Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Chapter 4
The Wildfire Thorn
Two weeks later
If you ask my siblings what their earliest memory is, they’d probably say of our mother. Of her running around the house, probably tired but loving. Her waking up early to get to one of her jobs, kissing everyone goodbye.
My earliest memory, however, is of my father.
I know it’s strange and I’m the outlier among all the Thorne siblings, but it is what it is.
But when I was five, I remember waking up to his cries in the middle of the night. When I went to him and asked about it, he said he’d done something bad. And that he was sorry. When I asked what, he told me that he got angry. He told me that he got so fucking angry that he’d hit our mother. He couldn’t stop himself, he said. That it was as if he was outside his own body. As if someone else was doing those things, not him. And then he told me that it was because he’d had too much to drink and that it was okay because he was never going to do it again.
Of course he broke his promise.
Because he did both things.
Drink and hit.
I watched him drink himself into a stupor. I watched him lose his temper and then I watched him hit our mother. Sometimes he’d hit her even without the liquor. And the more I watched him do that, the more I remembered this earliest memory of mine. The more I remembered how I’d felt when he’d confessed his crime to me. I remembered that I felt frozen even though it was the middle of July. I felt afraid for my mother. I felt afraid of him.
I felt afraid of myself.
I’d felt afraid because of what he told me. After.
After he confessed that he’d done something bad, he told me that I’d done something bad too. He told me that he’d been watching me do bad things for quite some time. In fact, that very day, I’d done something similar. I’d had a fight with Shepard. He’d stolen one of my books and in my anger, I’d hit him. I’d hit him so badly that I think I broke a couple of his teeth. And he told me that the reason I did that—I fought so viciously and so brutally—was because I was like my father.
I had anger inside of me. I had fire. It made me do things without realizing that I was doing them. He told me that one day I was going to turn into him.
It scared me because he was right.
I did have anger inside of me. I did have this fire, this urge. This need that made me violent. That stole my thoughts and turned me into a monster who just wanted to roar and scream and destruct and destroy.
So that was the last time I fought with my brother.
Ever.
Because that night when our father was sobbing into the beer bottle and telling me I was like him, I made a silent promise to myself that I’d never ever hit Shepard again. I’d never ever lose my temper at him, or anyone, for that matter. Sitting next to my drunk father, I’d made a promise that I’d be good. I’d follow all the rules. I’d always be there for my family. I’d make peace rather than waves. I’d be in control rather than lose it.
And as I watched my father break his promises over and over, I became determined to keep mine. I became determined to win against this thing inside of me. This thing that lives deep inside and feels like fire. This thing that ticks like a bomb and can explode if I’m not careful.
It was hard.
But I did it.
I did it because I never wanted to be like my father. Because I could see how tempting it was to be like him. How tempting it was to lose control like Ledger and destroy things rather than build them. In fact, for the longest time, that was what he did, Ledger. He destroyed things, relationships, broke a girl’s heart because of his issues with his temper. He’s fine now, but it was hard to watch him spiral like that.
Which is why I still do it.
I take every precaution, every measure to keep myself in check. I do every fucking thing I can to protect my control, to protect this thick layer of ice around me. To not get angry or agitated. I do everything to keep people around me safe.
From me.
Although I have to say that I’m failing right now.
And my anger only grows the more I watch him.
My twin brother.
We’re in the locker room after the game. That we lost badly. This is only the fourth game of the season and we’ve lost three of them so far. Con’s not happy. Team’s not happy. The board is definitely not happy and the pressure from them has already been at an all-time high.