Page 82 of Aftersome
I wasn’t expecting an answer as deep and personal as this one and I had a strong feeling he hadn’t told anyone else about this. My stomach churned at the thought of him as a young child needing a distraction. In my already fragile state, I felt on the verge of tears.
“I found brushing hair to be… comforting for me.
“And whatever happened to the doll?”
“It was eventually thrown out. My dad found out that I was hiding it underneath my bed and ripped me a new one for having it. Told me to watch as he lit the doll's hair on fire and eventually threw it in the trash along with the hairbrush.”
My heart cracked for him. What kind of person could do that to a young child? What kind of father could do that to their own kid? Traumatizing him for trying to find some sort of peace in the chaos they themselves built.
It was beyond infuriating.
And Mal seemed to have noticed.
“The real thing is better, though,” he confessed.
“Have you eaten at all today?” he asked as my eyes opened from their current state of feeling drowsy.
“A little.”
My stomach continued to growl and eventually, I set my octopus and book beside me and pulled my knees up in hopes I could cover up the sound.
“What’s a little?”
“Some pretzels,” I answered truthfully.
He let out a low, exasperated sigh as his brushing stopped.
“You need to eat more.”
Rolling my eyes, I should’ve known he’d try to boss me around as if I were a child. Let alone one that needed reminders on when to eat.
“I’m not hungry.”
Already, I could sense his annoyance with me. Just the disappearance of the hairbrush on my head was a dead giveaway of how irritated I was making him.
But I wasn’t hungry.
I hadn’t been hungry all night or all morning, and the last thing I wanted to do was fill my stomach when at any moment I could puke from feeling overwhelmed.
“I know you’re not, but you’re going to have to eat sooner or later.” I was slightly surprised to hear a softer tone coming from him, one that didn’t result in an expletive or an argument. “Promise me that you’ll try to eat.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder, suddenly confused by what his motives were by coming here. Why was he being so nice and caring? And why he was so worried about me and trying to make promises. It was giving me whiplash and as I looked back at him, all I wanted to do was fall back into his arms again.
It was maddening.
There was nothing okay about these mixed emotions I was currently experiencing. It wasn’t fair that he made me feel so unsure about everything and anything and when I wanted to hate him, I couldn’t.
My heart wouldn’t let me.
“What happens after you leave here, Mal? Will you go back to ignoring me and pretending like I don’t exist?” I shifted gears on our conversation, immediately feeling a flash of anger all over again. He appeared taken aback at first as if he wasn’t expecting me to blow up on him again, but soon that shifted into his own outrage. “It’s what you like to do, isn’t it? Pretend like you care about my well-being and the next day act as though I’m no one to you?”
His hold on the hairbrush loosened at his side, but he didn’t let go of it. He used it like a stress ball instead and his knuckles turned white from the pressure he induced. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that I pissed him off, but I needed answers. I knew I said I couldn’t handle it, but it was all I could think about. No matter how hard I tried to let it go, it was eating at me to the point it was driving me insane.
Why?
Why was he so hot and cold?
Why he’d act as though we were friends, then later act like he hated me?
