Wrath: A Sinful Secrets Romance, page 36
You know what you need to stay alive? I figured this out. You need someone. It can even just be one person. That makes you feel...tethered to life. Like you're not alone and drifting with no meaning. Like you're not the only alien on the planet.
After Alton, coming home to my mom...with her being how she was. It made me feel like there was nothing I could do but end it. Stop the torture. Get off the ride.
But I'm trying to tell myself that I don't need a whole-ass tether. I just need one rung at a time. I need something to grip onto for a second. Maybe not someone. Just football. Maybe someone. Amelia. She's got a smile that makes me feel like things could be okay.
I'm not going to keep on living with my arms by my sides anymore. If I keep doing that, I know I'll die. I'm holding onto football. Holding onto little weird shit. Like the way this detergent here smells. Like having soft sheets. And tomorrow, when we all go out—we can go out with or without a chaperone—I can go to a bookstore.
My wallet had four twenties in it, two fives, and three ones. I'm going to buy some books. And read them. I've gotta figure out a way to see myself differently. Be different. Not like a victim.
But it's not happening tonight. I wake up at 1:02, sobbing so hard I can't breathe. My whole body's shaking, amped up on adrenaline and all this other fuckshit. I sit up in bed and lean my back against the headboard.
No one's coming in, I tell myself—just reassuring. Every night this happens, I get a handle on it fast, and no one comes in.
I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. Try to feel the bed under me.
You're okay. You're not at Alton, angel.
I put a hand over my chest. Re-play my own words in my head. I hug the pillow to my chest and shut my eyes. Angel. Where did I hear that? I can’t help a puzzled smile. I feel almost okay. The feeling is such a surprise, that more tears come.
You’re okay. You’re not at Alton, angel.
Five
Josh
April 19, 2019
"Josh, wake up. We're almost there."
My eyes flip open and focus on a plane of gray before I understand what I'm looking at: the interior roof of my mom's white Maxima. Once I've blinked, I wish I hadn't—because now I have to look at her.
I do, and Mom forces a smile. "We're almost to the campus. You should sit up. Look around," she urges.
I sit my chair up and blink out the window. "Looks...developed." I've been to Auburn before, but it was a few years ago, to watch a college football game with Bren and Marcel.
"There are a lot more high-rises than I remember," Mom says. "But it's nice. And everything looks very student-oriented."
Mom starts looking at her phone, aiming us toward campus, with its dark-red brick main building, known as Samford Hall.
"Do you want me to hold it for you?" I ask, waving at her cell phone.
"I've got it."
Two campus side streets and two parking lots later, we're parking in front of another red brick, dark-roofed, tree-shrouded Southern college building. Some kind of random place—the old agriculture building, I think?
"We'll have to walk a block up to the library,” Mom says. “The really large building?"
I force what I hope looks like a smile. "I saw the sign for it."
"Seminar for parents, meet and greet for students, and then back together for the tour. It sounds like they’ve really thought this through.” Mom smiles and gets out of the car. She's wearing jeans, a sweater, and sunglasses, and toting a white leather purse.
"I can't believe we're looking at a college that’s accepted my son,” she says.
I give her another smile and adjust my ball cap, feeling awkward as we walk together across the parking lot and toward the sidewalk, where other people are already trickling toward the library.
"How are you feeling?" she asks.
I assume she means about this college tour, so I say, "Good. I like it. I think."
Mom gives me one of her thoughtful, worried mom looks.
"What?" I press.
"You know what." She picks the pace up, walking half a step ahead of me before she drops back. Still won't look at me, though.
"Just say it,” I tell her.
She stops. When she whirls toward me, her face is tight with anger. "What would you like me to say, Josh? Here on Auburn's college campus? What do you think I have to say about it that we didn't say already?"
"I don't know." My eyes throb as my throat goes too tight. "Whatever it is, you need to say it. Get it off your chest."
"I don't think you want that."
"Is it so terrible?" I manage.
She stops in the middle of the sidewalk, looking at me with wide, furious eyes. "You don't want to do this right now, Joshua."
"Yes I do. I want to do it right now. Let me have it, Mom. Just fucking say it, so you don't have to keep acting weird and awkward."
Her mouth rounds into a small “o” when I use the F-word. Then she wheels around and nearly jogs toward a nearby parking deck. I jog after her, my stomach feeling topsy-turvy. I've never seen my mom act like this.
As soon as we get into the shadows of the parking deck’s first floor, she turns back to me, and there are black lines snaking down her cheeks. Mascara dripping.
"I don't want to do this right now," she says in a stern, I'd-rather-be-mad-than-cry voice.
My stomach flips so hard, I feel sick.
"Do what?" I rasp.
She looks around. There are a few students, none too close to us. She steps closer to me, pointing her finger like she might jab it into my chest.
"Tell you that I'm disappointed," she says in a quiet voice. "Tell you that I can't believe you've done some of these things you’ve done since November. Mostly" —her voice shakes— "tell you I don't know how we can send you here if you can't get your head back on straight." Mom starts crying. "It's my fault, though. I noticed how you looked at him and I should have said something sooner. We were too—"
"Stop it."
"Permissive. And the two of you got overwhelmed, and then he—"
"I said stop talking about it!”
"I know it's my fault, and Carl's. We were the adults in the house. And I know you're hurting, Josh, and confused! But you can't—"
"I'm not confused, Mom.” I can’t help a soft laugh. “You think I'm confused? I'm not. I know exactly what went down, and it's not what you think. You and Carl didn't know shit about him."
"Help me understand, then."
Tears start sliding down my cheeks with no damn warning. "He was messed up. No—not that." I wipe my face. "He wasn't messed up." He was perfect. "People hurt him. Carl didn't keep in touch enough. His mom was—I think his mom messed him up. And by the time I met him, it was done and I couldn't help him."
My throat feels too tight. Then I'm crying in a parking garage. At what's maybe my future college. Mom is crying, and she's looking at me like she thinks I'm six years old and I just crashed my bike, and I don't need that.
"If it was anybody's fault he left, it was my fault,” I say, wiping my eyes. “I got too close to him, and I don't know if he liked it."
"He did like you, Josh. I could always see it. It wasn't that he didn't like you."
He said he loved me. I'm not telling my mom that.
"Doesn't matter," I tell her. "It's over now."
We do the whole tour, after we dry our eyes. I can't eat the pizza they give us in the student portion of things. On the way home, all I think about is getting in my bed and going to sleep.
I do okay faking things with mom—at least I think I do. She seems upbeat when we do dinner at the kitchen table with Carl. He grilled burgers while we drove home.
Finally I go upstairs, shower, and climb into my bed. I pull his shirt out from beneath my pillow and unwrap the bottle of vodka inside it. I drain the bottle dry, so I don't feel like I'm in my bed anymore.
Then I look through photos in my phone. The ones of my car—mangled in the junkyard. For the thousandth time, I want to text one to him. Really pull the fucking lever, see if any part of him still cares.
But I can't. It's too pathetic—even for me.
I reach in my nightstand drawer and find one of the small, white pills. It's only Xanax. I don't take them every night. Just when I feel like my chest is on fire.
I chew it like Ezra did and lie in the dark till sleep takes me.
Six
Ezra
June 2, 2019
Hi journal. I’m here. I moved in last week—to a dorm. Athletic dorms. They’re letting me live here and take two classes this summer.
Got my GED in May when I was at Amelia’s place. They had a party with a cake after I passed the test, and I felt pretty good about it. It was good- the time I was there.
I just got back to my dorm from walking across campus. No one knows me yet, especially if I wear a ball cap.
There’s a bookstore near campus where I go and read sometimes. I applied for a job there last week but haven’t heard yet.
Right now, I’m reading The Color Purple.
I have something to report about that:
Either I’ve read it before- or I’m a fucking psychic.
* * *
June 8, 2019
I got the job. I’m working four hours every afternoon.
I’m not a psychic.
I have to tell you something. Have to tell someone.
I got on Facebook Wednesday night.
The football program asked me to go in my profile and remove things that might look bad. So I called Facebook—one of the team assistants gave me a contact phone number—and they helped me log in.
I had a message from this guy named Brennan Meeks. It said he was surprised I left and he would miss me. For a second, my throat locked up, but I scrolled down…and he said-
Miller misses you too.
MILLER.
I checked Brennan’s friend list. There was a guy named Josh Miller.
After a little bit of digging, I found out Josh Miller is my stepbrother. He’s the son of Dad’s new wife, Suzanne Miller. I lived with him. And he’s fucking gorgeous, dude. Looks like a surfer with a tan and wavy dark brown hair, blue eyes and freckles. When he smiles in Facebook pictures, he always looks slightly high. Like he’s…relaxed. And happy. He doesn’t look like a bigot.
When I look at him—
I might have had a crush on this guy.
So anyway- I found him on Snapchat. I friended him. It wasn’t even hard.
You know what is hard? My dick. All he posts is workout vids. He’s doing two-a-days. Sounds like he’s going to Montevallo to play soccer based on his posts. It’s a school in Alabama.
I watched him once this morning already.
It’s giving me life.
Just another secret. Got so fucking many, what’s one more? Stalker vibes here.
Been off all those meds from Sheppard Pratt and of course, my dick is fucking gay as shit again. I saw this guy Josh Miller’s dick outlined in his workout pants the other day and nearly came on myself. Every time I jerk off, I picture his relaxed surfer face as he comes, his mouth slightly open.
This Tuesday is my first workout with the team.
Maybe I should put that shit on Snapchat.
* * *
June 12, 2019
Practice yesterday was … crazy.
It was awesome. I threw and they liked it. An older guy on the team said he was jealous of me. One of their trainers asked me to show him how I whip my spirals.
They want me on the team. It’s not a mistake.
No one cares that I didn’t graduate from high school in the normal way.
The bookstore found out who I am and they’re all excited I work there.
I know- it’s all stupid. It’s not a big pond, and I’m not really a big fish. Not quite yet, anyway. But I am -a- fish. I’m a fish that’s here. I’m not at mom’s house.
She still has my Jeep. But I don’t care. When I have enough saved, I’ll buy an old motorcycle or something. At least a bicycle.
I bought a lava lamp.
I can’t sleep and getting tired.
I’ve been watching him, still.
My secret.
He seems tired, too. This morning he did a snap lying on a bed in what I think was a dorm.
I think about him all day. It’s okay, though. Still enjoying life here.
All good.
I’m a fucking football player.
* * *
June 19, 2019
There’s a guy from Fairplay here. His name is Marcel- the one I read about online. We met and he acted happy to see me, so I tried to act happy, too. Apparently we did a lot of cool shit together. I guess I need to find all of our highlight reels.
Practice is good. My arm is a superstar.
The rest of me- I don’t know.
I think something’s wrong with me. Maybe they’re right at SP even though they don’t know about Alton. I thought that was the source of all my problems since I was never crazy before I went there- but—
I’m sleeping a little more, thanks to some medicine the team doctor gave me. I have dreams now. When I do, there’s someone holding me. A guy. I can’t ever see his face. When I wake up, I have the same feeling I had on the day I ran away from SP. It’s this panicked feeling. Like a tightness in my throat and chest, so I feel like I’m suffocating. Something’s clawing at me. I feel like I need to run and run, until I get to…
What?
I almost feel like I’m on fire and desperate for someone to pour some water on me. It’s a -longing- feeling. I haven’t had an Alton dream in days. Only these dreams with these arms around me. It feels so good.
Then I wake up, I get the clawing feeling, and I pace around my room. Last night, I went on a walk at 1:30 a.m.
What if SP was right and I do have psychosis or bipolar?
Maybe that’s why I keep watching my stepbrother’s Snaps and his Insta stories all day and night like I’m addicted to him.
* * *
June 24, 2019
I tried some pot the other night at a party. Tbh I thought it was a pipe that had tobacco in it. Anyway, I didn’t like it. Now I’m nervous I’ll get drug-tested.
I’m never doing that shit again. I don’t like to feel weird.
Ever since the pot, things have been weirder. I’ve been sleeping a lot. It might be the new sleep medicine, but the sleep is weird and heavy, I guess like drugged sleep always is. I should maybe quit taking the stuff.
This weekend, I stayed in bed almost the whole time. Only ran once and only lifted once.
You know what I did?
It’s so fucked up.
I watched him. Like reality TV watching.
Like he’s mine, something I need to consume to feel happy. I think this is a “crush” but it’s the kind of one that hurts. HE gives me the clawing feeling I remember from my mom’s house. Like I’m falling too fast through thin air and I need to grab a hold of something, but I can’t.
You know that quote that says “Everything I ever let go of had claw marks on it”? I’m leaving claw marks on my freckle-faced stepbrother. Makes me feel like a freak, especially since I don’t know the guy. And I don’t know if I ever really did.
Tomorrow, I’m starting yoga w/ a tight end named Stephen. Seems like a weird thing for football players to do, but I’m hoping maybe that can help my mind get back on track.
Maybe I should delete Snapchat and Instagram.
But I can’t. I guess that’s the truth.
I don’t have anything else.
Josh Miller is not at Montevallo.
Josh Miller appears to be at Auburn.
I’m going to tell you something else. Okay?
He said he’s going to Atlanta Thursday. On his Insta, on that post on his stories- he posted a motherfucking
-rainbow-
Seven
Josh
June 27, 2019
"You good, brother?"
Something slaps my back, and I look up from my drink.
Daniel. I give him a drunk grin.
"Damn, Josh Miller. Lost in the sauce again."
I try to roll my eyes at Daniel, but that makes me dizzy. I laugh at myself.
"Like you're not," I say.
He takes his ball cap off and puts it on backward, flashing me a big grin as the cap presses blond hair down into his eyes. He leans in, so close I can smell the liquor on his breath. "I got a real ID, Mills. I'm not gettin' drunk off Jack and Cokes on a fuckin' Thursday."
I shake my head. I'm too drunk to tell him to go fuck himself. Something pings in my head, like this little distress signal. But the liquor in my system blots it out.
I feel happy. Sitting on a barstool in the fucking Hardwood House, up in Atlanta. I laugh at the name now, and Daniel leans back over, slings an arm over my shoulder. I can feel the warmth of his chest on my back. It makes my dick twitch even through the veil of being fucking drunk.
"I'm gonna hug up on ya," he murmurs. "That way we'll catch someone's eye. Then you can both get us some bussy."
"What?" I laugh.
"Oh c'mon. You never heard it called that?" He leans down, so we're at eye level. "You're a virgin, aren't you?"
I look down and draw myself away from him. I shake my head.
"Well, shit. It didn't go well?" He's loud—talking over the music.
I put my finger over my lips and shake my head.
"That's right. Miller's a shy boy," he says.
"No I'm not. You're just loud as fuck."
He mimes a lasso, swinging his hips to the country music they've got blaring right now.
