Reality and fiction? Sometimes…I couldn’t tell them apart.
Hence I was sitting here on the floor wearing just an old jumper and briefs. No socks. My feet were cold. Why were my feet so bloody cold?
Now here was the other thing.
I took a deep breath. And another. I was not going to panic. I was not spiralling. I was not going to let this go down the gutter. Because I was Oliver Jacobs and Oliver Jacobs was way better than this. Stronger. Faster.
Smarter.
I didn’t feel it.
Many years ago, I’d been right here, sat on the pavement down at the playground, about a mile from the place I thought had been home. I had my school rucksack, a few hastily gathered essentials picked as my stepfather had banged on my locked door. Screaming. Shouting. The cry of the baby who’d probably needed a long-overdue feed.
The fridge door. That obvious hiss of a beer can being opened.
I couldn’t bear it. The sound of that hiss still sent chills up my spine. I never had cans in the house, not any kind of cans. Bottles. Bottles only. I’d told Peter, and he’d agreed with me.
Oh crap. Don’t think of Peter.
Peter had left.
Peter had turned out to be an arsehole of the highest degree who deserved none of my thoughts. And anyway. No. Peter was straight. Peter was old. And I was an idiot.
Final.
No more.
It wasn’t the first time I’d told myself that. Wouldn’t be the last, and just like that I was back in that park, feeling just as out of control and scared as sixteen-year-old me had been.
I’d got myself together back then. Straightened myself out. Got myself on a bus, stayed up all night hiding in a back alley, madesome plans and…
I had survived worse things than this. I mean? What was this? I’d gone on some ridiculous TV show, which had turned out to be an absolute joke, and I had, and rightly so, walked out when the ridiculousness had reached an all-time high. My memories were hazy, but walked I had. Perhaps I’d been pushed. I had definitely been shoved into a waiting taxi, my bag chucked in behind me.
I tried to curl into myself, right there on the floor. The memories once again flooding back, making me cringe in embarrassment. Panicking over Peter being gone, because it was bloody obvious he’d gone. Me running around demanding his return. Screaming and shouting, a camera right in my face.
Some studio executive trying to calm me down, and then they…
Fuck. That Pawel. Cocky bastard, but…
Yeah. I hadn’t been a decent human being either. The stuff I’d let slip from my mouth? The words I’d shouted in his face? Not his fault, but fuck me. Awkward? That hadn’t even been the start of it. I’d stomped downstairs and demanded my things back and…yes. Of course I had. Had a complete meltdown out in the road with some security guard trying to get me off the pavement and back into the taxi I’d escaped from. They’d put me back in the car. Sent me on my way, bawling my eyes out in the back seat.
The turn of events was all fuzzy in my head. The timeline muddled up.
How I’d got home was a mystery, but I had. Me. My bag. My phone. My sanity intact.
Well, I sure hope it was because I was not having this. No more. I was doing what I’d always done when faced with a crisis.
This was not a crisis.
This was.
Shit.
I fixed things. When things went bad? I worked methodically, made a plan, and I fixed things. My clients were moulded into what I needed them to be. Accepting of my methods. Grateful for my excellent skills with their investments. I was trusted.
I didn’t feel it.
This was not a client. And this was simply not something that was here to be fixed. Instead I needed to fix myself, because I was the one who had to be moulded here. Shaped and coddled into something that felt…more like me.
