Nineteen
No one believes me.
They feed me pills to numb my head,
But they can’t erase the truth.
I won’t be locked up forever.
And when I get out, I’ll make sure he pays for what he did.
--Georgia Maxwell, Age 15
Rex
Impossible. She’s lying. She has to be. Everything about her is a lie: her black hair, fake eyes, and made-up stories about finding peace.
She’s not my Gia.
She’s a con artist.
I want her the hell out of my life. “F*ck you.”
She winces. “Rex, listen to what I’m saying.” Her eyes are wide, perfecting her dramatic performance. “Your biological father—”
“Get out of my house.” My teeth grind until they ache, eyes burn with barely concealed rage.
She shakes her head and drops her chin. “You don’t believe me.”
“Why would I? You’ve lied about everything since the day we met.” I move toward her, ready to shake her or throw her ass out.
She jumps but doesn’t waver from her firm stance before me. “I know things have been hard for—”
“You think you know what I’ve been through? Because you read a few f*cking scraps of paper?”
“No, if you’d let me—”
“You’ve done enough.” The fingers of the past slide up my back and circle my neck. My lungs constrict, stomach lurches. I rip my hands through my hair. “I can feel them.” Hands everywhere. Groping. “I can smell them . . . on my skin . . . in the air. I’ll never be free of this.” I can’t breathe. Get them off. Leave me alone.
I throw my fist. Glass shatters. The burn of torn flesh bites into my knuckles. I’m panting, fighting for breath past the flooding memories. The mirror above my dresser lies in a shimmering pile.
I brace my weight against my dresser and drop my head. Dried blood on my arms, fresh blood on my fists. I’m not that boy anymore. I’m not.
“Rex.” She sniffles through her whispered call.
I ball my fists to keep my hands off her. I can’t hit a woman. I won’t.
My head tilts and I spear her with a glare. “Get. Out!”
She crosses her arms at her chest, curls into herself, and shivers as tears stream down her face. The T-shirt I wore to her house is draped over her body, wet and clinging. Dark hair is plastered to her neck and shoulders.
She’s so different from the little girl of my memories. I’ll never see her as anything else but the hand that brought me through hell, the hand that kept me company but never pulled me from the flames.
Sadness whips through me. “I want you to turn around and walk the hell out of my life. I never want to see your face again.”
Her tears fall faster, but she faces off with a stubborn lift of her chin. “We meant something to each other once.”
“No. Gia meant something to me, but she’s dead, replaced by this”—I roam my eyes from her face to her feet and back in disgust—“lying, selfish bitch.”
She folds from the verbal blow, grips her stomach, and a sob rips from her throat.
“Forget you knew me.” I push off from the dresser and head back to the bathroom. “I’ll sure as shit forget I knew you.”
When my bare feet hit the tiled bathroom floor, I hear her whisper, “I don’t want to forget.” I slam the door behind me, hoping like hell she gets the f*ck out so I never have to see her again.
~*~
Mac
I’m overcome with the urge to run. I struggle to take a full breath as the enormity of what’s happened sinks in.
He’s leaving me again.
My heart cramps so badly I grip at my chest. I can’t breathe, think, move, but everything in me begs for escape from the devastation. I need to put distance between me and the only person who’s ever been able to hurt me, the only person who’s owned my heart so completely I’m not sure it’ll survive without him.
Rex is right. Gia is dead. She died the day vengeance took over. Mac was born from necessity and kept alive by hope. I scrub my hands through my hair. God, what did I think would happen when he found out? I was in too far, expected too much.
All I wanted to do was make up for letting him down by telling him everything I know, gift him the answers to his questions, fill in the blanks of his past.
But instead, I did it again. Being a part of his life is what turned him into this: bloody, crying, broken.
I move through his condo like a ghost, not feeling my feet or aware of my body at all. The ride home is a blur of headlights and street signs as my thoughts are left behind with Rex. By the time I pull into my garage, I know what I have to do. I move through my house on autopilot, and within a few hours, I’m showered and dressed in warm, comfortable clothes.
Peace washes over me as I pull up my bed covers and place the pillows in a tidy row at the top. Rex ripped open old wounds, exposed his fears, and gave me everything he had to give. I relive the tender moments, our bodies bared and pressed together, giving, taking, loving. Tears burn my eyes as I force myself to leave the memories here. There’s no place for them where I’m going.
I pack the metal box full of his writings and the bear. His bag still sits in my chair across the room. With no use for it, I slide the rusted metal container in with his belongings and zip it up. I gave him back as much of his past as he’d allow, and what he chooses to do with it is up to him.
Adrenaline should be racing through my veins with what I’m about to do, the unknown as scary as it is liberating. And yet, I feel nothing. I shove as much as I can fit into a backpack and scratch out a quick note to Trix with a check for next month’s rent.
My entire life has been about seeking redemption, giving Rex everything I had, all the information about his past so that he could put to rest his questions. I failed.
It’s time to move on.
Maybe he’ll forget; time will heal the damage I’ve caused. His happiness means more to me than my own, and if he can find that without me in his life, I can die at peace with my demons, finally released from a lifetime of guilt.
I throw my leg over my bike and fire up the engine.
Without looking back, I take to the open road with nothing to keep my company but my thoughts and the growl of the engine. Leaving my past behind me, I say goodbye to Las Vegas forever.