Page 43 of The Game

“No. I’m…glad you’re here. I’ve been pretty fucking lonely, pushing people away.”

I nod against him.

“I know what you mean.”

“I know you do. That’s why…fuck, that’s why I want to tell you. No one there knows besides Dick. Daniel doesn’t even know the full extent.”

Even high as I am (and still arguably a little drunk), his words light my veins on fire, and I get the nervous shakes for whatever it is he seeks to tell me.

“I won’t…I won’t share with anyone. I know what it means to keep a secret buried deep in your heart,” I whisper.

“I know you do.”

That makes my heart ache even more, but I don’t feel capable of crying right now, thankfully. Maybe that’s why he needed it, too. He clears his throat, his thumb brushing a little more fervently against my stomach, and the rich tenor of his voice begins to paint the bathroom in hues of black and red, destruction and decimation, and I do not speak, completely enraptured by his story—the reason he is the way he is.

“I am an only child. I never bothered to ask why my parents didn’t have more kids, because by the time I knew enough to ask, everything was ruined. We lived in a little house outside of Seattle, poor but doing decent, I guess. I never saw much of my father, and my mother worked insane shifts to keep up with the bills. Sometimes, we’d go through the dumpsters behind her work for extra food.

I guess he was gambling their money away, which isn’t anything abnormal by any means. I remember…remember the first time the noises from their room kinda clicked in my brain. Cries. Scuffles. Sometimes screams. The light from the TV was always on, so I thought it was some cops show or something,” he says before he sniffs. “Fuck, I think I was nine or ten before it started sinking into place.”

My heart begins to thud more erratically, but I keep my mouth shut tight. He begins to softly move from side to side, gently rocking me with the fervency of what he’s speaking. My hands slide over his wrists, bringing him any sense of comfort I am able to in this moment, the tick of his pulse heavy and quickening against my fingertips with every word his melodic voice speaks.

“My mom…fuck…she did so much for me. Forced me to learn a million languages, instruments, helped me cultivate and hone all these skills because she always told me she saw my potential, saw that I could make it out someday even if she felt like she couldn’t. So it became my goal to be good at everything so that when it came time, we could leave and I could support us. But that whole time, this uncontrollable rage was growing in the pit of my stomach.

I still don’t know how to describe it other than…fuck, it’s literally uncontrollable. A rage of epic proportions. I began to take an interest in medical things, dissections, learning about the human body, what hurt and why.”

I gulp as his arms begin to tremble around me, my eyes slipping closed as I envision everything he is telling me, completely absorbed in this tale. His breathing is still deep and even, although it’s becoming rougher with each word he speaks.

“I still remember the day,” he says, voice dropping to a lower octave, rough around the consonants as his arms encircle me a touch tighter. “The screams were different. It’s…it was the scream of someone in the worst possible pain, someone begging for it to end, prepared to do anything for that reprieve.

I was fourteen, a little stronger, filling out. And that rage within me exploded. I took a flathead screwdriver from his toolbox, kicked open their bedroom door. I…I remember telling myself not to look at the bed. My father was coming for me as soon as the door cracked from me kicking it, but he never expected his own son to be…”

He pauses, clearing his throat, before speaking again a little lower.

“To be a fucking psychopath. I don’t remember anything, really, other than him rushing at me, the warmth of his blood as it painted my face and ran between the floorboards. I stabbed him seventy-four times, anywhere I could. He’d been raping my mother all those years, something a kid doesn’t really understand, but…fuck, I guess at that point I was already more of a man than he would ever be.

My mom just sobbed, but she never once blamed me. She hugged me. I remember that. Wrapped herself in the sheets and pulled me to her and sobbed and said she’d always take care of me. I…I told her she’d already been doing that, that it was my turn, now, to take care of her.”

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I don’t realize I am crying, soft, silent tears streaking down my cheeks. When he inhales to speak again, I do my best to prepare my mind, my heart, for whatever is next. If only he knew how much his story resonates with me, but then again, I don’t feel the need to share it, not right now; he understands me better than anyone without even trying.

“There was this guy she called, someone she’d met a while ago who’d told her if she ever needed help, needed to get out, he’d be there. They came and hid me away and the police scratched their heads at the scene, pinning the blame on some loan shark that was known to kill those indebted to him in that kind of gruesome way.

I was wary of the man, but my mom was the happiest I’d ever seen her. He helped put me up in private school. Seattle Prep, bunny, just like you.”

Shock jolts my veins as he chuckles softly, a dark, menacing edge to his voice now.

“I thought the past was behind us, thought we were in the clear. They started dating, and we moved into a nice home in a nice neighborhood, but that rage inside me never went away. I envisioned killing my father over and over and over. I wished I could bring him back just so I could do it again. This…this feral fucking need just grew and grew inside me. It was worse because of school, I think. I was labeled the charity freak, the emo kid who wore black nail polish and didn’t give a shit about money and fancy cars. It was all a facade, in my mind.

And before long, I figured out I was right in my assumptions. That money is all a fucking veneer, that money is the root of all evil, and that old white men control those puppet strings in any way they are able.”

For some reason, I know the worst of his story is far from over, and even with the weed thudding blissfully through my veins, I am tense, nervous for the rest. He releases a deep sigh that turns to a growl at the end, pulling one hand free to run it through his hair.

“That's why I’m still here, bunny. Why I’m stuck at the circus. I fucking killed my own father, and the man that took us in? He married my mother, trapped her like a fly in honey before we realized it was shit. By then, there was no way out for either of us. He knew our darkest secret and threatened us both. I’d be put on death row probably, and my mother would be an accomplice, because who would believe that? Who ever believes a wife when she says her husband is raping her?”

More tears cascade down my cheeks, and I use my shoulder to brush them away before I mutter hollowly, “No one.”

His strong arms squeeze me gently, tenderly.

“Glad you understand.”

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