Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“Then why start?”
“Because…” I whisper, bringing the candy back to my lips. Letting it sit on them for a second, I yank harder on the disheveled strands, determined to rip the anxiety of guilt out of me. To redirect the pain from the constant “what if” hell I’ve made myself at home in. To reroute the self-inflicted terror that comes from living in this desolate dungeon of my mind where all other thoughts outside of the well woven “what ifs” have deserted me. “Because…”
Doc doesn’t push, and I’m grateful.
“Because I was afraid that he was fucking right and for just a brief moment in time…like the fucking smallest, I was desperate to feel like he gave an actual fuck about me.”
Continued silence.
The shock of getting no verbal response is what lifts my head. To continue the surprise, I find him staring down at me with his too dark, too terrifying eyes, not judging, but almost… understanding.
Huh.
I guess we all have fucking daddy issues.
Doc’s voice remains at the same even tone it has for our entire conversation. “It’s an old man’s responsibility to guide his kid towards greatness.”
“Mine didn’t.”
“You blame him.”
Yanking the cigarette off my lips, I snap, “Of course I fucking blame him!” A jeer is grunted in between eye rolls. “Had he not sold me that fucking bullsh-”
“No,” Doc forcefully interrupts, startling me silent.
Most mouthpieces don’t interrupt once their patient gets started…
“You bought into that bullshit, Collins. You made that choice. Start taking some fucking responsibility for the goddamn choices you’ve made. Both good and bad. Life isn’t about what happens to us. It’s about the actions we take. The decisions we make. What we choose each and every fucking step of the way.”
His hippie mumbo jumbo shoves the cigarette back in my mouth and releases my hand from my sore skull.
Whatever.
I don’t need this fucking bullshit. I should’ve known better than to talk to him. What the fuck does he know about choices? Of course he would judge me. Everyone judges me. Let’s add always being judged to that ever-growing list of things I hate.
“Your old man has his own burdens that will haunt him – assuming that they don’t already.”
Doc’s spoken perspective should move my eyes back to his, but they don’t. As far as I’m concerned, this conversation is over.
Cigarette goal requirement met.
“You made the choice that you made because you wanted a father, Collins. You wanted to finally be more than he ever thought you could. To connect with him. You wanted what every wayward child ever has. To feel loved. To feel wanted. To feel accepted.”
My head falls forward.
The candy stick that I’m beginning to appreciate trembles on my bottom lip.
God, I hate all of those words.
And I fucking hate myself even more because they’re all the right ones.
“However, like many things in the world, we believe in order to have something we truly want, we must sacrifice something else. It’s fucking misguided, but the shit still exists. And for you, your offering to prove your loyalty, to prove your devotion to the man you needed to be there for you, was Presley.”
Hearing her name crushes my voice box at the same time it forces my mind to expel the words, “She was my. Whole. Fucking. World.” The declaration that I wish could stop there helplessly continues, “She was the only person who really fucking mattered. She held me when they wouldn’t. She helped build me up when they tore me down. When my own blood blamed me, she exonerated me. Every time. Every. Goddamn. Time. Black sheep to them, shining fucking star to her. She treasured me, and I…,” the slow shaking of my head is followed by the pounding of my heart growing so loud that I begin to rock in hopes of soothing the insatiable sorrow. “I broke her.” A choked sob comes out. “I fucking broke her…”
Doc doesn’t comment.
Doesn’t add textbook lines.
And for some reason his wordlessness makes it all so much worse.
Tears begin to gather at the corners of my eyes, gluing them shut. For years, I’ve buried the facts about what happened. The things I should’ve never did or said. The missed kisses and touches. The shameful secrets that when I play back the endless list of “what ifs” my mind doesn’t hesitate to skip over because I don’t ever want to admit the apprehension that comes from truth. The fact that the monster I was then, I still am now, just in older skin with a dying demon addicted to numbing the pain buried at my center.
Against my better judgement – although I’m not sure I’ve ever had good judgment – I steal a second to fully admire the memory of the chick I know now more than ever that I didn’t deserve.
Pres wasn’t super model gorgeous. She wasn’t even typical girl next door “cute”. She was this odd combination that didn't make any sense yet made all the sense. There was something about her that just screamed fucking astounding. What she lacked in height – she couldn’t have been more than 5’4 – she made up for in curves. That chick had all the fucking curves a guy could ever want. She was practically all legs with the smallest torso. Top heavy with just enough ass for my hands to happily palm. Soft brown skin and glowing chestnut eyes that even the coldest of hearts were mesmerized by. Glasses because she was blind as a bat but fuck me, she had the hearing of an owl. That shit got me both props and in trouble on more than one occasion. She was strangely pasted together but still somehow so…so…perfect.