Page 10 of Carver
Dravin and his old lady, Kael, are good people. I’m staying with Dravin in his place above a tattoo shop owned by someone in the club named Crow—a scary motherfucker who dresses inblack and has long, jet black hair to match. Dravin says he’s good shit. I don’t trust many people, but I do trust him.
Dravin promised Archer he’d be responsible for my care. He’s busy with club duties in the afternoon and well into the night, but Kael was here with me for the first few days. She’s an artist and works from home so her schedule is flexible. She’s got a good heart—she reminds me of Bronte in that way. Which made me feel like an asshole all over again.
This morning, I convinced her I was well enough to be more than bored with all the constantresting. I asked if she could get me some language books. I hate learning from an app or online. I don’t know what it is about my brain, but I like learning from books.
Kael showed me the library’s website here and made a list of the books I wanted. She asked what other books I’d like, and I told her to just surprise me, which nearly made me weep thinking about how Bronte brings me books and records.
I tell Bronte I hate it, but I’m a liar. I look forward to what she’s picked out like a kid on Christmas morning.
I never had a proper Christmas. Not until I met her.
I didn’t know what love was until Bronte and her family.
Fuck me. My eyes are burning and this time, it’s not from surgical weeping or from the pain. I’m just straight up going to start blubbering in this small, clean spare room.
It’s been two weeks since my surgery and sixteen days since I left my place.
Bronte didn’t come to Hart. She didn’t follow me. She hasn’t found me.
I reach up and carefully wipe the slick of cold sweat off my forehead with my left hand. My stomach lurches, but not from pain meds or from forcing myself to suck back nutrients. It hurt to open my mouth even to grunt, but even drinking was excruciating.
I’ve tried to develop scar tissue around my heart, layering it hard and callused as my face, but I’m as ineffective at it as I was at warding off the bruises my dad used to leave all over my body. I’ve tried to learn how to exist outside of all of it. I’ve been trying and trying, ever since I was a kid. I wish that I could create a place that I could crawl inside of where I can’t feel anything. Numbness.
I’ve never been able to shut it off.
Not my body, my head, or my heart.
I didn’t think that Bronte would listen. Iknewshe wouldn’t.
Did I push her too hard this time? Has she finally listened to me and given up?
She refused to let me face the world alone, until now.
Is it intentional? Is she waiting for me to come home, giving me space and respecting my wishes this time because she thinks it’s actually for the best and not just dumb shit I was spouting off in bitterness? I tried to get her used to the fact that I wasn’t ever going to be the man she fell in love with. That there was nothing left. Did she get tired of calling my bullshit? Has she moved on? Or is she out there, waiting for me?
If she’s gone, there’s zero point in living.
I know how ironic that fucking is.
You can only neglect a plant for so long before it withers and dies. Bronte isn’t the plant, but what existed between us, our life, our hope, our dreams, our love—that’s the plant. Has she reached her limit? Has she been slowly withering on the inside and this was just more than she could take?
I ball my left hand into a fist and ram it into the quilt that I’m lying on top of so that I don’t do something incredibly stupid and launch it right into my own face.
I’ve always had a self-destructive streak a mile fucking wide. I don’t know if I inherited some of my dad’s demons or if he beat them into me, but either way, there’s black shit in my head that I just can’t get out.
Each day I’ve waited for Bronte, sure that she’d do what it took to find me because our bond is something that can’t be severed by either of us. It defies rationale and logic. She used to tell me that we’d lived together in other lifetimes. Her and her books. I’d laugh, but secretly, I liked that.
What if she’s done with me in this life and I have to wait until I have another to find her?
I wanted to die in that hospital when I woke up and saw what had happened to my face.
I wanted to die when I was a kid, and my dad would lay into me so bad and the pain was so wretched that I couldn’t take a breath without suffering.
Thinking about a lifetime without Bronte, I’ve never wished harder not to be in existence at all.
I know if she could hear my thoughts, even if she is done with me, that she’d talk me down. She always knows just what to say. She’d give me the last of her strength, if I truly neededit, even if her heart was no longer open to me. She’d bring the sunlight with her and pack it hard into all the dark spots inside of me until I shone bright.
My dad used to put holes in the walls, mostly with his fists. I’ve never wanted to be like him, but I’m starting to understand the appeal. It’s hard, being here, feeling so much pain and being unable to get it out. I need to sculpt. It’s crawling up my throat, choking me. Sculpting is my lifeline. It’s the one thing that’s kept me from going insane. When I’ve wanted to float away, it’s kept me grounded.
