No Place Like Home ✔

Eleven

Before I let you in on the horrid deed I'd just done, allow me to explain myself thoroughly. I had attempted to read the book given to me by Adam. Not once, not twice - but thrice. However, instead of figuring out the plot or making a character sketch of James Bond in my mind, I came to terms with the fact that my attention span was much too small to read a book like that.

I found myself getting distracted by the silliest of things - such as a peculiar looking pigeon with a black band colouring around its neck, almost like a choker - or a child chasing a balloon in the far corner. Basically, I couldn't read for the life of me. 

Or maybe I was just saying that. Maybe it was just an excuse to sell the book once more. 

And so that's exactly what I did. 

I ended up selling the book, but at a different bookstore this time. I had to look far and wide since there weren't many bookstores in the area willing to buy a book from a "homeless" man. However, I finally did end up finding an appropriate store - and though the sum I made was smaller than the one I had made from selling the other book, I was still somewhat satisfied. Money is money. 

After having sold a book for the second time, I bought myself a warm cup of tea and took my seat on the chair in front of said bookstore - to take a break and whatnot. 

It was getting awfully tiring having to sit out in the scorching heat and beg. I could only imagine what the people who were truly homeless were going through. Another wave of guilt hit me - this time, it was stronger than the ones I had felt before. 

This time, it brought back all the negative things I had done in the span of a month. 

I had faked being homeless, I had lied to a potential friend, I had sold a book said potential friend had gotten for me - not once, but twice, and I was taking advantage of good people. 

Once again, let me say it; I'm a horrible person. 

I am the most horrible being to have ever stepped foot onto this planet. I am a sorry excuse for a man. I am what even the ruler of the underworld despises. I am what polluted the Earth. I am horrible.

I took a sip. 

There was another thing I had realized. I was growing much too fond of Adam Briggs. I found myself thinking about him whenever I was free and whenever I wasn't. He was the first thing I thought of every morning and the last thing I thought of every night - and when he was seated beside me, I would lose all train of thought. 

I had trouble deciphering these feelings. Perhaps it was because I had made a new friend and so I was getting overly excited. Perhaps I was beginning to form a tiny crush on this potential philosopher. 

But all that wouldn't matter once he'd find out that I had sold the book. The book he had gotten for me with his hard-earned money. 

I took a sip. 

I would often times envision my parents being with me whenever I committed what they would consider a sin. Their precious boy, their son sent from heaven, their ray of light from the Gods above, their very own blessing - was here living the ultimate lie. 

I wasn't lying just to myself, but to everyone else around me. I had become what my parents had feared. 

I was thankful they weren't here to see it, though. I was thankful that they would never have the chance to see or experience what I had turned into. But, that didn't stop me from thinking - what if they were still here? Would things be different then? Would I have a job? Would I find a decent circle of friends that love me for who I am?

Would I be this big of a liar?

And again, often times, it led to me putting the blame on them for passing away. Which was quite silly because death wasn't in their hands at that very moment - it wasn't as if they had gotten the chance to decide whether they could live or die. Death was a glooming shadow hot in their trails that unpredictable night they decided to go for a late night drive.

That unpredictable night that another individual under the influence decided just the same. 

That unpredictable night in which said individual led to the death of both my parents. 

I still remember that day clearly like it were a painting I'd been forced to stare at for a decade. When the police officers had showed up at my house and told us about what had happened. They never took us to the crime scene. 

For years I cursed the driver who had had too much to drink that night. I blamed it all on them. I even promised myself that I'd hunt them down and get back at them for taking my favourite people away from me. 

However, I soon found out that they had passed away as well. 

And then who was I to be mad at?

Nobody but myself.

I settled with blaming myself for even letting them go out that night. I should have begged them to stay. I should have begged them to go the next day. I should have begged them to take me with them. I should have begged them to go in the morning. 

And now here I was, begging on the streets. 

I took a sip. 

And then I saw him once again. Adam Briggs. 

He didn't see me, however. 

He was making his way to the bookstore I had just been in about an hour prior to his arrival. 

I took a sip.

He was about to find out just what I had done.