Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“You see before Pres life was like I was a homeless man thrown out of the shelter,” my fingertips resume their tugging of the knotting pieces of hair. “It was like I was wandering around the streets for days, moments away from my last breath, dying for a meal, hot or cold, it didn’t matter. I just needed something – anything – to fill my empty stomach. Something to fill the burning resentment that I’m still a man worth feeding. Pres was that meal. She was what revived me, what kept me living, what kept light in my fucking eyes. It was like being a kid in the poorest neighborhood in town at Christmas knowing the only gift I was going to get was the warm bed I was sleeping in and the cold cereal out of the box for breakfast the next morning and then being surprised with a present wrapped in shiny red paper with a big white bow and a gift tag addressed just to me. Like knowing someone took the extra time, worked the extra shift or job, just for me. That’s what her love was like. That’s what being in love with her was like. It was like…knowing there was God. Walking proof that it doesn’t matter how much of a fuck up you are, good things can and do happen to everyone.” The back of my head hits the wall hard enough to induce pain similar to the type my fingers were just causing. “How could I not be fucking addicted to that?”
“Tell me about the day you left her.”
--
“I just think we need to see other people. You know, test the waters and shit.”
“Test the waters?” She’s not buying this bull any better than I’m fucking selling it. “Did you just say ‘test the waters’? What are you, rehearsing your explanation for an episode of Jerry Springer?”
“Look, Pres, we’re young-”
“Young? Yeah. Now, I know some shit’s up.”
“Who knows what shit is ahead for us.”
“We do! We’ve talked about it!”
“Yeah, but like, we didn’t mean it.”
“What!?”
“This was just a little dumb high school thing that has lasted too long.”
Hurt and confusion hit her simultaneously.
“I wanna be a free man and shit. Try different things before I go off to college.”
“I thought the plan was to go together!”
“You really fucking believed me?” My voice tries not to waiver, but I’m not sure how successful I am. “I said what I thought you needed to hear. No dude really wants to think about living together or marriage right now.”
Her mouth falls to call me out so I rush to insert other bullshit.
“Besides, come on. You never really let me be myself. You made me be this boring, home by nine, don’t party it’s a fucking school night asshole, that I never wanted to be.”
The accusations strike fear on her face that she wasn’t the perfect girlfriend when she was.
Fuck that.
Is.
Holy shit, I can’t believe I’m really doing this.
I can’t believe I’m really about to let her go…
--
“You lied.”
“Like a dummy with my father’s hand up my ass.” The candy cigarette falls to the floor. “None of that shit made sense to me. None of that shit sounded like me, but there I was, saying every word I had rehearsed in the mirror. There I was forcing bullshit down her throat and smiling like it would taste good.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, ridding it of the spit from the chalk fill-in. “That was the first time I ever had a cigarette.”
There’s an unexpected grunt of comprehension out of Doc.
“There was a pack in my glove compartment that I was hiding for a friend. He swore his parents would kick his ass if they even suspected he wasn’t living the choir boy lifestyle they demanded.”
“During adolescence, parents have a tendency to force their ideals onto their children and call it parenting.”
It’s my turn to grunt in acknowledge. “Yeah…Fucking tell me about it.”
I almost miss the twitch of a smirk on his lips.
“You know I’ll never forget that first smoke. I was a few blocks down the road from Pres’s house when I pulled over. Parked at the curb of this puke green house that had grass up to my fucking knees. I beat the fuck out of my steering wheel while shouting. And fucking screaming. And just saying every curse word known to man. I almost turned around right then to try to undo what I could feel in my fucking bones was wrong. Instead, though, I reached into that glove box and pulled one out. Stuck it in my mouth. Lit it. No fucking clue what I was doing. Shaky as shit. All I knew was I had heard from my friends at the time was how cigs could calm the nerves, so I said fuck it. Why not try? Why not see if the shit works for me? And that shit was fucking awful. The taste. The smell. The weird feeling on my tongue. But the choking on the smoke itself? The suffocation? The scolding burns on my lungs? All that shit relieved the pain that was wreaking havoc on my senses just long enough for me to breathe.” My foot stomps on the fake imitation to put it out like I would the real thing. “It was the first drug I ever used to numb the pain.”