Now I’m jaded, emotionally stunted, socially confused. I’m nothing Amy needs. Oh yeah sure, I can offer her a pitiful reprieve from her pain, offer her my body and my bed, but love? A relationship? What do those things even mean to a man who has no parents, no role models, nothing but a past riddled with violence and torture?
I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror, my fingers gripping the sink so hard I think they might bruise. My nostrils flare as I breathe heavily, feeling sick and angry and at the very limits of my self-control.
I hate myself. Despite everything I’ve been through in my life, I’m still so goddamn naive. Naive to think I can be anything Amy needs. Naive to think I can just take her home, wrap her up in my sheets and take her for the rest of my life.
I won’t be happy until everything around me is in flames.
I haul back and slam my fist into the mirror, enjoying the feel of the crunch under my hand as the panelled glass shatters and falls.
Amy doesn’t need someone who locks himself in a grave because he’s too fucked up to deal with the ghosts in his own head.
Again, I punch the area the mirror used to be, shards of it pressing into my knuckles as I bend back the metal slightly. But I don’t feel a thing. I’m a freak — such small pain means nothing to me.
Amy doesn’t need somebody like me, a freak, somebody who can’t feel pain or sorrow or happiness or fucking love until it’s literally crushing him under its weight. Destroying him. Tearing into him so deeply he becomes powerless, unable to comprehend or react to or fucking deal with the feelings that overwhelm him and leave him feeling weak and helpless.
Another punch, the metal bowing, blood running down my arm now, dripping off my elbow onto the floor. But I don’t even notice.
Amy doesn’t need somebody who lies to cover their insecurities. Make the pain of her sister’s brain damage that much fucking harder as she tries to manage her OCD. Doesn’t need somebody who can’t handle her rejection — used to love me — without falling the fuck apart.
The next punch is a little less steady, a little less powerful as my arms shake, and I bite down on my bottom lip hard, feeling completely exhausted, confused, out of control. I feel like I want to cry but I don’t know how to fucking do that.
I stare at the shards of glass in the sink as they refract my skin back at me, and I think it’s a poignant image. I’m no more whole than that glass and no more able to be put back together.
I am broken — fucking irreparable — and Amy deserves better than me. Always has done. Amy needs somebody one step ahead of me. Deserves a kingdom, a castle, a fucking crown.
She’s the rainbow over my dead soul.
I roll up my sleeves to splash my face in cold water, but then notice the deep cut on my forearm. I didn’t feel it. Don’t feel it. The only pain I feel is the ache in my chest as I try to erase Amy from me. Erase her mark on my skin, even if I can’t erase her mark on my dead heart.
Man can never change. Once evil, always evil.
Saving you was the best thing I ever did, Amy, and then I can't stop hurting you. How do you like that? You're the best thing I ever did, and the worst thing I ever did.
25
ME
‘Dude, why’s your milk in an old coke bottle?’ Fab5 says. He’s holding my fridge door open.
Every day, I go into the woods and find treasure. Must be something in the chill of the February air that makes it therapeutic.
There’s a broken musical box next to the sink. It’s one of my favourites. Reminds me of Amy. There’s this little cracked grey clock on the living room wall. That’s becoming a close second.
‘Bro-Dad, your place is filling up like an old toy shop,’ Max says. He’s munching on the turkey sandwich I made him.
The kid’s growing on me. It reminds me of the time I was forced to eat greens. Hated them at first, then eventually they made me feel good and I started to like them. Max is years above his age. Seen the dark side too young. We’ve got this in common.
And Max isn’t exaggerating. The space is filling up. Feels like living in an hourglass. Like somehow I’m running out of time. Being buried alive.
‘Dude, you said your plan was one item a day,’ Fab5 says.
‘That’s all I do. Just one,’ I tell him.
I’ve got a bad sense I’m unravelling.
Fab5 stares at me critically. ‘Shepherd, you are such a junkie.’
‘Hell I am.’
‘Don’t lie,’ Max cuts in, and he turns to Fab5. ‘He’s doing at least five a day. I’ve seen him carrying them in from my window.’
Fab5 shuts the fridge door. ‘Just because it’s junk, Shepherd, doesn’t mean this still isn’t substance abuse.’
‘Yeah? It keeps me fit. You might want to join me, mate.’
‘Piss off. I’ve had to work triple hours while you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing here in Greystone. I don’t have time to train — so give a guy a break.’ Fab5 squishes the fat around his middle. It moves like playdough.
‘Every day,’ Max says, ‘I come home from school and there’s some piece of junk in the foyer. It’s everywhere.’
‘Except your bed,’ I laugh.
‘Oh you wouldn’t dare.’ Max says.
‘But you only sleep on one side,’ I say to him. Max sticks his tongue out.
‘Mate, don’t you think this is gone too far
