Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
You saw the fractured parts of me and still stayed, and I craved that, but the thought of you leaving one day terrorized me. So I had to push you away before you pushed me.
Had to abandon you before you abandoned me.
Even if it hurt.
Even if…I can’t really stay away from you.
I was fine pretending, but you keep provoking the version of me I thought I killed a long time ago.
The one who wants to fight, to heal, to stop using blood to fill up the hole inside me.
I hate you for it sometimes, but I can never hate you for long. I just hope you don’t dislike me that much.
It’s fine if you do, I know I’ve been such an asshole, and I won’t make excuses for it.
When you get this letter, I’ll be locked in a mental institute with Dad’s doctors.
I know why. I said Dr. Duret’s name in front of Dad again.
Dr. Duret has been my therapist since Mom died. But she doesn’t exist.
I mentioned her before, when I was eleven, and I got extensively examined for it. I guess I forgot about it, which is normal. My brain has a tendency to delete files as it wishes. Dr. Fenwick (this one is real, I swear) calls it a coping mechanism.
That game in which I couldn’t bring you down messed with my head enough that I allowed her back into my life.
Or more like into my head, like one of those stars on the ceiling of my childhood bedroom.
She looks like Mom and has Mom’s maiden name because I loved thinking I was talking to my mother.
I often forget she’s a figment of my imagination and tonight, I bitched out loud about her. Dad heard said bitching, and he needed to intervene. Hence the locking up.
I mentioned Lenin, too. Dad’s right-hand man who beats me up on his behalf.
This is going to sound crazy, but I think he doesn’t exist either. Because I saw footage the other day, and apparently, I threw myself down the stairs when I thought Lenin was hitting me.
I don’t have to check other footage to conclude I made him up, too.
I’m so messed up, I conjured two entirely imaginary people to take Mom’s and Dad’s places in my life.
Aren’t you glad you got rid of this loose screw?
Not funny, I know.
This letter is running a bit too long, and I’m feeling numb at this point.
I don’t know why I’m writing you this, Marcus. I’m not asking for a chance I don’t deserve, and I’m certainly not asking you to wait for me.
Maybe I just wanted to tell you everything. I wanted to blurt everything out every time you held me to sleep or when you asked me what was wrong, but the words just wouldn’t come out.
I hope this answers some of your questions, as unglamorous a revelation as it was. And I hope you know that you’re the best lover anyone can have.
I’m just the worst.
I’m sorry for wasting your time.
Let’s be what we could’ve never been.
Friends.
Preston
35
MARCUS
I’ve been drifting the past few days.
Just…existing.
Forget about hockey or my career. I might have shown up to practice and played, but really, I don’t think I was ever there.
The only reason I even go to the ice anymore is so that I can feel Preston’s presence.
In the coldness of the rink, I can sense his heat wrapped around me as his body folds against mine. I can picture him circling me in that infuriating way he loved to.
At least, at that time, I was the center of his universe.
And I loved the feeling of having his attention. I loved trapping the untrappable.
Touching the untouchable.
Even if it was for a moment.
These last few months, Preston’s always been so distant—someone I could touch momentarily but couldn’t grasp.
And now, thanks to the letter he left me, I finally know why.
He might have perfected the art of seeming normal. Charming, even. But he was suffering in silence, bottling up the horrendous things that happened to him.
He buried it deep, pretending it didn’t exist. He let his abuse fester until it took him away.
Until he allowed it to take him away.
And I couldn’t stop it.
All I could do was go on a murder spree.
Once Dad provided me with the names and addresses, I devoted myself to that.
Killing.
Revenge.
I first killed the guy who sold those people the illegal weapons, then the guy who deleted all security footage, and then I moved on to the guy who pulled the trigger.
Surprisingly, for my first time, murder came so naturally to me. The life I never wanted, being part of Vencor and Dad’s blood-soaked world, caught up to me anyway, but I don’t regret it.
I’d do it all over again for him. I promised I’d kill for him, and I keep my promises.
Unlike him.