“Prove it?”
I pretended not to understand, but I already knew where he was going.
“Yeah, prove it.”
I held the tiny baggie I found in my jacket pocket between my fingers.
“How?”
Will hinted at a mischievous grin, and went to her.Will, I love you, but that’s a real dick move.I rolled my eyes, letting the psychedelic lights pierce my eyes. No. I didn’t want to know a fucking thing about those two. Now I’ll stay here, find a girl and . . .
Damn it, why did I feel such intense and visceral concern when I saw her smile with him?
“Hey, Jamie. You’re here too. They asked me for my ID, can you believe it?”
Sammy’s tiny figure twirled me around.
“Anastasia.” She trembled when I bent down to whisper against her cheek.
“Look, James, I don’t have cash.”
“And then I don’t have anything,” I retorted, fully aware that she wanted drugs.
“Come on.”
She looked at me. Her eyes were so big that they made her look like a deer in the headlights, but that didn’t work with me anymore. Austin wanted me to sell the drugs and bring him money, not for me to be a charity.
“Ask your friend with the tongue piercing.” I provoked her, looking at the girl with mahogany hair with her. “And you know she has a piercing . . .” I was too drunk one night, and the girl with the piercing had brought me home. I found that out then, and not because she’d kissed me or stuck her tongue out.
Sammy stopped to glare at me from below. “Asshole,” I heard her say through clenched teeth.
“You should be more convincing with him,” the other said, moving toward me. “We’ll settle up next time, Hunter,” the redhead tried to convince me.
“Open your mouth.”
I put a colorful pill on the girl’s tongue. She let the cold metal of her piercing slide along my fingertip, making me shiver.
“This time it’s on me, but next time . . .”
Sammy didn’t let me finish because she quickly threw her arms around my neck to give me a peck on the lips. Then she put a hand in my jacket pocket to take what she wanted.
“Thanks, James. I love you.” Sure.
And when I realized I’d put up with enough boredom, I went to the bathroom. I didn’t care if it was dirty, crowded, or dark. I glanced fleetingly, almost involuntarily, at myself in the mirror. I bent over; my reflection disappeared for a moment and then came right back. My eyes had changed. The rest was the same. I looked like my dad. The man who every once in a while reappeared in my childhood just to bring me and my brothers to doctors. Because if Jasper’s condition was correctly diagnosed when he was four, things weren’t as simple with me. When my mom found out the news, she fell into a depression and was convinced that I needed a doctor, too, because I was the real problem child. The one who got bad grades in school because he didn’t listen, the one who didn’t study because he couldn’t sit in a seat for more than five minutes and got into trouble time and time again. And doctors listened to her and diagnosed me with ADHD, supporting the theory of the woman who’d brought me into the world that I was hyperactive and confused.
But as I grew up, that diagnosis turned out to be wrong. Two doctors confirmed that my issue was behavioral, not neurological. But the confusion remained and continued throughout my adolescence.
I didn’t let them see that I was confused about everything, even my sexual preferences. Girls turned me on in a primordial, almost violent way.
While in men, I first sought conflict then their approval. And if that wasn’t enough, I was tremendously confused by my mom’s behavior, which went from not realizing she had two kids to continually taking them to psychiatrists and child psychotherapists. But the diagnosis in and of itself didn’t change anything. She was the one who repeatedly told me that I was weird; if a doctor said the same thing it didn’t change much. But the treatments made a difference. After being on those drugs since I was seven, the real trauma for me was not taking anything anymore.
By the time they finally realized that I was just an upset kid and there was nothing wrong with me, it was already too late.
So I decided to accept that diagnosis in my heart. It was the only way I could study, go to practice, not each much, and still get good grades. But the confusion remained.
The black holes marking my childhood weren’t imaginary, like the adults wanted to make me believe. They were real. And they’d changed me.
As I grew up, the hormones in me multiplied and my rage skyrocketed. Football wasn’t enough to get rid of everything I had inside of me. Not even boxing was enough. Getting in trouble was what kept me alive. Will, Jackson, and Marvin were always with me.
