Page 12 of Quiet Obsession
“Creed,” he prompts, forcing me to look back up. “Do you need me to call a lawyer? Will the autopsyshow—”
“A heart attack. That’s what it’ll show.”
I glance out the window. The soft hum of rain pattering the windows pisses me off. It hasn’t stopped since Jeremiah Creed heaved his last breath. The sky mourns him because no one else will. Someone should, right? Death is a tragedy...
Not this one.
This one called for celebration, so yesterday, once he had definitively left the building, I raised one glass to his absence... and then one more, and another.
One for every scar he left me with.
One for every second I counted between blows.
One for every lie I told the school nurse, our neighbors, my teachers—fell off my bike, tripped on the stairs.
One for every meal I ate standing because sitting hurt too much.
One for the winter he left me outside, barefoot in the snow, because I didn’t salute him when he got home. I was six.
One for everysirI forced past split lips.
One for the nights he made me polish his boots with shaking fingers while he drank more than he could stomach.
And one for that little boy who learned how to stop crying before he learned how to write.
Boys like that don’t grow into respectable men. We grow into monsters... might be why I didn’t do a fucking thing.
I just watched.
“I stood in the doorway,” I say, pushing a piece of bacon around my plate. “Came down to tell him I was headingback to Gravemont in the morning. Not sure why I bothered.”
Hyde sets his plate aside, offering me his full attention while wearing the same patient look he wore the day we met freshman year. I walked into our dorm with a black eye, split lip, and bleeding knuckles after picking a fight with some random guy just to send a message:don’t fuck with me.
Violence became my defense mechanism the summer I hit puberty and grew into myself. From then on, I always hit first.
Not my father but everyone else.
I refused to become a victim ever again, so I lashed out at the smallest sign of ridicule or bullying. Dad stopped throwing fists when I came home bloodied in my sophomore year of high school. He knew I’d hit back.
Hyde was the first person who didn’t pretend he couldn’t see the rage droning around me. He didn’t look away like everyone else. He introduced himself, bandaged my knuckles, and made me a sandwich.
No one had made me anything to eat since Mom died.
“He didn’t reply,” I continue. “Just took a sip of his drink, turned red in the face and grabbed his chest...” I meet Hyde’s stare head-on. “I didn’t kill him. But I did nothing as I watched him die. I stood there, staring at his skin turning ashen. I waited and waited andfuckingwaited. I only called the ambulance once I was certain the paramedics couldn’t bring him back.”
Hyde mulls over my words, choosing his carefully.That’s the thing I like about him most; he doesn’t spew generic lines, doesn’t offer comfort for the sake of filling the silence.
“He got what he deserved,” he finally says, then crosses the room to refill my coffee. “Did you call your aunt?”
“Not yet. I’ll let her know once everything’s organized. Otherwise, she’ll request full honors. I don’t want a thirteen-gun salute. I don’t want some fucking stranger in a uniform calling him a hero. He was a coward.”
Runs in the family. I should’ve killed him myself years ago.
Hyde doesn’t argue. He sets the cup before me and by the time I burn my tongue on the first sip, he’s on the phone with the funeral home.
“We’re leaving in forty minutes.” He sets his cell on the counter. “You have to sign some papers and pick a casket.”
“A cardboard box would be too much.”
