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KINGSLEY
My attempts to prevent myself from breaching the rage category are proving to be an astounding failure.
I pace the length of the room where Aspen lies on the bed like a broken beauty.
I’ve opened and closed my Zippo so many times and with zero gentleness that I’m surprised the thing doesn’t break.
The light coming from the window forces me to stop and stare out at the garden and the multicolored leaves falling to their death.
Fuck. I’ve been at this the entire night.
Pacing, punching a wall—or two—and contemplating the best way to commit murder.
I shouldn’t.
Because as my week-old thoughts stated, I don’t fucking commit violence for women. There’s only one reason for violence—release. For me, myself, and my dick.
And yet, there’s always that error in the matrix. The exception to the rules. The fish in the Dead Sea.
It all happened when I came back from my evening jog, suppressing the need to commit arson on Susan’s house, and saw Aspen hobbling by the front gate in a state that would give zombies a run for their money.
Since then, I haven’t thought about my stepmother’s ruin or her provocations in court yesterday about how weak my mother was.
She likes to remind me why I rejected the very idea of growing up into a replica of my mother.
Liliana Shaw was as delicate as her name, and while I was human enough to love my mother, I knew early on that she was the type to be protected, never the type to protect others.
She was the type to be treated with kid gloves, flower-scented like her favorite perfume.
And because fucking Susan’s words ring a bell every damn time I see her, I usually put myself on self-exhaustion mode until I collapse by the end of the day.
It’s not a secret that I become neurotic, high-functioning, and a special flavor of dick whenever I meet the plastic monster in court.
Couple that with a teenage-level sexual frustration, and by the time I got home, I wasn’t to be approached by any human who valued their life, property, and dignity.
So imagine my surprise when the woman behind said frustration was playing an apocalypse survivor by my front gate.
The doctor, a family one who’s always just a call away, showed up to examine her last night and said she was physically assaulted.
“No shit, Sherlock. I can see that,” I told Dr. Werner, running a hand through my hair and being colossally irritable due to two facts.
One. Aspen was beaten.
Two. The doctor was touching her.
Maybe the family doctor needs to be a woman.
But even that option didn’t sit very comfortably at the base of my revolted stomach.
“Was she sexually assaulted?” I asked, my chest squeezing for the first time since…Gwen fell from her bike and hit her knee when she was fucking ten.
“Nothing indicates that from the outside, but I can’t tell for certain until she wakes up and gives me permission to examine her.”
“At least take care of her injuries.”
“Can you step out?”
“Why do you need me to step out for that? You’ll do that while I’m here.”
