WP EXCLUSIVE | old/unedited | #1 in freetheboy, traumacore, boyscrytoo, and cynicism | Genre(s): realistic, psychological, new adult fiction.
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Eighteen-year-old Tyler Petrit is tired. He's tired of his drug-addicted father always blaming him f...
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Despite getting stuck in the waiting room for a nail-biting amount of time, a prosthodontist is able to put my tooth back in, thankfully. He tells me to check in every three to six months and asks me (again) if I know what could've caused this. I ask if smoking could've because I'm still not saying anything incriminating. That shit rots your teeth as much as your lungs. The doc says maybe. I plead the fifth after that, reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and watching Public Access TV.
Public Access TV is like an acid trip, except I'm not fucking hallucinating and the weird shit I'm seeing in front of me is real. I've had the time of my life watching some of this shit while tripping out. Some call-in hotline show is on in the background, and I'm listening to the callers berate the hosts while I stare at the ceiling.
Polly drags Bianca, Gio, and Orion down here to visit me. Orion announces he's getting rid of all his R. Kelly CDs because he's finally accepted the fucker's a huge creep who illegally married a (young) teenage girl after messing up some others. Bianca adds that she read the new autobiography by Anne Sexton's daughter, where the woman implies Anne sexually abused her as a child, and Bianca can't get over how much it shocked her. The whole thing makes me nauseous. When one pedo disappears, two others pop up. It never fucking ends.
Polly changes the subject and wants to know where her Bikini Kill CD is.
"Uh, you left it in my car and I, y'know, crashed it," I murmur.
"It's definitely gone?"
"Yeah. What's it called? I'll buy it for you as soon as I can. The least I can do is get your shit back when you gave me a place to live."
She grins. "The CD Version of the First Two Records."
"Noted."
"Oh, you can buy a new CD for a girl you just met, but you didn't have the decency to not fucking abandon your best friend," Gio snarls.
"I told you, I know I shouldn't have and I'm sorry. What else do you want me to say? I'm sorry. We can't go back."
"When I feel like talking to you again, you better have a fucking good excuse. You're a fucking mess. Crashing your car was karma for leaving me behind."
"One, karma's bullshit. Two, it was intentional, so it wouldn't have been karma, anyway."
"Why the fuck would you intentionally crash your car, dipshit?"
"I'll give you ten seconds. Think of everything you know about me and you'll figure it out," I respond flatly. "I'm not blurting it out when I barely know three of the four people in here."
"...Because you're a dumbass?"
"No. Well, yes, but no."
"You were being a drunk dumbass who cared more about drugs than the people you claimed to love. Can't think of any other reason."
