Page 15 of Tank
“Once a week I want you to take your ass out of this house and do somethin’. And, no, drivin’ to the liquor store to get more booze don’t count. Go to the fuckin’ grocery store, buy some food. Hell, go shoppin’ at one of those places that sell that damn cheesy tourist shit. I don’t care. But get out of this house and around people. Breathe some damn fresh air. Just one day is all I ask.”
That was the stupidest shit I’d ever heard. What the hell good was that going to do me? But I gave in, knowing that I didn’t actually have to interact with anyone while I was out. He didn’t say I had to. My lips pressed into a thin line as I gave a firm nod.
I looked over to Axe, who’d been quiet the entire time.
“Fine, one day a week.” How hard could it be? I could go to the store, pick up some frozen pizzas and call it a damn day.
Loch headed for the door, passing an unmoved Axe on the way. I was maybe the smallest bit curious as to what he had to add. He’d had his own struggles to deal with in life. I knew all about them and while he wasn’t even close to being normal, he had his ways to work through his darkness. He seemed to have come out pretty level headed considering all the crap he went through as a kid before Cal found him.
“Find a way to get through this.” His jaw clenched tight and I knew that was all he had to say.
I couldn’t ignore the slight plea in his tone. It was unusual for him and I knew that he was telling me that I meant more to him than most. Hell, we were more than just MC brothers. I knew it but I’d never seen just how much my friendship meant to him until those words passed his lips.
“I’m tryin’.” But I really wasn’t and I hated lying to him, but I just couldn’t take anything else at the moment. I didn’t need the burden of his sadness weighing on mine.
“See ya soon, brother,” he said, back to his normal, flat tone. I nodded and he was out the door and I was left alone surrounded in a heavy silence.
I flopped back on the couch and let sleep take me under. Their visit had been exhausting even though they hadn’t been there that long.
Days passed, in a blur. The air in the cabin got stale and the stench of trash and alcohol mixed with whatever funk coated my body. I wasn’t going to try and glorify it, I was downright disgusting.
My phone rang and my mom’s picture filled the screen. I stared down at it as a tear made its way out of my eye. As miserable as I was, I wanted to hear her voice but I knew I wasn’t ready. So when the picture dimmed letting me know the call had gone to voicemail, I set my phone down on the coffee table.
I had no idea why I even kept charging the damn thing. I should have just let it die and then I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. I wouldn’t have to feel like I was being stabbed in the heart with tiny knives every time she called. The only thing I could come up with was that I needed to torture myself a little more.
I stumbled into the bathroom with all intentions of taking a piss and going back out to the couch but I caught my reflection in the mirror above the sink and paused. I’d lost weight, not eating would do that to you. My fingers rubbed over the odd patches in my beard. The places that had been burned, the hair had grown in white and I had no idea how bad the skin looked under the hair growth. I knew how my arms and side looked, so I could only imagine how bad my face was. I should have considered myself lucky that it only burned my jaw, a place that I could keep covered by a beard. And it wasn’t like I ever shaved anyway. I had been a big guy with a big beard pretty much since I’d been able to grow facial hair. However, I usually kept it clean and trimmed just right. Now it was just a mess. It hadn’t been tended to in over three months.
My hair wasn’t much better. Now past my shoulders, the strands looked stringy and the color looked dull. Fuck, I did look like shit.
I had no idea what made me climb into the shower, but once I was in there I figured I might as well make use of the damn thing. Stripping out of my clothes, I turned on the water. The spray of the shower’s lukewarm spray felt good on my filmy skin. I reached for the stray body wash that had been left there by god knows who. Then again, it could have been me. Out of everyone else I was the one who used this place the most. Somehow I found myself energized by the mix of citrus and cedar scent that permeated the steam around me. As I ran the suds over my left arm I felt the dry, rigid skin with my fingertips. It was odd how I didn’t really feel the touch of my fingers as it grazed over the scarred flesh. The urge to give in and just scratch the shit out of it hit me, but I knew better. It wasn’t going to do me any good. The doctor’s warning rang out in my head and for just a moment, I gave a damn. I didn’t want to make it worse and I wondered if it would always feel this way.
I rinsed off, using the same soap to clean my hair. I was hoping that I would step out and feel like a new man, but I didn’t. The same heaviness that plagued me when I got in still weighted me down. Nothing had changed. While I was a cleaner and better smelling version of my self, it hadn’t transformed anything on the inside. I wondered if I would ever find a way out of this Hell. Not that I deserved to.
Why couldn’t it have been me instead? Why couldn’t I have been the one in that house? In my mind, I made up scenarios where I was there and Logan was at my mom’s house or staying the night with one of my sisters. He spent the night away from home often enough that I wondered why it had to happen on that one night. The one night when he was there, sleeping in his bed, peacefully.
Then I got angry. Angry that Diesel had saved me, that he had risked his life to pull me out of the rubble that I was trapped under. Not that I remembered any of it, but I heard all about it after I woke up because my mom wouldn’t let me forget that he was the one that had saved my life. While she saw it as a blessing, I saw it as a curse and I wanted to hate him. Only I couldn’t. In the end, it was myself that I hated and I no longer wanted to keep going.
