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So like the monster I am, I chose to say none of them,
“I gotta run.” I said instead. The light in her eyes dims like a dying lampshade and a pang slams into my side. I needed to get out of here before the pain just got worse. After all, leaving was cleaner. And I was a businessman, always there to look out for what would benefit me the most. And staying simply isn't an option I could see playing out in my favor.
“I’ll have two guys stationed outside your door.” A frown dips across her pretty mouth, “Don't ditch them.” I add simply to be a dramatic asshole. I knew Blondie liked to slip away. I still remembered the cool sheets she left me with all those nights ago at the Black Mansion.
She lets out a heavy sigh,
“I won't.” she states, “After all you and I have a deal right?” She grins at me, the movement not even bothering to get acquainted with her eyes and I know my little pixie is pissed at me. But it's easier this way. She was a smart girl. She’d come around and see it my way.
“Right,” I reply simply before flicking her nose.
I grab my keys and phone all without looking her way. If I looked I would be a sailor stranded at sea. And I was currently trying to get off this island Blondie and I had created. After all, I did take swimming lessons when I was five. I knew how to swim and I knew how to stop myself from drowning. And if I stayed it was almost guaranteed I would drown. A fucking siren lived in this crap tastic excuse of an apartment. And I was a Jack Sparrow and therefore knew when to cut and run.
Besides, the journal was safer with her, for now. At least that’s what I told myself as I made my way towards the door, my combat boots stomping obnoxiously across the paint jar-covered floor.
I don't even bother saying goodbye as I close the door.
Chapter 14
Rose
The daisies were already wilting in my hands.
It had been too long since my last visit. If guilt was a living breathing thing it would have eaten me alive by now.
The hospital is always the same. The white walls are just as suffocating as usual and I have to take deep breaths in order to keep myself from wringing my hands together.
This place was just another prison. Another excuse to hide behind in order to give us the illusion of control. But that's the secret, isn't it? There is no control and everything spirals until it's all a puddle at our feet. Change an inevitable ball of yarn that's constantly unraveling.
And they put her here. Trapped her behind another tower. And all I could do was visit like a lowly chambermaid instead of stealing her away like a brave knight.
Sometimes I thought I was a coward. Even though my mother knew it was circumstance and poor choices that had led us backed into this corner. And still, I felt like I was floating, waiting for the perfect solution to fall into my lap instead of seizing the meager resources at my disposal. I couldn't create a solution out of thin air. I wasn't crazy. But I hated being under another's thumb. Having power hung over my head like I was a puppet in someone else's play.
I needed to break free. More than ever I needed to break free. To save myself and my mother. As I had sworn to her many months ago I would free us. If it was the last string I had to cut that bound us to this life then I would destroy that single tether until nothing remained tying us here. Until nothing remained tying us to him.
But until then I was stuck visiting. Drawing out the torture until I could get my mom off the drugs and out of this mental prison.
Her eyes were weaker this time. The light in them shaded as I glanced at her ever-weakening frail form. It seemed like every time I came to visit she was getting weaker and weaker and the hope living in my chest just got darker.
“Hey, Mom,” I whispered as I sat down in the plastic chair next to her bedside. She looked over at me but didn't smile.
It was a bad day. That's what the nurses had told me. I would be lucky if I could get two words out of her. I shove my anger down at the lack of communication this mood of hers would grant us.
I was so tired of being angry.
So instead I bury it all away, every feeling swirling inside of me, and throw away my mental key into the abyss of my mind. Reaching over I replace the extremely pathetic dead daisies with the slightly less pathetic wilted daisies in my hand. They were always her favorite. Had been since the day I was born. Her love for them was one of the only consistent things in my life.
Sighing, I place my palm in hers. Reveling in the comfort of her hand in mine. She felt so far away lately, her sanity slipping with each second I spent with a paint brush in my hands. Painting was supposed to save us. It was supposed to be my ticket out of this world and now it was nothing but a shiny toy for Uncle John to dangle in front of my eyes. The threat of being able to take away what’s mine fresh as a citrus fruit from Safeway.
A shiver runs through my body and I ignore the prickle of awareness that shoots through me. The feeling of eyes watching me press down hard on my back and I know instantly who they belong to.
Kalebs bodyguards were waiting just outside. They’d been following me for five days straight now and when I say they haven't left my side, I mean they haven't left my side. It was like they were dog walkers and I was the Boston terrier caught on their leash. Their dead eyes watching my every movement since Kaleb walked out of my apartment all those days ago.
I can't believe I had let him see me like that. Parted and wanting. I’d never done anything like that before but Kaleb did something to the wires in my brain, cross-hatched them until I was detached and rewired in the head. He made me do things I would never have done without his devil on my shoulder pressuring me.
But I’d only be lying to myself if I didn't admit that I had liked it. No, I craved it. Kaleb's eyes on me. His dirty words encouraging me to come undone before him. The way he had touched himself at the sight of me. Like he couldn't get enough. He was like a drug I’d gladly take for the rest of my life.
And after five days I was going through withdrawals.
