Mothers have to take care of themselves. It's like the law, or something. Besides, I have tissue and I don't need stitches. The bleeding has almost stopped so long as I don't move.
"You're crazy," Mom tells Dr Brody in her this is your fault voice. "You're crazy and you're projecting on to me and my son, who is troubled. He's troubled, and I try so freaking hard with him but when you're on your own, it's not easy to be the mother and the father. How can I give him everything he needs?" And now she's turned on the tears. Here we go. Lights, trauma, action! "He's a clever boy, baby. He has potential. You said that."
You have to admit, she's good. Me, I'm still learning. Obviously.
"What he needs is another therapist. I can't deal with this anymore. Em, I'm sorry." He falters; there are quiet weeping sounds, though I can't tell who they belong to. "Let me give him a referral, I know a great guy—"
"Oh, fuck you. Just get out already." Then she begins to mutter, but it sounds like I'm done, we're done.
"Good luck dealing with the revolting heap of mommy issues you're breeding up there," Dr Brody spits back.
I need to remember that. I'll look it up in the library.
A shrill shatter of glass; a yelp; a stomped foot. Dominoes fall hard when they're bleeding.
With my forehead cold against the tiled bathroom wall, I listen to Mom lose it. The sounds are familiar, like a heartbeat or favourite song. Like a lullaby.
My blood dries to paste on the floor.
#12
Monogamy (noun): the sanitized culmination of desire and obsession. (Note: it is not a cage unless you forget where you put the fucking key).
The thing about romantic relationships is that I've been pretending so long, it's become second nature.
Before Tuija, there was college, where lying my way through a six-week "thing" with a sorority girl didn't make me any different to any other guy. And before college there was high school, where I tolerated the expected hook-ups and then concentrated on being too hot and aloof to care. Nobody questions the man at the top of the food chain. He's obviously fucking whomever he wants, whether or not you know about it; why meddle when perhaps, just perhaps, the next person he fucks could be you...?
One of the biggest misconceptions about sociopaths is that we don't know what we are. Which is bullshit. We vary in levels of intelligence of self-awareness, just like anyone else; I, of course, was repeatedly beaten with the superior end of the stick. I fell out of the better-than-you tree. Let's not be bitter about it; if you want to succeed, you must accept who you truly are. A fault's only a fault if you just lie down and let it walk all over you.
So here I am grasshoppers, a sociopath, suddenly writhing within the confines of an actual relationship with Leo. Foreign territory, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. People claim you need certain elements for these arrangements to work: communication, they say. Leo and I talk, and sometimes we aren't even threatening each other with weapons (ha).
Commitment, they say. I appear to have bought her entire fucking livelihood. If that's not commitment, I don't know what is.
Trust, they say. I disagree. Trust is something you retain for future exploitation, not the kind of buzzkill you want to take to bed.
I don't need to retain anything to exploit Leo further because I'm exploiting her right now, and not only does she get off on it, but she's utterly complicit—or she's at least pretending as much so she can fail pitifully at screwing me over and then hate herself for still wanting my cock. God, aren't relationships beautiful things?
You're all fucking doing it wrong.
***
Since Ethan enjoys keeping his job—and is, to his credit—good at it, Ash is currently flinging himself around the kitchen in a dubok (white ninja robes to you and I).
"I couldn't find Karate on a Thursday," Ethan says apologetically from over the top of his lumpy brown smoothie. "But I found Tae Kwon Do. That's okay, right?"
"It'll do."
"You know, I'm kinda tempted myself." Ethan grins, revealing snotty wedges of banana stuck between his teeth. "I stayed for the first session and the black belts get to break stuff. Like karate chop it. Freaking badass."
Here's thirty seconds in Ethan's head, courtesy of the fact that I'm not a fucking moron:
Is this smoothie meant to be brown?
Do bananas, like, oxidise or something? I read that on cracked.com. They totally oxidise. Gross.
Can't waste Mr Lore's bananas. Have to drink this mofo. Actually it tastes pretty—
Where's Ash? What was that noise?
Aw shit, are we late for little league?
No, little league's on Tuesdays. We get home just before Big Bang Theory.
He's a cute kid. And he's lucky. Goddamn, I wish I grew up in a sweet apartment like this.
My balls are itchy.
This is the guy who once told me he spent three days of his vacation in a fog of depression because he realised the Game of Thrones TV series will run out of books to adapt quicker than George RR Martin can write them.
Aren't you glad you're in my head instead?