Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Ah, how the Lord unites us in mysterious ways,” says Trey’s father in his calm, reserved tone, something to do with whatever story they were sharing, and the others laugh lightheartedly.
And I’m left sitting here staring down at a dark spot in the tablecloth, all of my ire buried deep, yet seething and building pressure, like a volcano at the bottom of the ocean, writhing with unchecked power ready to break open the world.
Pete kicks me under the table, then winks. I look up at him and squint questioningly. He chuckles, shakes his head, and then returns his attention to the others, wiggling his way right back into their conversation like he never left it.
I have no idea what that was.
All I know is that my foot is bouncing in place under the table, and it never does that. I’m picking at a loose thread at the end of the sleeve of my denim jacket, wondering what my dad would do in a situation like this. Not that he’d ever get into a situation like this. Is that what’s eating at me? That I let myself get like this?
Is this my fault?
“Excuse me,” I say, though no one’s listening, as I get up from the table and head down the aisle, eyeing the restroom sign in the back corner of the room.
Once inside, the loud noise of the restaurant fades behind the slowly closing door, and then it’s just me and my reflection in the restroom mirror. The two lonesome urinals and single stall behind me watch as I run water over my face and ask myself the same damned question I’ve asked since stepping foot in this town.
Why am I letting that guy get to me so easily?
Why can’t I stomach just laughing him off, breaking all of this tension between us, and enjoying my time here with Pete and his old buddy and their family? It would be the mature thing to do. To rise above. To keep my composure, exude a sense of control over the situation, and let it roll off my back.
Instead, it’s downright clinging to my back, like a rowdy six-year-old nephew I didn’t know I had, demanding piggyback rides every couple of minutes and tiring me to the damned death.
I agreed to come here to Spruce because I wanted calm.
I needed calm.
The last decade of my life has been a warzone in far too many ways, and most of those ways don’t even have a thing to do with the military. It was my way-too-intuitive brother who first noticed this about me, this way I can get when my life starts to feel like it’s under others’ control, my every decision robbed from me, like my days aren’t my own, my hours between that sun rising and setting, none of it belonging to me. I need to feel like I’m in control, that I have authority over my own life. It’s why I go jogging before that sun comes up every morning—something I can control, something that’s all mine, untouchable, a perfect peace.
I think I came here to Spruce to prove I still have control.
To prove to myself that I’m free.
But there’s this thing that keeps scratching under my skin. A craving for the routine again. Like my day-to-day habits are some kind of addiction I developed—being told what to do, having and following a schedule, keeping to it by the minute—and without all that guidance, I’m left floating in space, purposeless, uneasy.
All that calm I thought I was coming here to find, it’s starting to get to me instead. Starting to make my foot bounce in place under tables. To make my right eyebrow twitch all on its own. To make it damned near impossible to sit still.
And this motherfucker Anthony is the fire under my tight ass, making all of this twenty times worse.
And laughing about it.
The restroom door flies open. Someone stumbles in and goes straight to the urinal. “Lick a dick,” he grunts to himself, unzipping his pants, “if this day won’t fuckin’ end.”
Anthony. It’s goddamned Anthony.
Of course it is. Who the hell else would it be?
I say nothing as I run water over my face again. Even through the faucet running, I hear the full, surround-sound symphony of Anthony’s process of urination. No scientist on earth will be able to explain how that guy can achieve a stream of piss so obnoxious that I can hear it clear through the faucet at full blast. And damn, if it doesn’t go on for an entire minute, that guy releasing enough piss to rehydrate the Sahara into a jungle.
And then he starts moaning. Straight-up, from the deepest bowels of his soul and out of his mouth, moaning with ecstasy as he urinates. Like this is the highlight of his day.
Be that as it very well may, I suddenly can’t take it. “The hell you doing back there?” I ask at the mirror. “Shooting a porno?”