ℂ𝕒𝕦𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕖𝕠𝕟 𝔾𝕝𝕠𝕨 ➃

62. One And The Same - ✭ Boston ✭

After staying a couple of months in Virginia it felt good to be back home, especially now that Monica was right alongside me. We'd decided that Vegas was going to be the place for us, not Tennessee and most certainly not Virginia. Nevada is where I call home and Monica had no objections to calling it hers as well.

The shop was all set up in Nashville, thanks to Vikki and Hugo intermittently taking charge of things for me. I mean they really had nothing to complain about since I was flying them into Tennessee, paying for their hotel rooms, and giving them time and a half to get everything up and in order. Those couple of months I didn't do much but be with Monica whenever she was out of class.

I would sketch that damp dark cell that I'd been kept in repeatedly. Then I'd burn the images one by one. It was a cathartic experience to say the least because for a few weeks after the incident I had had horrible night terrors.

I'd wake up in the middle of the night after seeing Monica with that needle in her neck. I'd think about all the fucked up things I'd been told was going to happen to Monica if they'd gotten their hands on her. My mental state was more than a tad fucked for a straight four weeks. The man to blame for the entire thing was my own fucking father to boot.

He'd tried to talk to me before he'd left but I wanted nothing to do with him. When he'd insisted it turned into a giant blowout which had everyone in the penthouse finding some excuse to leave. Even Monica and her father had made themselves scarce after he'd coaxed her to leave the two of us to sort things. By the end of the argument our relationship was worse than it ever had been and that's saying something considering our relationship has always been rather shit.

I was happy I'd chosen a different life, to be entirely different from the man I'd grown to loathe. In that argument I'd told him that I would never put my family in that kind of danger. I would never put my child in harms way over pussy and a business deal. In that argument I'd realized how so unlike my father I actually am, how much better of a father I'd be than him. That had also messed with my head a bit as well.

Monica would ask me every now and again what I was thinking about when I'd stare off into space. Nine times out of ten it was the fact that I was reconsidering the future I'd once deemed myself to have— a single loner with no family tying him down. There would be no children to pass on genetic defects to. No wife to end up resenting me down the road. But here I am young, married, and thinking about how I'd be a much better father than the one that'd brought me into this world.

"You're doing it again." I shake my head, ridding myself of the thoughts rolling around in it. "You're staring off into the abyss. Will you tell me what you're thinking about finally?"

I wasn't sure if I could or how she would take it. I didn't want to get her hopes up when I could potentially change my mind. I didn't want to give her a reason to leave me when we were finally together again. She was here, moving in with me, unpacking her things in our room, our home. I didn't want her running out on me as soon as she'd gotten here. So, instead of giving her an answer I just shrug.

"I hate that you won't tell me what's on your mind, Boston. We talked about this. We said we'd be open with one another about everything." She grabs ahold of my hand and looks up into my eyes with an unsure face. "Are you having second thoughts about me moving in with you?"

"No. God no, Monica." I grab her hand back fiercely. "I'm not thinking that at all." She looks unconvinced and I hate it. "Listen, I've been having second thoughts about some things in my life but not you. Never you. You've never been something I've ever wanted to reconsider."

"But you are reconsidering something?" I give her a nod but nothing else which makes her face fall. "I wish you would just tell me. I will understand whatever it is. I'm not going to judge you for it. You can talk to me."