“Get up,” Ma shouts in an angry voice as she whips the covers off me. “This ends now, Dillon. I am not going to stand by and watch you throw your life away.”
“Fuck off.” Lifting my head, I glare at her before tugging the covers back over me. “It’s summer holidays. I’ll get up when I fucking want to.”
“You’ll get up now, young man.” She moves for the duvet again, but I curl it around my body and hold on to it with a tight grip. “You have chores to do.”
I haven’t lifted a finger to help out since that fateful night. “Fuck chores. Fuck life.” I have a vise grip on the duvet, and we tussle as she tries to pull it off me, and I cling more possessively to it.
“Dillon, please.” She gives up a few seconds later. “If you won’t tell me what’s wrong, at least talk to your sister.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I repeat for the umpteenth time. “You’re like a broken record, and you’re giving me a fucking headache. Just go away and let me sleep.”
“I want to know what happened. You were perfectly fine leaving for boxing that Thursday, and all of this started the next day.” The bed dips as she sits down. “Did someone hurt you? Please tell me.”
“For the last fucking time, Ma, no one hurt me,” I lie. “And nothing happened. This is the new me. Get used to it.” Anger burns like acid in my gut, and I squash the need to scream from the top of my lungs. Inside, I’m screaming all the time, and it’s exhausting.
She vigorously shakes her head. “This isn’t you. This angry person saying all these cruel things is not my son.”
“I’m not yours!” I shout, pushing up on my elbows. “I’m just some stray you took in, and I bet you regret it. Well don’t worry,Mother, I’ll be eighteen in five months, and I’ll get out of your hair then.”
Tears roll down her cheeks, and a sharp pain stabs me in the chest. “That isn’t true, and you’re not leaving.”
“You can’t stop me.” I sit up against the headrest and reach for my cigarette box, plucking a joint I premade and lighting it up.
“There is no smoking in the house, Dillon.” She tries to grab the joint, but I stretch my arm up out of reach.
“This is my room, and I’ll do what the fuck I like in it.”
She closes her eyes for a few seconds. When she reopens them, they are flooded with concern that only pisses me off. She should hate me. Why doesn’t she? “Is this about Ash? Because what happened to her was not your fault. Just like you’re not responsible for what happened between her and Cillian. No one has done more for your sister than you.”
“Get out of my room, Ma,” I say before taking a toke of my joint. “I have nothing to say to you.”
The rational part of my brain knows I’m taking my anger out on the wrong people, but the fucked-up part of my brain can’t stop the fury coating my skin like a blanket. No one gets it. There is nothing anyone can say that will make this better. I’m just angry twenty-four-seven. Every word, every look, and every action aggravates me. My only respite is anesthetizing myself with booze, weed, and women or losing myself in music.
Music lets me channel my pain into art. Music isn’t looking to dig into my head and understand the workings of my brain. It’s not trying to coax me into speaking when I have nothing to say. It doesn’t try to force my emotions to the surface to purge them.
Music just lets me be.
“Why are you still here?” I snap when I realize Ma is still in the room. I blow smoke circles in her face, knowing how much she hates when I do that.
“I’m beginning to think you’re possessed by some demon or evil spirit,” she says, standing. “Maybe I need to call Father Mannion.”
“Try it and see what happens.” I puff on my joint and blow more smoke in her direction. “I’ll strangle the fucker with his rosary beads before he can spout any religious crap about God and how everything happens for a reason. Fuck God. And fuck Father Mannion.” What the fuck has God ever done for me? He killed my mother to give me life and saddled me with an evil prick for a sperm donor and a selfish bastard for a brother. My own flesh and blood didn’t want me, and despite what my parents have said, I know they only took me in out of pity. Girls are happy to spread their legs for me, but none of them want me forme.
No one wants the real me.
I’m forever destined to be the reject, second best, a charity case.
“You can’t say those things about Father Mannion, Dillon. Take them back. It’ll be a black stain on your soul.”
“My soul is already pitch-black, Mother.” I crack up laughing. She’s just too funny.
“What’s so funny?” Ash asks, materializing in my doorway.
“There is nothing funny about blasphemy.” Ma plants her hands on her hips. “And your soul is not pitch-black, Dillon. It’s just troubled.”
I laugh harder as Ash steps into my room.
“Blasphemy?” Her forehead wrinkles as she looks to me to reply.
