Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mr. Parker does indeed say he’s going to fire me. And he has every right to, although he could have called the agency to try to get someone else in. But he doesn’t.
Arthur Jeffries. NP.
For a second, I stare, and then it feels like my heart is sucked straight out of my chest, and I stare at those gray letters that have worn off by use. Were they there before? Frantically, I search the dates. His name was definitely there.
What the hell? I drop the meds like the name is a poison that will seep into my skin and kill me from the inside out.
Suddenly, there’s movement in the left corner of my vision.
“Can you hear me, boy?” Mr. Parker is waving at me. I blink at him. He’s made it all the way from his bed to me, five feet away. How did he do that? How long have I been standing here?
“You’re about as good a listener as my grandson.
Sometimes all he needs is a good–“ Mr Parker makes a backhand motion with his hand, and in that instant, with the way his face scrunches up, all I see is Dad and the hateful look he’d give us right before he beat us.
And then I see him. Arthur, and the smile he’d give before…
But the motion of throwing his hand has knocked Mr. Parker off balance, and for a second, I consider letting his disgusting ass fall. Letting him hit his head on the carpet and then bleed out; the blood thinners he’s taking would make quick work of that.
But at the last minute, I catch him roughly around the arm. And in that minute, all I feel is disgust at myself. Less gently than usual, I guide him back to his bed, then throw the pill bottles on the tray.
It takes me a minute to cool down, and when I do, shock floods my system. I imagined watching someone die and took joy in it.
I prop my arm on the hallway wall and take a deep breath, but it does nothing to quell the sick feeling rising in my gut.
I’m becoming a man who relishes the pain of others. Someone who is closed off and angry, and violent when I want to be.
I’m becoming everything I swore I wouldn’t.