Chapter 43 Vale #2
I can’t stop replaying it.
I didn’t just hold his fragile sanity in my hands that night…I played God with it. Weighed it in my palms and determined whether or not he was worthy of redemption. And in doing so, I didn’t give Aston what he wanted…
No, that night, I gave him what he needed. What we both needed.
Just as I did the following day in his room when I ended things. For good.
I didn’t see it before that night, what is so obvious now… The war he battled within himself between desire and destruction.
It’s only in hindsight, knowing what I know now, knowing what I was too far up my own ass to see until Quentin pointed it out and I could no longer un-see it…
Not when I had Aston curled up in front of me, clutching his kimono to his chest like a shield, when I stabbed him with three words I don’t think either of us were fucking prepared for.
I forgive you.
He wanted me to punish him…and instead, I forced my mercy upon him.
A giant “fuck you” and blessing all wrapped into one.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I finally manage to tell Quentin.
His mouth is downturned. He doesn’t look disappointed so much as…resigned. “I suppose I don’t need you to say anything. I just ask that you at least be honest with yourself. The way you’ve been going…”
He gestures at the splattered wall…the shards of glass scattered across the wood floor.
I grimace, knowing I’ll have to clean that up.
“If you keep this up, I fear what you might do. You can’t bottle it up. You know you can’t. You need to find an outlet, especially now that football—”
“What do you fucking think I’ve been doing?” I interject loudly, gesturing harshly at my sweat-stained muscle tee.
He waits a beat before responding calmly, “Something that doesn’t include you killing yourself, I suggest.”
I scoff.
“You forget you’re not invincible, Vale. When you get like this…” He shakes his head. Bringing his fingers to the bridge of his nose, he reaches under his glasses to pinch the corners of his eyes.
I study his strained expression more closely. Taking in the creases at the corners of his eyes, and the shadows underneath. Noting the tightness around his lips.
He’s concerned. Not just about what I might do…the future I could jeopardize.. and in turn, his future as well…
But he’s concerned for me.
Concerned about my wellbeing.
Instantly, my brain is racing—neurons pinging with all the ways I could use this brief show of vulnerability to my advantage.
As if he senses where my mind reflexively went, he slowly lowers his arm to his side and lifts his hardened, reddened gaze to mine. Gone is that wariness from a moment ago, and in its place is the stone-cold ruthlessness I’ve come to expect from him when he’s summoning forth the lawyer in him.
The hardass.
The one who can look a psychopath dead in the eyes and not cower.
“I’ll call Dr. Davenport tomorrow. See about getting you in before the holidays.”
I nod stiffly. No use arguing it. Sure, I’m nineteen—technically a legal adult, despite my high school student status. I could refuse…
But then Quentin would be perfectly in his right to kick me out. He warned me as much back when I was seventeen and it was decided I no longer needed rigorous behavioral therapy.
I was doing so well for so long, that even when I turned eighteen, and could finally be formally assessed for Antisocial Personality Disorder—and by close association in my case, psychopathy—we opted not to.
It’s not as if there’s a cure.
It’s not as if an official diagnosis changes anything.
Just because I’ve made great strides in recent years, having all but beaten my less than savory urges into submission, doesn’t mean there won’t come a day where I decide, fuck it. I’m done.
Done pretending like I fit in this world.
Done pretending like anything fucking matters.
That we’re not all just bone and dust. Fodder for bugs.
At least in therapy, I learn the skills I need to get by. To fly under the radar and know how to work the system to my benefit.
That way, I can still feed the void inside me with little bites of the violence it craves—just enough to keep it somewhat satisfied, so it doesn’t devour me whole.
So I’m not crushed under the weight of the hollow nothingness… the boredom.
Taking my continued silence for what it is, Quentin announces he’s headed off to bed. “My flight’s tomorrow night. Dinner before I go?”
“Sure.”
Just before he leaves, he jerks his chin toward the mess I made. “Clean that up.”
I nod, and we exchange terse goodnights.
Later, after I’ve cleaned up and shut off all the downstairs lights, and I find myself standing under the scalding hot spray of the shower…
I find myself replaying back our conversation, rolling around all that Quentin said, and what he didn’t say.
Understanding them for the obvious warning they are…
“If you keep this up, I fear what you might do. You can’t bottle it up. You know you can’t. You need to find an outlet, especially now…”
Especially now.
Football’s over. Who knows what it’s going to be like in college?
I’m single. My hand’s only good for so much.
And then there’s Aston…
Because it always comes down to him.
Quentin’s right.
I can’t keep living like this.
I don’t want to.
Something’s gotta give.