A Single Stroke ✔️

38: Cigarettes

I wanted to confront my dad. I wanted to tear him apart. But with my best hand in a cast, I was useless. And his outbursts were the most violent they'd ever been. He now knew I would fight back at all costs. That realization alone enraged him. Not to mention, he'd wonder why I needed my money in the first place and I wasn't sure what he was fully capable of anymore.

I did tell him I was done giving him checks. Since I no longer could paint, I wasn't earning money. Therefore, I had nothing to give him.

Of course it was a total lie. Soon I'd be making money again from my new waiter job.

He was furious at first. "How will we pay for rent?" He yelled.

"Find a fucking job," I told him. "If you hadn't gotten fired for drinking on your last job, we wouldn't be having this problem." He called me a liar, yet he was a liar and a thief. He deserved to rot in prison.

But he was still my dad. My only dad, my only living parent. My heart ached deeply for our lost relationship. I did wish we could live together like a regular father and son. But he didn't want to save anything. He did everything he could to sever all possibilities of any kind of relationship.

I did have all the money that was left in my college savings transferred to my summer savings accounts. He couldn't have that. When he'd try taking it out, he could just assume he used it all up and be forced to find another job.

I gave up trying to write with my left hand. The teachers let me voice record notes on my phone. I got more stares than ever since I had the cast, and I heard so much gossip I couldn't help but always put my beats on at the start of every class.

"Ooh, he's scrappy."

"I can tell."

"You know last year he fought Max Harding and won?"

"Dang, that's so hot."

"Yeah, he's so bad."

"How did he get the cast again?"

"Well...I heard he might be in a gang. His fights aren't ever in the school; he just shows up with bruises and whatnot, so they've gotta be street fights. Those are the real deal."

"So hot."

I pulled one headphone from my ear and looked towards my right. "Yeah you know what I also heard? He's actually a Zombie Slayer at night. That's why you never see the dead walking the streets in the day."

Both girls flushed bright red and their jaws dropped.

I smirked. Could I really make girls react this way just by speaking a few words to them? I kind of liked having that sort of power. I wondered what else my new reputation had earned me. Maybe it was time to start putting some theories to the test. What did I have to lose? I'd already lost everything.

When I turned back around, I caught Brynn's eye. I felt like she knew what I was thinking, the ideas that crossed my mind. I winked at her. She rolled her eyes and bared her teeth in disgust.

She was the only girl left in the school who still hated my guts. For some pathetically odd reason, I found comfort in that. Like maybe the old me hadn't completely vanished.

* * *

A few days later, I hung out in the parking lot after school. With my elbows propped on my knees, I sat on the curb and watched cars pull out of the parking lot to go home.

"Hey. Can I sit?"

My eyes remained straight ahead on Max Harding and Jacob Warner laughing next to a white car. Jacob playfully shoved Max into the car. Three other guys chuckled with them and one whispered before pointing at a girl with long black hair and probably the curviest body in the school. She walked past, oblivious. While her body was nicer than most girls in the school, I knew she was just a freshman by who she hung out with.

When her eyes jumped to me, she offered a small smile and a half-wave. Max followed her eyes and scowled at me.

An idea took shape. It involved Max and Jacob.

Someone sat next to me and I looked over. Wonderful. Ellie Matson.

"Don't talk to me."

"You're meaner than I remember."

"I don't like you."

"I don't expect you to."

"We kissed, that doesn't mean we're friends."

"Fine. That's kind of backwards...but fine."

We sat in silence several minutes. Then she offered me a cigarette.

"I don't..." I stared at the pack. I never tried it before, but why hadn't I? Was it really that bad?

I grabbed one from the pack and put it between my teeth. With a zippo lighter, she lit the end.

I inhaled slowly but my lungs burned and I erupted in coughs. With my pointer and middle finger, I pulled the cig from my teeth. "That's disgusting."

She laughed. "You get used to it."

Did I want to get used to it? Hell, why not? Life wanted to totally destroy me. Other people wanted to destroy me. At least by taking the cigarette, I was choosing to destroy myself.

I tried again. The second time was better, but I still coughed.

"I've heard people say you had blue hair last semester. Is that true?"

"I'm not talking about last semester."

"Okay. I'll take that as a yes."

"Why are you talking to me?"

She brought her own cigarette to her lips. "You were never like the other guys."

"Mm." I nodded and tossed the cigarette to the ground before crushing it beneath my shoes. Then I rose to my full height. "Not doing this again."

"Do what again?"

"Nothing. Thanks for the smoke, don't talk to me again." And I walked off in the opposite direction.

Max and Jacob's eyes followed me as I went. I delivered the darkest look I could manage as a threat. Soon they'd be at my feet. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't. But I had to at least try.

* * *

I didn't want to go through with my new plan, but what else was I supposed to do? I was at a loss. I had to get out of my dad's house somehow. Without my college savings, I was basically starting over. Maybe my new plan would work. Maybe not.

I lay on my back in my bed and stared up at the ceiling. Not only was I thinking about the prison I was stuck in, but I thought about the person who left me here alone.

I hoped she was okay.

No one knew where she went. No one cared to ask why. Sometimes I wondered if she had...if she had...maybe she succeeded in...but the thought scared me so I pushed it away.

I never would know unless she contacted me first. But unlike last semester, I wasn't going to wait on her. I wasn't going to wait at all. Sometimes people left your life and you never knew why. You couldn't wait for them forever.

Wanna know the saddest thing of all?

Sometimes those people never knew you would've waited a lifetime for them.

So even though it pained me, I decided Brynn was right: you couldn't save everyone. And with no way to contact her, I had no other choice.

I decided to let her go.