Carter/Hollywood
Damn, I'm nervous as fuck!
Dante's coming home.
My best friend, my cousin. Or rather, I should say, my ex-dead best friend, my ex-dead cousin, is coming home.
After Dante’s death, Bruno and I became closer than ever, but he never could fill Dante’s shoes, nobody could.
Damn, it took me many years of alcohol to get over the fact that my friend was dead. I needed him so bad I even talked to him when I was alone, thinking he was listening to me from the great beyond.
What a fucking idiot I was.
While I was telling him my sorrows, he was probably being flogged with a leather whip.
Bruno didn't tell me what condition he was in, and I'm really afraid to ask. Ten years of slavery could break anyone, change him completely, he'd could even be a whole new person.
Carter, you have to get used to it; I kept telling myself.
He is not going to be the same Dante you knew anymore; he probably doesn't remember you, anyway.
* * *
“Do you think I'm going to marry Mandy?” Dante asked me while he was buttoning a shirt in front of the mirror.
He was such a pussy. This is the third date, and he was already in love with the most requested girl of the school.
“Calm your balls, man!” I yell as I throw a pillow right to his face. “Seriously, you're still in fucking high school and you're already thinking about getting married? What the fuck?!”
He looks at me in the mirror reflection and makes that soap opera face I hate so much.
“Are you afraid I'm gonna get married and forget about you, you idiot?” He turns and walks to his bathroom to put on that horrible perfume that used to drive women crazy.
He took as long as my mom to dress. He was in every fucking detail, hair gel, imported perfume, the best clothes. Yes, the man was a prince.
I was simpler, always dressed in my favorite band’s T-shirts, they were worn out and stretched and my jeans were torn. I preferred to wear this outfit for several reasons. It made the daddy’s boys of my high school respect me more and because of my father. Yes, he was a pain in the ass and when he saw me with better clothes; he yelled at me, because that made him feel small.
Less of a man.
Whatever you want to call it.
When Dante came out of the bathroom, dragging his disgusting perfume around the room, he still had his arrogant face.
“And? Are you?” he asks.
“Am I what?” I asked back pretending that the playboy magazine was more interesting than him.
“Afraid of losing me...”
Without answering, this time I threw the magazine straight at his eye. I wasn't going to answer him.
Of course I was afraid!
Dante and Bruno were my only relatives that I really cared about. My uncles; not so much. For starters, my aunt made me nervous as shit with that fake smile of hers and my good ol’ uncle; well, let’s just say he was my father's brother, I hated him just for sharing the same blood.
* * *
I always remember that day, because I spent the whole night thinking about what would happen with me if I didn't have my cousins. I assumed that eventually I would end up dead by my father's hands or by some overdose, therefore, I wouldn't have to deal with such a loss.
