Later in life, her parents needed to do something to help their socially awkward, uncoordinated child come out of her shell and figured there was no better place than a bar on Wednesday nights. It’s a good thing they did because this is where she found her love of reading and writing. Who needs socialization when you can sit alone in your bedroom with a good book?
Now, Sloan is a tattooed, purple haired mom of two kids, one of which was a thank you present to her husband for letting her get a Staffordshire Terrier with more anxiety issues than Sloan has, which is saying something. She’s been kicked out of the PTA in two school districts and is no longer asked to help with fundraisers because she’s been known to lose herself in a good book and forget that she has somewhere to be.
Coming Soon
Unexpected Truth
Isthmus Alliance #4
One foot in front of the other. Left, right, left down the dimly lit hallway. They say it's supposed to be soothing to have the lights down like this, but I find it disconcerting. My pace quickens as I pass each door, fully expecting someone to jump out at me. It’s not that I’ve had some sort of traumatic event I need to overcome, I simply find open doors lining dark hallways to be disturbing. Before I came here, I don’t think it upset me this much, which makes me wonder if the very place meant to help me clear my head is, in fact, making me crazy.
That’s the bullshit line Father tried to feed me when he checked me in here. I needed to clear my head after Marco’s arrest. I think it had more to do with the fact that my trust fund is now mine to do with as I please and he was worried I would post bond for the asswipe who claimed to love me. Yeah, he loved me so much that he cleared out my bank account that he was able to access and gambled it all away in one crazy weekend in Vegas. And then, when I confronted him about it, he had the audacity to unleash a cocaine-fueled tirade that ended with him busting out the windshield on my car before the cops showed up. It’s not my fault he had outstanding warrants.
From the sounds of it, even if I was pathetic enough to think I can’t live without him in my life, he’s going to be in there for a long while. But I’m not that girl. I haven’t been for a long time, I simply needed to figure out how to make a clean break. Whenever that little punk does see the light of day again, I fully expect that he’ll come crawling back, telling me how sorry he is and how he’ll never steal from me again if only I will let him come home. Despite what my father thinks of my judgment, it’ll be a cold day in hell before that’ll happen. Marco started out as a comfortable distraction in my life, someone to be there so I didn’t have to walk into an empty house every night. Recently, he’s become far too much trouble to be worth hanging onto, no matter what feeble purpose he served.
Yes, my father found me that night curled in a ball in the corner of my tiny front porch. Yes, I was bawling my eyes out. And yes, when times got tough in the past, I turned to some self-destructive coping mechanisms. But that’s not what was going on that night. The tears streaming down my face were from shock and disbelief. For the first time in over a year, me reaching my breaking point and Marco being where he couldn’t get to me came at the same time. All I wanted to do was take a few minutes to pull myself together so I could call Marco’s sister to come and pick up his shit while I changed the locks on the house and called the security company. Leave it to my father to screw all of that up.
Seeing me falling apart, he did what any concerned parent would do and took action. Never mind the fact that he has never been a hands-on parent or that I didn’t want his assistance. Even if I had needed something to provide me a release from the shit swirling in my mind, it wouldn’t be pills, but I doubt he’ll ever believe me when I tell him that. So, he called a friend and said that I was having a nervous breakdown. It’s frightening how quickly I was admitted and watching my father’s back as he walked out the door, knowing that I was where I couldn’t tarnish his reputation.
Ever since he got involved in our local political scene, he’s felt the need to turn our den of dysfunction into a Norman Rockwell painting. Even though I’m twenty-one and legally an adult, it was easier to sulk my way over to his BMW and let him bring me here for a not-short-enough stay in the loony bin.