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happiness.”
That was the problem. When you’ve been stumbling
around in the dark for so long, where everything hurts, where it
all lets you down, leaves you all alone, where you’ve broken
everything around you, smashed it to pieces, and someone
should come along and open a window from the outside, let the
sunshine into your shitty little room, extend their hand to you, it
could go either way.
You could take their hand, let the sun burn your eyes
until you got used to it, you could learn not to break things. Or,
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you could run screaming from the warmth, back to where it was
still dark, where you didn’t have to build, you could just keep
smashing away.
Personally, I was terrified of happiness. Should someone
extend their hand to me, I’d spit in their fucking face.
By the time Chloe showed to pick us up, Xavi and I were
tweaked up to the gills and Sean was drunk as hell. As for her,
she was as high as us. We got to the Kilowatt Club in the city
for the show and I started drinking heavily. I was trying to stop
my body from jerking, trying to stop the palpitations, to stop
The Lobster Boy.
Lincoln’s band played a great show. The crowd was fully
into it and while the show went on, we were all happy. I was
shocked at the feeling. But as soon as the music stopped, the
feeling went away, the dull despair descending again, like the fog
that covered the streets when we went back outside.
Everyone went back to John’s house in Berkeley, for an
after-show party. Chloe went off to the bathroom and I went
into the kitchen. The only person in there was Lincoln, leaning
against the refrigerator, a far-off look on his face.
A big grin washed over him when he saw me and said,
“Hey, Adam.”
“So you’re moving?” I asked.
He looked at me and his smile got brighter. It made me
really mad. He gets happy and now we’re supposed to pretend
everything is cool? Fuck that.
“Yeah, yeah I am,” he replied.
I could have said something encouraging. I could have
said something nice. But I sure as fuck didn’t feel nice. All that
self-hatred I had been feeling had to come out somewhere. It
had to. It wouldn’t stay inside. And there was Lincoln, a walking
fucking monument to every itch and tweak of loathing and
disappointment I had ever felt. And Jesus, how many times had
I picked his ass off the floor after he had fucked up—so many
times that I couldn’t even count them anymore and yet he
couldn’t accept it from me. Not even once. Fuck him. FUCK
HIM.
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“Have fun fucking that up too, kid,” I seethed.
“What?” he answered, standing up straight, squaring up
to me.
“That’s what you do, isn’t it? You fuck up. It’s the same
tired old shit every single fucking time. So, have fun fucking
that up too. It’ll be great. It’ll be really GREAT.”
“Shut the fuck up, Adam,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, I’m done talking to you, you pathetic piece of
shit,” I shoved him.
He backed up, and punched me in the face. I stumbled
backwards, caught off guard. I went at him and we were kicking
the shit out of each other. All the anger, aggression, rage we had
been feeling towards one another recently came out and it took
three guys, plus Chloe and Mia, to drag us apart.
Mia and John took Lincoln into the other room and
Chloe took me home. I was laughing all the way: I had the
blood of one of my best friends on my hands, and my blood
was on his. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Some hours passed. Chloe and I were in her room. One
of the people in the house had moved out and she had moved
from the landing into the newly vacant bedroom. I was on top
of her, taking her underwear off. She kept stopping me with her
hands.
“No!” she said finally.
I got off her, frustrated.
“You’re not being yourself,” she added.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I asked,
standing up.
“I’m worried about you,” she said, getting up and
standing in front of me, her back to the wall, “You haven’t been
sleeping at all.”
“I’m worried about you, too,” I smirked, “You’ve gone
frigid.”
“Frigid?” she said, outraged.
“Yeah, frigid,” I continued smirking, getting more pissed
off and frustrated by the second.
She slapped me.
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“Don’t do that,” I said, trying to control myself.
“OR WHAT, ADAM?” she yelled, slapping me again.
At the moment her hand connected with my face the
second time, my self-control snapped completely. I was seeing
red. I grabbed hold of her wrist with one hand and with my
other hand, I grabbed her by the throat, pinning her up against
the wall, strangling her. She struggled and choked and gagged,
but I wouldn’t let go. I tightened my grip on her throat. Then: a
sickening, dull, deep pain in my back. I felt my knees buckle a
little. I let go of her and backed off. I felt a warm liquid dripping
down my back and looked up to see her holding the knife she
kept by her bed. I reached my hand around to the wet pain on
my back and brought it back. My fingers were red.
“You stabbed me?” I asked, shaking quite a bit now.
She dropped the knife and started crying. She slumped
down to the floor and sobbed into her hands. I had never felt
so sad in my life.
God, it was awful.
Who was I?
What sort of man had I become?
No more laughter, no more tears.
I covered my mouth with my hand to stop myself
throwing up and I walked out of there.
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