Chapter 36
Torren
On our way back to the shop, I’m instantly aware that something has shifted inside me.
Felix is it for me. Period.
And there’s no taking that back.
I’ve pushed him away for so long, but I can’t anymore.
None of this friends bullshit anymore. I want to tell him how much he means to me, and I want him to move in with me. It’s a major step, but I don’t want him around Hargrove during election night, and I sure as hell don’t want him in some random apartment in the sketchiest part of the Patch.
Last night solidified that I can do this. I can control myself. I can do hard things, and they’re easier with Felix by my side,
Once we’re back at the shop, I make up my mind to tell Felix all of this. I leave the bathroom to see him on the ground rummaging through his backpack when a bunch of pill bottles roll out onto the floor.
I close the distance between us and pick up a bottle. “Are you still taking these?” I ask. There’s nothing wrong with taking medication, but the way Felix reacted to it still haunts me.
Felix shakes his head. “No, I keep them because my father sometimes checks. I’m supposed to take them at certain times of the day. Not having them would be suspicious.”
“Hmm.” I set the bottle back down. There are so many bottles…
Way too many.
Felix sighs and adds, “It’ll be so nice not to have to sneak around when I move out. The first thing I am going to do is throw that shit away. I don’t even like looking at them.”
“Do you know what they are?” I ask. Felix shakes his head no.
“They’re making you take fistfuls of pills, and you don’t even know what you’re taking?
” I reach for a bottle again to check the labels.
Nothing seems off, and I don’t really know the generic names of most meds, but my gut tells me something is wrong.
“Can I take one of each so I can have our doctor take a look?”
If nothing else, maybe we can have him prescribe something better. If Felix actually needs something, then a doctor I trust can help him.
“Sure.” Felix gets one from each bottle and hands them to me. “Let me know what they are when you find out. I wouldn’t put it past my father to be poisoning me.”
He laughs sarcastically, but, honestly, I think we both wouldn’t put it past Hargrove to do something like that.
“Shit! I have to go. My father has an event this afternoon.” He rushes about the room, collecting his things.
I should stop him—tell him to move in.
Say the words.
I love you, Felix.
“D-do you need any help?” is what comes out of my mouth.
Felix looks up, his eyes mischievous. “You’ve done more than enough, stud. I won’t be sitting down for a week.”
I force a laugh. Just say the words, Torren.
“Are we going to hang out later?” I ask. FUCK ME!
The words are there, sitting in my chest, clawing to get out.
Felix throws his bag over his shoulder and pauses. “Absolutely.”
It’s so definitive, resolute, that it makes my racing heart calm down. I want to say it so badly, but maybe doing so while he’s rushing out isn’t the best way to go about it?
“Good,” I respond.
Felix stands at the top of the staircase, looking at me with an unreadable expression. “Well, I gotta go. Bye, babe.”
“See ya.”
His shoulders sag a little—just enough that I notice, and something in my chest tightens.
Then he hurries down the stairs to his bike, and I follow. “Wait!”
Felix stops at the garage door and looks at me. When I reach him, my throat closes. My chest feels tight, and that sick feeling rumbles in my stomach.
“Call me when you can, okay?”
Felix smiles. “Count on it, handsome.”
He kisses my cheek and peddles away.
I’m left standing there, alone, with the words still stuck in my throat.
And the sick, sinking knowledge that I fucked up. Big time.
Felix
I arrive at the house and rush to the back entrance, hoping I have enough time to wash the smell of sex off my body. I checked my phone calendar last night and saw a horrible event posted for this afternoon, so I have an hour to get ready.
I think.
I check the calendar again and see…nothing.
Huh?
It must have gotten canceled. Wow, I wish I had seen this before I left Torren’s. We could have fucked some more.
Oh well.
I scamper upstairs, passing the pictures of my father looking imposing and cold, fling open the bedroom door, and turn on the light.
A cold chill streaks down my back.
I step into the room, and my breath hitches.
There are hundreds of photographs scattered everywhere. I pick one up and see it’s a picture of Torren and me at Maggie’s.
I notice another picture. It’s still Torren and me, but we’re in his bedroom. Naked. Fucking.
He hired a private investigator.
That bastard!
Pictures of Torren and me litter the space, mixed with images of me working at Maggie’s.
I’m so stupid. I should have known he’d do something like this. That disgusting fucking pig scattered pictures of me and—
Torren.
I need to get out of here as soon as possible. I pull out my phone and call him.
“Hey.”
“Torren, I—” The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
A cold chill envelops me, and all I can hear is my racing heart. My feet move toward the image, but, mentally, I’m sailing high above, watching myself approach the picture that’s gripped me by the throat.
I brush my fingers over the image, touching it to ensure I’m not imagining this.
It’s my mother. She’s…
She’s having sex with a man.
Who is not my father.
“Felix?” I hear Torren say on the receiver, but I can’t speak.
I see them—dozens of pictures of my mother and this man mixed with the shots of Torren and me.
She’s happy. Holding hands with him and staring into his eyes.
The bile rises to the back of my throat.
I can hear Torren calling my name, and I want to tell him to get here fast, but—
“I should have known you’d be just like her.”
My scream echoes off the walls, and I turn, dropping the phone as I do. Father looms in the doorway of my bedroom, his body heaving as he glares at me. He staggers in, slamming the door behind him, and approaches me.
I instinctively move back, but slip on the pictures, clattering to the ground. Pain shoots up my right side, but I continue crawling backward, trying to escape him, and end up in a corner of the room.
His bloodshot eyes glare at me, and his skin is red and blotchy. The man’s a disheveled mess, his tie is undone, his shirt hangs open, and sweat pours from his forehead.
I’ve seen him drunk before, but this looks different, like he’s finally snapped or something.
He traps me in the corner, and I start begging. “Father, please don’t do—”
His foot connects with my stomach, and I keel over, shielding my gut from another kick, but he grabs me by the hair, lifts my head, and slaps me across the face, slamming my head into the wall. I try to get up, but he kicks my side, and I howl in pain.
Father slaps me again and again before gripping my shirt, forcing me to stare into his deranged eyes.
“You’re a fucking whore just like your mother. Slutting around the Patch with scum. Vermon! They’re lower than dirt, and you two,” he slams my head into the wall, “fucked them!”
“P-pl-please—”
“What was your plan? Run away with your dirtbag lover? That was your mother’s plan. Leave me and run away with her new fuck boy—thought she’d take you with her.”
The pain from his beating is nothing compared to the anguish I feel for her. I could see the joy in Mother’s eyes. She was trying to get away…
“I won’t let my family abandon me with gutter trash. I’d rather you both be dead.”
My breathing stops.
Visions of my mother fill my mind, interspliced with the pictures.
She was going to leave.
“I’d rather you both be dead.”
My clenched fists shake. “What did you do to her?”
A wolfish smile emerges. Like he’s savoring this moment—loving how I’m putting the pieces together.
“She had to go—can’t have my wife whoring around with Patch trash.
I thought I’d just lock her away in an insane asylum, but she couldn’t handle the pills.
She was weak.” He leans closer, his voice a harsh whisper. “Just like you.”
I see red.
The vision of my mother lying dead on the floor floods my mind. The pills she took—so many. Just like me—
The pills…
He killed her.
My head shoots forward, and I sink my teeth into his face. The metallic taste of blood explodes in my mouth, but I keep my teeth locked onto him.
Father wails in agony. Fists beat at my head, but I bite harder and begin throwing punches.
I’m going to kill him.
We roll on the ground, his cries mixing with the animalistic growl leaving my mouth as I bite him.
I get on top, release my mouth, and pummel his face with my fists.
“You killed her! You killed her!” My voice is a strangled shriek as I couple punches with the horrible words leaving my mouth.
I hear a cry, but it’s not my father’s. I turn and see his chief of staff, Robert, running toward me with a vase.
Everything goes black.