had eight years of pride to answer for, and a demon riding his shoulder that he did not yet know how to name. He felt it before he saw anything. A tightness behind his eyes. A hum in his teeth. It had followed him out of Kiersten's house the morning she cut him loose, and it had not let go. When he was calm, it slept. When he was proud, it woke. He pried a board off the door and stepped inside. Dust. Mouse droppings. His father's belt still hung on a nail by the kitchen. He stared at it too long. Heat rose in his chest. He heard his own voice, younger, telling his mother he was nothing like the man who hung that belt there. Then he heard the lie underneath it. The hum sharpened. His hand went to the belt on its own. He gripped the leather. His reflection swam in the cracked window glass, cap low, jaw set, eyes gone hard the way his father's had gone hard. The demon liked that face. It pressed closer, whispering the old comforts. You were robbed. You were owed. You are bigger than this room. He almost let it in. He almost tore the kitchen apart to prove he was still someone. Instead he sat down on the warped floor. He said it out loud, because the old man at the feed store had once told him a name spoken is a name lessened. "You are not me. You are what he put in me. I am setting you down." His hand opened. The belt hit the floor. The hum climbed, angry, then thinned. He felt it drag at his ribs, looking for a handhold. He gave it none. He named the pride under it. He named the shame under the pride. He named his mother, and his father, and the five years of buyers he had lost, and the man who took them. He named Kiersten last, and let her go. The pressure broke. The room felt colder. His shoulders shook once and stilled. He stood up in a house that was still broken. That part had not changed. He walked to the porch and looked at the fields his grandfather had cleared. There was a fence to mend before dark, and no one coming to help him do it. He was going to mend it anyway. He left the belt on the floor where it fell.