Page 84 of Stupid Dirty

His voice makes my blood rush with anger, and adrenaline dumps into me so abruptly my fingers tingle with it. I see him saunter over, calm as anything, as if he isn’t about to ruin his own son’s life for the chance to squeeze a little more money out of him.

“You selfish, sadistic piece of shit,” I hiss. “What the fuck did you say to him?”

Travis looks shocked, but not afraid of me, which is his first mistake. He comes to a stop a few feet away, looking both of us over, clearly taking in the sight of my tears and Silas’ quiet distress.

“Silas, what does Kyle Waters’ son want from you?”

Silas’ eyes dart between us, but he stays silent. This would have been a difficult conversation under the best circumstances, let alone like this.

I don’t care, though. I don’t care about Silas wanting to keep things calm. I don’t care about whatever sick sense of loyalty hestill has to his father. All I care about is getting him as far away from Travis as I can.

Looking at him right now, I know that if he goes back to racing and being alone, he’ll end up dead. Maybe it’ll seem like an accident. Maybe he’ll even think it’s an accident when it happens. But he’ll get more and more shut down until he’s so detached from his life that he can’t even protect it anymore. And I won’t be there to stop him.

Anguish rushes through me in a searing wave as I accept the inevitability of it all. I cover my face in my hand for just a second while I bite back a sob. I have no control here. It’s all fluttering just out of my reach, and no matter how fast I run, I can’t catch up.

When my hand comes away from my face, the anguish is replaced by rage. If I can’t stop this from happening, then anger is the only thing I have left. Before I realize what’s happening, I’ve crossed the distance over to Travis, grabbed him by the shirt, and slammed him into the wall.

His breath comes out in a satisfyingwhoosh. He’s caught so off-guard, he barely puts up a fight, and the animal in me is ready to pound him until his face is nothing but blood and gore.

I only get one punch in before Silas pulls me off him. I have all the physical advantages when it comes to fighting Travis, but Silas will always be stronger than me. He pins my arms to my side with his bulk, dragging me away from his dad while I kick and curse at him like a maniac.

“Cade, stop!” Silas pushes me a few feet away, putting himself between me and Travis, his arms outstretched. I can see Travis rubbing at his jaw, so I know I made contact. It’s satisfying, but it’s so much less than he deserves.

“Silas, please. Don’t listen to him. He’s the reason you can’t go to a race without having a fucking panic attack. He’s the one who got you banned in the first place. I’ll leave him alone. Let’s justgo, please. You don’t have to see him anymore. I’ll take care of you. I promise. Please, Silas.”

I’m begging. I’m begging and on the verge of crying again, but I don’t care. I’ll get down on my knees if I have to. I’ll promise him anything if he lets me protect him from this.

But Silas’ robotic, impassive mask is back in place. He won’t even look at me when he speaks again, continuing to stand between me and his father.

“I need you to leave, Cade. Forget you ever knew me and go.”

My heart wrenches as I turn around, but I’m out of options. Silas has been torn between his old life and the one I’m offering him for a while now, and he finally made his choice.

And I’m not it.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The devastation on Cade’s face as he turns and runs away from me feels like the final nail in my coffin.

I always thought it was a fight between Dad and Cade for where my loyalties lie. But the last twenty-four hours have shown me that the only thing I’ll ever be loyal to is my own fucked-up insecurities.

Knowing that doesn’t change anything. Just because I know that there’s something wrong with my brain doesn’t mean I’m not right. All I do is cause problems for Cade and force him to clean up my messes. It’s better that we get a clean break before he wastes any more of his energy trying to save me.

My old self—the self that excels at being numb and emotionless—takes over. I move around the house in a daze, mechanically packing up the house. It’s not like we ever bothered to buy more furniture, so everything we own will still fit into Dad’s truck. The numbness fills my head with white noise, helping me ignore the sound of Dad calling Cade and his family names while he ices his jaw.

He keeps up his running commentary all night, and I keep ignoring him. Instead of sleeping, I spend my last night in this house staring at the same water stain as always. It feels like I should have something profound to say. Maybe I should say goodbye to Mom. I’m too tired to think of anything good, though, so I stay quiet.

In the morning, I take a final look around the house that I grew up in while I wait for Dad to pull himself together. Hopefully, this time we won’t come back. I don’t think I could bear it.

Home.This is the place I’ve come closest to death. The idea of having a ‘home’ is almost laughable.

My family was fucked from the beginning. Dad was a hotshot rider and Mom was just another pit bunny. When they experienced Cade’s worst nightmare and found out they were having me, they had a shotgun wedding and he set her up in the house he inherited from his own miserable, dead parents. Mom’s parents were churchy. They didn’t approve of her life to begin with, and apparently marrying a coked-out dirt bike rider was the last straw. I don’t think she ever heard from them again.

Dad knocked her up, married her, and then left her here alone. She wasn’t even from this state, so she didn’t have any friends. It was just an empty house and a baby on the way that she didn’t know how to take care of. All while he was off living his dream.

Even after I was born, he was barely around. It took him a long time to notice she was sick, I think. He calls it “baby blues” to this day, which is a very cute name for something that sounds like it destroys your mind from the inside out. When they first got together, she was the life of the party, according to Dad. She was non-stop energy and chaos. His wistful, liquor-fueled descriptions of her in those days kind of remind me of Cade.

Then I was born, and she just stopped. He told himself that all she needed was more time to adjust and went back on his tour.

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