Page 28 of Mind Pucked

Why isn’t she getting the hint? Do I really need to be meaner about things?

“You’re free to leave then,” I say, pointing at the door.

She doesn’t move toward the door. She just stands and looks at me as if thinking about what else to say. I feel a chill run down my spine as I wait for her to do as I said.

“I, uh…” she stammers, and I can feel my blood grow to a rolling boil.

“Leave,” I say tensely, perhaps more callously than I should.

Amelia tightens her jaw. Her eyes are on me, locked with mine for a moment before she grabs her things and storms out the door.

I wait for the door to close behind her before I storm back to my office and send my glass full of beer hurtling toward the bookshelf. It splatters as glass breaks and crashes to the ground. Smelly liquid covers the books and sinks into the floor.

I hate her…I hate this whole thing.

“Why did you have to leave me, Lyla?” I scream as I fall to my knees and punch the ground over and over.

I resent Lyla, sometimes. She left me alone with our daughter to raise her by myself with the help of one nanny after another. Up to this point, no one has cared to push like Amelia has.

It pisses me off that she makes me like this. Nothing in the past two years has made me feel this way. I’m so lost and cold inside, as if I’m dead.

I fucking hate that I don’t have answers to the questions she has…questions that I’ve had for this whole time.

I punch the ground again, thinking about why the fuck Preston’s wallet was in Lyla’s car. They never found his body. His blood was on the scene, in the car, on the ground, and he was just gone.

Were they fucking? They couldn’t have been, right? My wife knew how I felt about Preston.

Hot tears spill down my face as I continue to hit the ground until my knuckles are red.

I get to my feet and grab a hockey stick off the wall. It’s the one Lyla gifted me when she told me she was pregnant with our little girl.

With as much force as I can muster, I take the stick in my hand and send it flying into the remaining shards of glass on the ground. They spray up in the air just to land again on the ground in more pieces than before.

“You’re a fucking asshole!” I scream at myself. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Moving to the beer-sprayed bookshelf now, I continue to swing and hit until there’s nothing left in me. I have no energy or care…it’s all gone. All the anger, all the hate whisked away for the time being, leaving me a shell.

“Dad-dee,” Hayden’s crying voice calls from the top of the stairs.

I shake my head, disappointed in myself for waking her up. She has such a hard time sleeping as it is. She doesn’t need me making it worse, and she certainly doesn’t need to see this mess.

I run out of my study and close the door behind me, leaving my problems in there.

I see her tiny little frame standing at the top of the steps. She’s rubbing her eyes as tears come tumbling down.

“Daddy’s coming, baby. I’m so sorry I woke you,” I say as I take her up in my arms and hold her.

She sniffles. “Is Ami still here to read to me?” she asks, and my heart breaks.

She actually wants Amelia here, and I just ran her off. I’ll be lucky if she ever comes back. Such a wonderful woman, and I ran her off like she was nothing.

“No, Ami is already at home,” I say to Hayden, using the name she has coined for the woman. “But I will cuddle you and read you a book.” I carry her back to her room and curl up in the bed next to her.

I kiss the top of her head as I reach for her favorite book.

“In the great green room there was a telephone, and a red balloon,” I begin the story,and before I can even get to the end of the pages filled with all things in the bear’s room, she’s asleep.

The next morning, I wipe the sides of the bookcase and sweep the the shards of glass off the floor. I didn’t have the strength after leaving Hayden’s room to even come back down here.

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