Eleven
I take off my hat and run my hands through my hair, twirling it around my fingers before pulling on the roots to release the built-up tension.
I’d have to rip every single hair outta my head to get rid of all the fucking stress, and that would just be to purge the past twelve hours. It’s all her fault; Edison literally makes my fucking head hurt.
I dig my fingers into my skull in some dumbass attempt to poke holes into the parts of me that she’s taken over. The truth is, I could have multiple brain bleeds and she’d still be there.
I’ve never had a girl invade my head like she has. She went from zero to fucking nuclear and took over like a little fucking dictator. And if that wasn’t enough for her, the fucking savage that she is, started feasting on my lungs the second she saw me today. I couldn’t fucking take a breath.
She’s the only person that I’ve ever met who can rip my heart out just by existing. When she ran inside here, scared outta her fucking mind, and ready to defend herself to the fucking death, I knew I’d bleed out for her. I’d drown in my own blood if it meant that she could breathe.
I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose. I can still see her behind my eyelids. She’s gotta be the only woman besides my sister and mother that I can see without directly looking at them. It’s like she’s this folded-up photograph I keep in my wallet that I can’t stop looking at.
“Come on, man, take a chair, you’ve got practice in three hours.” I could give a flying fuck about hockey right now. And hockey’s my fucking life . I’ve only ever felt like that once before, and that’s when those sick fucking bastard pussys targeted my sister. Both times.
It only takes a nanosecond for my brain to make the connection to B.
My mind instantly takes me back to the night she and Edison were attacked.
I can’t look at my sister without seeing her unconscious and hurt in Max’s arms. It broke my brain, and I felt like I was losing my fucking mind trying to understand how this had happened again.
I had tried to stop it. I tried to keep her safe. But it didn’t fucking matter when it actually mattered most. And all because I ignored the most important call of my life.
Then the unthinkable happened. I saw my math tutor left for dead between the blood-splattered cinder block wall and the red-stained bed. That’s when my heart bottomed out. It splattered into a fucking mess in my ribcage when it crashed into the deepest parts of me. It was the worst day of my life.
I’ve done stupid shit and made awful fucking decisions that have hurt the people that I care about. Leaving Edison to go to practice isn’t going to be one of them. She means more than hockey does today.
Fuck. Me. She means more than hockey. I can’t stop thinking about that. Nothing mattered more before. Just my family. And now her. Fucking hell, this girl.
I tug on my hair as hard as I fucking can, a last-ditch effort, to see if I can pull the “care” outta me. It burns like hell. My scalp feels like she’s lighting a match inside my head to let me know that even fucking fire won’t burn away the feelings I have for her. Fucking demon.
“Nah, man, I’m good, I’m not going,” I tell him while pulling out my phone to tell the guys that I’m out for practice this morning. There’s no fucking way that I’m leaving this door.
“Just like that? You’re not gonna go?” He questions me with a ‘what the fuck?’ look on his face before yawning loudly again.
“You expect me to leave her like this?” I ask him like he’s lost his fucking mind for questioning whether or not leaving is even something I’d consider. There’s no fucking way I’m moving from this spot.
“Yeah, man, I do.” The one thing about Alvino Rossi is that he doesn’t hold back. I know where he’s coming from, but this is different. Because it’s her.
“I’m staying right here,” I say while every muscle in my fucking body hardens to match the tone in my voice. There’s no place I'd rather be than right here, and every part of my body knows it.
Not only do I think I like this girl, but I’m starting to think she may be good for me, too.
She’s killing off the parts of me that need to die and break away.
She’s left me covered in my own blood that no one else can see but us.
It’s like our own secret ritual or something.
I don’t know how else to describe it, I just know that I like it.
And that I want it to continue, because it feels good to be cleansed by her.
“I’m not going anywhere, and I’ve already put the word out,” he assures me while doing a final walk through the shop.
“It’s all good, man.” I appreciate the reassurance, but it’s not as helpful to me as it is knowing that I’m right here and she’s safe on the other side of this door. I need to protect her.
“Not the word I’d use to describe the past hour, Alv,” I shout back while folding my hoodie into a ball.
I stuff it behind my head and lie down on my back so that I’m blocking the door if this lunatic tries to escape.
I don’t give a fuck that I’m lying on the dirty floor.
I’d lie on hot coals if it meant that she was safe.
Now that this hellcat’s here, I don’t want to let her go.
I don’t believe in fate or faith or fucking coincidences, but for me to be here at the exact time that she bangs on a random door in the middle of the night, while I’m getting a tattoo symbolizing her fucking spirit animal, has me believing that we both ended up here for a reason.
Believe me, I know how it sounds. Like some voodoo shit, but there’s no other explanation. She’s back, and the way I see it, keeping her safe this time is a second chance that I think I need to take. Maybe it’ll right a wrong.
“Before you get all comfy on that cold tile floor, wipe down your chest and put these on your tat,” he says while tossing me a pack of wipes and a few packets of Aquaphor, before he walks through the front of the shop again.
“Oh, and remind me to add a collar and an 'Ed' tag when we finish her up,” he says with a smirk as he tosses my shirt at me. I catch it in the air like a stray puck and glare at his back.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” I tell him while I clean myself up and rub the ointment on my chest. He bends down and his old-ass knees crack away before he covers my half-finished tattoo with some med-grade plastic wrap.
“Says the guy on the floor to the guy going to sleep on a mattress,” he chirps back before laughing like a fucking hyena and disappearing into the other room.
“Shhhh!” I whisper-yell at him. He’s so fucking loud all the time. I swear to fuck if this bonehead wakes her up! It’s honestly a damn miracle that she hasn’t started screaming yet.
I hope she’s asleep in there - and not wide-awake plotting to take over the world. I don’t think I would’ve been able to keep myself in check if she had walked outta here. Thank fuck that she stayed. And thank fuck I woke the hell up.
I’ve been pretty good about keeping my feelings locked away in a cage, but now that they’ve escaped, I don’t think I stand a fucking chance at stuffing them back inside. There’s no way. Not when a colony of bats starts to swarm my gut.
These fuckers are flapping their wings like they’re super-charged, and it makes me wanna puke.
Oh shit, is this what ‘butterflies” are supposed to be?
Fucking hell, this is so much worse than what I thought it would be like when I liked someone.
And I really like her. It’s like my feelings are multiplying by the minute.
And now I feel like I can’t fucking breathe when their sharp claws pierce through my lungs, deflating who I once was.
You’d think the fire-breathing dragon that lives inside the pits of my stomach would’ve done something about this.
Instead, he laid down on the fucking job with a satisfied smile when they started hanging upside down from my heartstrings.
Just thinking about her having to sleep anywhere else makes my fucking blood boil. My whole body gets hot, and the cold tiles feel good when I start to sweat my balls off. This little fucking demon literally changes my body temperature.
Now it’s gonna be all I think about when I don’t know where she is, and that’s not fucking acceptable.
I might need to scratch off more than just practice today.
Fuck it, the whole day is canceled . I feel a tiny smile crack over my face, and I shake my head; fucking good luck getting rid of me now, Ed.
I ignore all the notifications on my phone while I draft a believable email to Coach, and I don’t hesitate when I send it out. I mean, I’m not lying. Technically, I am feeling sick. Sick in the fucking head.
I make myself comfortable before checking on the locations of both my siblings. Good, they’re home . My sister is with Max, so I know she’s fine. Honestly, I’m more worried about the other one. My brother isn’t okay, and it’s now crossed over into dangerous territory.
This asshole goes out running every fucking night until the next fucking day. I’d bet money he was out earlier. That dickhead probably just got in.
I love him to fucking death, but I really want to slap the shit outta him sometimes. He’s letting his past get in the way of his future, and it’s fucking stupid to watch.
Hockey’s always been our path, and he needs to get back on fucking track.
It’s like he’s derailed and can’t get himself up.
He’s running on steam, and I’m afraid he’s gonna end up doing some real damage if he doesn’t stop.
He’s hurting himself in more ways than one: hockey, school, Red.
He’s gonna fumble her if he doesn’t stop with this shit.
He can’t continue to live like this. His room’s fucking nasty, and his personal hygiene’s borderline disturbing. He looks like hell and is acting like he’s imprisoned there.