But something was a little different this morning. Where I can usually battle back my negative thoughts before they completely defeat me, today I felt too weak to fight, and the thoughts in my head were no help.
So, while he prattled on and on about the night before, I let my mind drift to where my heart already was. Back home in my hometown with my parents. In the old house that’s been in dad’s family since creation.
The house that he’d taught me his skills on every summer and some odd weekends. Our home might be over two hundred years old, but dad kept it up. It was worth a pretty penny now, I’m sure, and was on some historical listing, but my old man refused to sell it.
He’d rather leave something for mom and I, even if it means him not having the money to pay for his medical bills. I’d fought him on that one; no way was I going to accept a damn house that, in essence, was going to cost him his life. But dad wasn’t about to budge.
My dad is one of those old throwbacks that believes it’s a man’s duty to take care of his wife and son. And this son would do anything to keep his dad alive. But I’m all out of options.
I’ve never felt this helpless, this insignificant in my life. This disease that had already taken so many, how do I combat it? How do I save my dad, the strongest man I know, from the jaws of this hell?
It scares me, and I haven’t been afraid of anything since I was about eight or nine. But this thing that I cannot see cannot touch, has put fear in me like nothing ever has before.
My mom, the woman I was sworn to protect against all harm, was falling apart while I was hundreds of miles away. Thinking of all this, I felt guilt more than anything else.
They’d been there for me since birth, had showered me with all the love and attention any kid could ever want, and now I couldn’t be there for them. Even now, in their most trying hour, they were still giving, still putting me first.
That last thought was part of the reason for my guilt. They were making the ultimate sacrifice, and I was all but squandering it with my shit. What a fuck up.
I’d tried, though, ever since I came back after seeing dad looking like half the man he’d been only a few months earlier. I’d come back here and tried to throw myself back into life the way they’d insisted, but to no avail.
I can’t concentrate on shit. It was like the light had gone out in my world, and nothing looked the same. Things that once seemed so important now paled, and life was just one big cluster fuck of a mess.
I find myself acting in ways foreign to my usually stoic nature. Things I usually frown upon in others. I can’t get my head back on straight because everywhere I turn, I see the specter of the monster that lives inside my old man’s body.
I wake up here, but my heart and soul are back at the place of my birth. The place where dad and I played catch in the backyard that was no bigger than a stamp, and the garage where he first taught me how to take care of a car when it acted up. My conscience each morning when I woke up, when I was still in that strange place between sleep and wake, was full of flashbacks.
My mind was always back there with them and my grandparents, who were helping out, and I wanted to go home, but my parents weren’t having it. Once again, they were putting their only son first and ignoring their own needs.
My dad was insistent that I continue my studies at the school I’d worked so hard to get into and wouldn’t hear of me leaving to go somewhere local, which honestly wouldn’t have offered the same caliber of education or the same opportunities when it came to the game.
Since school started back, I’d adopted a ‘fuck you’ mentality that had apparently reached its zenith last night. I remember going out with the guys after our big win against our nemesis, but that was about it.
“Who was she?” I felt like an ass asking, but I seriously couldn’t remember a fuck. That didn’t sit too well with me. I knew one-nighters were part of the college experience, but that wasn’t my style. At least my depravity hadn’t sunk that low.
“Susie Powell, dude.” I stopped walking again and just stared at him. “Tell me you’re kidding.” I felt my guts drop at my stupidity. If what he was saying was true, then I’d made the biggest fucking mistake in my twenty-one years on this earth. “Are you…?”