Phoenix
Iknew I should have fucking canceled.
To say I hadn’t gotten over what I had seen Friday night was an understatement; to say that I had even begun the process of getting over it was a lie. The video that I had seen still sat in my mind, and every moment I spent awake felt like a faster and faster descent into the pit of despair and darkness. Things weren’t getting better for me; they were still getting worse.
I should have fucking canceled. I should not have shown up and acted like a bitch around Jess. I should not have been a fucking pussy loser who moped and acted this way.
Or you should have stopped being a bitch, gone out, and acted like you fucking like her. You should have powered through. Are you a fucking pussy Pink Raven? Or are you a goddamn Phoenix?
I shook my head and walked inside, ordering the largest, most indulgent three-meat sandwich that I could. The sandwich wouldn’t do anything for my state of mind, not a goddamn thing, but at least it made me feel some sort of artificial strength to be able to devour it so easily and quickly.
But the feeling was quick and fleeting, and just like that, I was back to beating myself up for being such a fucking idiot. Jess was cool. Jess was hot. Jess was a catch.
A catch that I could have easily snared, but instead, I’d not only not caught her, I’d actively sabotaged my efforts to grab onto her.
What a fucking mess I was. And all because of my father...
Your father, the traitor?
“No, that’s fucking bullshit!”
Yes, I said those words out loud. Yes, I probably looked like a crazy homeless person just blabbering swears out loud, as if I had Tourette’s. I certainly noticed the patrons looking at me with confusion and a little bit of fear.
And no, I did not give a single flying fuck. It’s not like they were going to bar me for life because of one single outburst—and if they did, fuck ‘em. They could go rot in hell like the Black Reapers for all I cared.
The club that your father loved and adored for decades.
The club that your father—
I had to leave before I literally started smashing the table in front of me out of frustration. I slammed the sandwich wrapper into the nearest trash can and left as everyone stared at me, wondering who this biker dude was that had halted their entire store.
It was too bad, really. The sandwich tasted damn good. The entire staff would probably hate my guts for the foreseeable future.
Once I got to my bike, I took a couple of deep breaths, closing my eyes to focus on my breathing for calming. My anger subsided a little bit—not a ton, not enough to change my mood, but enough to help me make sense of what had just happened.
I had fucked up with Jess. Maybe not permanently, she had invited me to see her at the billiards bar, but I’d fucked up.
And my father...
My father...
Shit, I had to ask the question. I really had to ask the tough question.
Was he actually a… a traitor?
Did Lane, Butch, and the rest of the fucking Black Reapers have a point?
Did my father... did my father deserve death?
Such questions still infuriated me. But they no longer saddled me with crippling levels of anger. I realized there was an element of... maybe not truth, but from a certain point of view, there were reasons to have doubt. I hated to fucking say it to myself, let alone out loud. It felt like a betrayal of my father.
But I guess I could hide from the truth for only so long. I wasn’t admitting to myself that my father was a rat, but I was admitting to myself there was a chance that he was a rat.
If I had named myself Phoenix because I had risen out of the graves of Pink Raven and my father, maybe both my father and his legacy really had to die...
You need to go see him.
Maybe that will help.
