Timekiller

Gene and Annabelle Southwell were receiving several letters from Miya. It had gotten to the point where every day the two of them would sit down and read something the idol had written for them. At first, the letters only dealt with large issues and the random bouts of sadness Miya still had, but as the days turned into weeks, the letters stopped being written mostly for the purpose of aiding Miya's mental and spiritual health and started being written because everyone involved wanted to know more about each other.
     Gene and Annabelle were spending more time together now than they had in several years. After Gene had received his job with the Dwights five years ago, he hadn't spent very much time with his parents or his kid sister, despite the fact that he was only half an hour away from them. He'd initially blamed his infrequent visits on his work schedule, but after two weeks of receiving constant letters from Miya and reading them with Annabelle, he came to a rather painful conclusion.
     He hadn't wanted to visit his family.
     One Thursday evening, after he'd said goodbye to his family and was already driving back to his house, he thought about what that meant.
     He had told himself that he loved his family; he had told himself that, if he had just a little more time, he would go see them; he had told himself that he didn't resent them for how they'd treated his doubts about religion.
     But as he drove down old country streets, he sighed deeply.
     He had been lying to himself. 
     He'd found his kid sister annoying; he'd thought his parents were moralistic bores; he'd thought that the money spent on the gas for the drive there and back would be wasted. 
     He pulled into the driveway of his house and stepped out of his truck, then stopped to look at it.
     He had told himself he only wanted the house because he wanted to prove that he was independent.
     Really, though, he'd always known the real reason he'd bought it and moved out. 
     He wanted to get away from them. 
     "Stupid." He kicked at the tire of his truck, then locked it and went inside his home. 
     The house was small. He took off his boots and went to his bathroom, then looked at himself in the mirror.
     He was still the same man he'd been for the last five years. As he took a shower and brushed his teeth, he thought more deeply about what that meant. If it hadn't been for the letters he and Annabelle were writing, how long would he have stagnated? How long would his life have been in paralysis? He imagined himself sleeping in that house, going to work for the Dwights, coming back home, and repeating the process, all while his sibling grew up just thirty minutes away.
     He imagined what might have happened; a graduation he missed; a boyfriend he never met; a goodbye he never said; a wedding he didn't attend; all because he needed to be independent. All because he was a little uncomfortable being around them. 
     "W-well, it's not that bad." He got into bed and looked up at the dark ceiling of his bedroom. "I would've made it to the real important moments. I wouldn't miss birthdays, at least."
     Then, as he began drifting off to sleep, he remembered something that made his blood run cold. He grabbed the phone off of his bedside table and looked at the date on it.
     It was the near the end of August. 
     Annabelle's birthday was on March third. 
     He hadn't started seeing her about Miya's letters until the middle of April.
     All the air left his chest as he realized that he'd been extremely close to completely cutting Annabelle out of his life, and he hadn't even realized it. His hands trembled as he put his phone back down and laid in his bed.
     Tears welled up in his eyes.
     If it hadn't been for Miya, he would have left his family in the rearview mirror. He tossed and turned in his bed, unable to sleep. If Miya hadn't taken the time to write back to his sister, how long would he have let things pass him by? Months? Years? Decades? 
     After a half hour of being unable to sleep, he sat up straight in his bed and did something he hadn't done in a long time. He walked over to the singular window in his bedroom, parted the curtains, knelt down in front of it, and put his hands together.
     He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. His warm breath cascaded onto his hands, mixing with the cool air that the ceiling fan was conducting through his bedroom. His hands, he realized, were tougher than he thought, with small callouses on his lower palms formed from his repeated use of the flight instruments without gloves and his firm grip. 
     His chest felt oddly heavy, and his hair felt like it was weighing down on his head. 
     "G-God... I don't know if you're really up there. I-I'm sorry." He said slowly. "I-I just... There's so many big, bad, terrible things happening in the world that... when I hear about you, I-I-I just can't possibly imagine how you'd be good."
     The ceiling fan buzzed slightly behind him as he kept his head bowed.
     "But while I was sitting in this house thinking about that, my sister, and my parents, were trusting in you, and I thought they were being... f-frankly I..."
     His voice weakened and his lungs felt like all the air had been forced out of them.
     "I-I thought they were full of it."
     He could almost hear his own heart beating.
     "But God, I was so preoccupied with myself, and what I was doing, and what made me uncomfortable that I-I didn't even notice..." 
     His voice trembled.
     "All the time I was wasting."
     Gene kept kneeling in front of his window, with his hands clasped together and his head bowed, for a long time. He didn't say anything; it was all he could do to hold himself together and keep from crying. There were tears that came out of his eyes and crept down his face, and his lips quivered, and his body shook, but no matter how close he came to falling apart completely, he just couldn't do it.
     Because every time the weight of realization and guilt started to crush him and remind him of how he'd wasted five years doing nothing but thinking about himself, he would feel a strange sensation. The sensation that kept him from being crushed and falling apart was almost like a whirlwind; he would feel warmer for a few moments, his breathing would even out, and his nerves would still.
     It was almost like someone else was there, holding him together.
~~~
     Gene woke up the next morning to the sound of birdsong. He opened his eyes slowly and realized that his head was on a windowsill. It took him a few moments to remember what he'd done the previous night, and when it all came back to him he couldn't help smiling a little bit. 
     Then he realized that it was light outside, and his eyes widened. 
     "Work! I'm late!" 
     Within ten minutes he was out the door and in his truck, cellphone in hand, calling Mrs. Dwight. It took him a few minutes to apologize for being two hours late, and she told him that he better not let anything like that happen again under threat of losing his job. He'd paled when she'd said that, but then she'd laughed and told him that it was understandable and that she'd give him a pass just this once. 
     The rest of the day passed by intentionally.
     He did his best to smile at work, even when he nearly landed without his landing gear down. He made sure to thank Mrs. Dwight for her patience at the end of the day. He drove straight to his parents' house and took Miya's new letter out of the mailbox with a smile. When he walked inside, he made sure to sufficiently greet everyone, not just Annabelle. He went up to his parents, hugged them, and got into an actual conversation with them before he went off to read the letter with Annabelle. 
     And even if their outspoken faith made him a little uncomfortable, he didn't care about how it made him feel at that moment; he wanted to be with them.
     He and Annabelle read the letter and saw that Miya's newest viral dance move had, in fact, been sheer improvisation and hadn't been planned.
     "I win." Annabelle said coolly.
     Gene took a dollar out of his wallet and handed it to Annabelle.
     Once the letter had been read and a response made, Gene stayed for dinner.
     Then, as he got home, he began writing something else.
     He wrote his own letter for Miya; just from him.