Page 44 of Make Me Scream
The only proof I have of my real birthday, and I’m about to obliterate it.
With shaking hands and a racing heart, I bring the orange flame beneath the photo where Lucy’s face is and watch as it slowly melts through the instant film. The plastic and chemicals are consumed by the flames, producing smoke as it smolders out, eating its way through the photograph.
I watch my infant face slowly melt away into nothing, and I find something painfully apt about that.
As the photograph is eaten, a few random sparks shoot out, making me jolt and drop the Polaroid into the basin of the sink.Ash scatters, staining the bowl. “Shit.” I reach down to grab it, but it’s nearly consumed in its entirety at this point, and I have no choice but to watch me and my mother, locked in a memory eighteen years prior, incinerate like we were always meant to.
By the time there’s nothing but ashes and stains left, my chest aches, and my face itches from tears long since dried in their paths down my cheeks. I’m hollow and resolute, and I feel not one bit better about what I’ve done, but it’s over with now, and I can’t go back.
What good has it done me anyway, holding onto something like that? It’s never been proof enough in the eyes of Child Protective Services. All it’s been is Lucy’s handwriting on a photograph—nothing more, nothing less. A photograph they can’t prove is even me.
My word against the world’s—and it counts for nothing.
I’m still stuck in this vicious cycle. Forced to go where they tell me, required to follow the trail each person in front of me has taken. And ithurts.Knowing it doesn’t matter who I am and what I want. That I don’t want to go and that maybe—just fuckingmaybe—I’m finallycontent?
Because fuck Bill and Lucy and everyone else in the world. Elise has been a savior from the highest heavens. I have no idea what thehellI did to deserve her presence in my devilish life, but the fact she’s about to be ripped away tells me all I need to know.
It was always supposed to happen this way.
Fate isn’t a thing, but perhaps circumstance is more relatable, the roll of the dice and all that. I get beat up; Elise is working the ER that night. She takes care of me, and Bill makes some calls, etcetera.
Her son being Peris was the best fucking wrench of all—one that makes me want to lean toward the best twist of a possible fate—if it ever were to exist becausewhatare the fuckingchances that the boy I had become wildly obsessed with was now my foster brother?
And now… now we’re a filthy mirage, and I can’t tell my way up from the bottom of this endless illusion.
He’s different now—sincesheshowed up. Clinging low and close, refusing to leave my side. Acting like he actually cares, then going andburning my fucking dick—as hot as that was,I musewith a smirk.
I don’t know… Ican’tknow how to handle any of this. The hot, the cold, every aching thing in between. It’s whiplash of the worst kind, and I’m about to snap my fucking neck from the force of it all.
Am I supposed to hold on and fight? Is that what Peris expects of me?
I laugh coldly at the thought, dragging my fingers through the cooled ash, smearing it across the white porcelain,staining it.
It’s like, even after all this time, he still has no idea who the fuck I am.
I’m Abel Silver, and I’m a selfish fucking bastard. I take what I want, and I do what I want—everyone else be damned. I’ve been living in a dream world, and it’s about time I’ve had my reality check. Because when it comes to my survival, no one else matters, and it’s about goddamn time I get back into that headspace.
I slammy door with tears in my eyes, hating myself more than I have in my entire life. With each deep, shuddering breath,I inhale the chemicals Peris smelled on me and in the room, feeling guilt gnaw at me with each intake, hating myself just a little more—but with that feeling comes a little more calm.
I can deal with self-hatred. I’m intimately familiar with it.
But I can still feel his fingers wrapped so delicately around my throat, I nearly scoff.Delicateis far from the right word. He held me harshly and tightly, but itfeltlike I was his little doll he was holding still for closer inspection—to check for cracks or broken pieces.
And that’s what nearly breaks me.
How fuckingdifferenthe’s been.
He’s not the Peris I’m used to—the mean, vile, repulsive,angryboy I’d come to know and… regard. I mean, he’s still the same angry boy, but his disgust with me, his revulsion with himself… it’s still there. I sense it in the quick flashes of his eyes before he leans closer. A quick wince before he touches me, but it’s like his… hisobsessionhas taken hold, and he’sdifferent.
No longer is he vile, but he shares these tender moments that make me utterly fuckingsickbecause what thefuck.
This isnotwhat I wanted from him and with him.
I want the wrathful Peris from August. He is much easier to stomach… because I can say goodbye to him.
I…
I don’t think I can say goodbye to this Peris.
