My emotions still felt raw, like a live electrical circuit that crackled and sparked.Don’t they say time heals all pain?Maybe that’s true.
Maybe it isn’t.
One thing I do know: all the messages of sympathy make me feel worse.
Like picking at an open wound.
I was trying to do that British thing — lock your feelings away so you don’t make others uncomfortable.But that seems to encourage them all the more.
What do people want from me?
If I thought writhing about screeching like a banshee would help, I’d be more than happy to give it a go.But screaming won’t bring Dad back either.
And yes, I could blame the hospital, like Mum and Dave did.
Do I think giving someone blood thinners to shrink not one, but five blood clots — when they had a history of narrowed heart arteries — was a good idea?
Fuck no, I don’t.
It was bloody obvious they were going to cause a major heart attack that nothing short of surgery could fix.But seeing as the coroner found no one at fault, there’s no point blaming the NHS.
Shit happens to good people.
One in every two people are likely to get cancer in their lifetime.
And I’m doing all I can to make sure I’m not one of them.
Unlike Dave.
I’ve never toned down my views on smoking.I’ve raved about it since I was a kid.Dad said it was my little signs — “Your cigarette smoke is killing me” — that made him quit.
Yet Dave’s still sneaking outside to puff his life away.Not that he can afford to smoke.Seriously, it’s like taking a ten-pound note and setting fire to it.All so you can smell like an ashtray and be a slave to a craving?
I’m not a health nut by any means.I don’t do much exercise, and I could eat more veggies.But I’m not the one playing Russian roulette with my life.
Any chance Dave will listen?
Ha.
Nope.
Dave’s really good at fooling himself.He’s always twisting things around somehow — like Chinese whispers, but all by himself.I’m done trying to make him see reason.It’s pointless and exhausting.
In short, I’m the one who’ll be dealing with most of the issues.Whether or not I want to.
And the horrible truth is...I don’t want to.
I don’t want to keep trying to get through to Dave — that he needs to act his age, not his shoe size.That he needs to stop buying shit from eBay he doesn’t need.That he needs to stop giving all his money away to women who tell him a sob story, or running to their aid when they snap their fingers.
Dave’s easy manipulation by women partly caused me to stop dating.Not that I really had time for it.But girls these days...just need to get over themselves.
Then again, my disastrous dating history is the least of my problems.
ASHTON
My fingers flew overthe keyboard, fluid and practiced.What used to take me days — watching tutorials, second-guessing layouts, Googling “how the hell do I format this?”— now took a few hours.Editing reels, updating my website, tweaking thumbnails.It had all become second nature.
The part that hadn’t gotten easier?People.
