“Fine,” I barked back. Of all people she didn’t deserve my irritation. I instantly felt guilty. “Fine,” I repeated, softening my tone as much as I could although it wasn’t much when my teeth were still gritted and I was speaking through the splitting pain burning in my legs and torso.
“Okay, we’ll all be out in the living room. So...you know. That’s where we will all be when you’re done. Waiting for you.” Sadness filled her voice. “I’m so sorry, Prep,” she added. I heard the slide of her hand as she ran it down the outside of the door followed by the light padding of her feet on the carpet and finally, the sound of the outer door of the bedroom clicking shut.
I reminded myself to apologize to her for being such a dick. She didn’t deserve me throwing a tantrum just because of what I’d been through.
I was just so fucking tired. Tired of laying there in that bed for so long. Tired of wasting fucking time. Tired of not living.
Tired of being fucking dead.
And maybe I was just tired of being fucking tired.
Once I found what I was looking for I held onto the sink and righted myself to stand back up. I plugged in what I thought was the solution to my problem, waving it in the air tauntingly. “Bye-Bye, motherfucker,” I said to my reflection. I flipped the switch and swear I saw panic flash in his eyes as the buzzing sound echoed off the walls of the small bathroom.
I clicked over to the shave setting and ran the clippers over the top of my head from front to back in one long stroke.
A sense of immediate satisfaction coursed through me as I ran my fingertips over the newly sheared section of my head.
I needed to do more.
Much more.
ALL OF IT HAD TO GO.
I didn’t bother to cut the hair with scissors first so every strip I shaved off burned like I was slowly being scalped, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t give a shit about the pain.
Not anymore.
Pain wasn’t exactly a new thing for me.
However, freedom was.
Feeling free from the anger. From the regret. Free from not caring if I could ever be the person I was before all the shit went down.
That person was almost as much of a stranger as the fucked up Jesus in the mirror who was in the process doing some long overdue and much needed manscaping.
My head was bloodied and scraped as I worked the clippers over my head again and again.
I didn’t fucking care.
More and more hair dropped down and piled on top of my feet. First from my head and then from my face when I started on my beard, until I was completely clean and skin that hadn’t seen the light of day in years was now bared to the world.
To me.
The satisfaction I felt while cutting it all off quickly turned to disappointment and a sudden sinking feeling. I gripped the sides of the sink and let my head fall with a growl.
I’d expected to be staring at someone new.
Someone clean.
The reality was that I was anything but.
Rage burned in my chest, bubbling over to a boil when I realized it was still the tortured looking man from moments before.
Just clean shaven.
And now all the weight loss and scars were on full fucking display. Every lump and poorly healed cut. My once colorful tattoos on the sides of my head were tattered and scarred like tears in my paper thin skin, matching the many many ruined ones on the rest of my body.
A roar tore from my throat. I reared back and punched my reflection, sending shards of glass to the floor, dying the piles of hair with drops of thick red which also dripped down the center of the cracked mirror. It wasn’t enough. I punched it over and over again, my fist burning with the pain of each impact against the glass. “I fucking hate you!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, spit flew from my mouth as I wailed and wailed on the mirror until my knuckles were completely covered in red.
I fell to the floor as my shoulders shook with rage turned despair. I crumpled into a ball, pulling my knees up to my chest and willed the world to go the fuck away.
Willing it ALL to go the fuck away.
I clutched my bleeding hand and went to the only place I felt safe. Deep in my mind to memories so clear and bright I thought sometimes that they’d never happened at all.
I closed my eyes and started to drift away amongst the piles of my stripped identity. I was so far gone down the path that took me to that place that when I heard all of the commotion going on around me, I couldn’t bring myself to lift my head to see what it was all about. Not even when the door burst open, the hinges falling from the frame, skidding across the floor. Not even as a cascade of concerned voices, both male and female, shouted above me to one another.
Or maybe to me.
I couldn’t even bring myself to open my eyes when I was carried from the room and placed back in the bed I’d grown to fucking hate because I was already there. Chasing after a girl with dark doll like eyes, raven black hair, and fuck-me bright red lips.
“Keep me,” she whispers, crooking her finger at me.
I felt myself being turned over and inspected for more serious damage I might have inflicted on myself but I just let it happen because that didn’t matter anymore.
Nothing did.
I chase her further and further until the voices around me faded away.
But no matter how fast I run, she just runs faster.
Soon I’m not chasing her at all anymore. She’s gone.
I’m alone, standing on the train tracks. Unmoving.
Staring into the blinding yellow headlight of a train as it grows closer and closer...until it’s too fucking late.
CHAPTER FIVE
DRE
I was more awake than a college kid with a seven-cup-a-day Starbucks habit.
It was the middle of the night and after a very long day of fighting against the jungle like back yard, armed with a rented weed-whacker and a borrowed lawn mower, I should’ve been dead to the world, but no matter how much I tossed and turned I couldn’t reach any sort of restful state.
Not that night. Not any night since I’d been back in Logan’s Beach.
The moon glowed orange through the dirt caked windows. Tired of battling with the sandman I decided that sleep and I were going to have to break up for the time being.
I felt around for my glasses and put them on while I sat up with my back against the wall. I powered on my laptop while listening to the overgrown tree branches in desperate needed a trim, rustling against the roof. I fished a cherry sucker out of my bag and plucked the plastic off the top. Sucking on candy was a weird little trick I’d picked up in rehab that I used whenever I was feeling restless and that night I felt as if I was gonna jump out of my own skin.