"Before the first attack Guy was quiet and reserved because he felt he had no choice but he's smart and he had a plan to escape my family and his mother. After the stabbing he still had a plan but slowly we started to turn the family around and he was gradually coming out of his shell and he told us that he wasn't going to try to run away anymore and with my daughter came up with a new plan for himself. It didn't have many details but he said he felt like he was finally home," I listen and add.
"And now here I am and I've screwed him up worse," I state and he stops and shakes his head at me.
"No, that's not even close to the actual problem. When he was in the hospital all he wanted was to come home. As soon as he's home he starts asking for things, Lori thinks it's him trying to step out of his shell and I try to help but what he asks for isn't like him. He was always very… poorly dressed. Ugly t-shirts, old beat up jeans and a week after the second time someone screwed him up he wants suits and he's spending money on things he never would have before. I got a few of the billing statements because the card is on my account and I don't know what he needed small surveillance equipment for but he bought it. Then there is a rental car that I don't understand why he needs it and this whole time my family is telling me he's alright when I think he's doing something that could get himself hurt or killed," Lori's husband is right to be concerned and he got all that out without stopping to think on his words, definitely a lawyer.
"Well we're probably going to leave town in a few days once Gwen and Lori get caught up. I know that there wasn't anything good to come from showing up after so long. I just couldn't bring myself to deal with how… grand my failure as a father to him is," I tell this husband to my ex wife and he nods.
"I didn't do a good job of step fathering either but I am going to ask you to stay," he gets the words out and immediately I can think of four reasons to leave," Hear me out, Lori will need time with Gwen and vice versa. Also I am just going to guess that if you try to drag your daughter away after the first try she's going to bury her feet in the dirt and make things worse."
"Pretty accurate so far, how did you guess about Gwen," I ask and he smiles a little.
"I married her mother, no offense," he is trying to be funny and I'm not mad about it," but the biggest thing is Guy is hiding something. He's open and obvious about everything all the time. People who do that are usually the ones hiding the worst things and I need help if we're going to keep this family from imploding around him."
He's got a point on a couple things and it looks like swallowing my pain and soldiering on is the current order of business. We talk a little more and Gwen pulls me back in so the three of us can talk and go over some of the missing history pieces but all through it I can tell we're thinking the same thing. We need Guy here to help us as much as him.
Guy: Right now, again.
I want blood now. I want blood to rain from the sky and I want to dance in it like Gene Kelly. Then I want fire, I want to watch everyone burn and listen to the pop of their bones in the heat. I have everything I need actually; I can start this now and just get everything over within one good rampage.
No, No, stop him.
Give me a freaking minute okay; I kind of like this.
Plan; remember your fucking plan Guy. Acting now is rash and reckless, you are smarter than that. You are better than that and you know it.
Oh thank you.
Hey long term is bigger and better, we both agreed.
Sydney, I can go to Sydney's house and we can talk and her parents will be there to help me keep my control over the situation. What a fucking situation, Dad shows up. Where the fuck did he come from… okay he said Montana but I mean metaphorically. Gone for almost a decade and when everything has already been put into a blender of shit and piss. Oh and I had a sister that literally nobody bothered to tell me about at any point in time during the whole of my life. Yeah she was kidnapped when I was a baby but what about when I was eight or nine years old. Hell, how about explaining to me that Mom missing her was what drove her to drink and that my Mom is less of a piece of shit than I thought for years? I left everyone there because all they were going to do was get in my way and complicate a simple situation, and prove that I was the least important thing in the room.
I'm outside Syd's parent's home and there are no cars. I get out and make it to the front door knocking and nobody answers. I don't remember if her family had plans but they must have because nobody is home. Well who am I going to talk to now? I'm back in my car and after driving for an hour I'm still angry and after filling up the tank swing into my hole and find even Jackie, the live-in tenant I'm helping, is gone. Nobody to talk to so now what. I change into something lighter and head to the gym. Mark might find me if he comes in but I can just ask him to tell everyone I'm fine but not coming home right now and he'll help. Saturday at the gym is pretty busy since most people who work during the week are trying to get themselves looking slightly better by Monday or they're looking for someone as desperate as they are for attention. I run, use free weights and find myself at the full contact room staring at a small class of women as an instructor goes over proper evasion and neutralization. It's a male instructor and I watch as he runs them through drills on how to get out of different holds as I head past and I see an anatomically correct standing dummy and the switch gets flipped. Running full speed and I hit it with a knee strike in the throat knocking it over. I hit the mat and roll, shift my weight and charge the now 'prone' victim and grab the head and twist at the jaw and the back of the head hard and I hear a metallic pop. I stand up over my victim and there are more than a few people staring at the now broken neck of a target dummy and I snarl at it before stepping over the corpse and heading to the showers. I'm leaving the gym not tired and it's barely the afternoon. I wonder if they'll make me pay for the dummy I 'killed'. I head out and figure it's time to hit the mall, why not I mean I'm a teenager and it's Saturday, also I almost never go to the mall so nobody will think to look for me there.
I don't want to see a movie; it'll distract me from remembering my plans. I don't really need to buy anything but I do want some food and hit the food court. Chinese food is my choice today and it's not bad considering it's made by Mexican cooks. I eat and sit quietly debating how to handle the reappearance of Dad and what I said. I really don't need him and the fact that he could have come for me years ago really burns. I pop the lid on my soda by squeezing the paper cup and realize I'm not calming down thinking about it. I fix my cup but its all goofy looking now and throw my trash away when I see her but she doesn't see me I don't think. Jenna is in the mall and not in a fashion I've ever seen her in. She's dressed down in loose jeans and a sweatshirt, her usual cascading hair in a pony tail and no makeup. Quick scan of the area and I see nobody watching her or her looking for anything in particular when my brain says follow her.