Page 58 of Kade
“Listen, when we’re kids, our parents are the whole world, right?“ he says. “Everything we understand about the world comes from them. And as little kids, we’re programmed to search out affection and love. You with me so far, brother?”
I nod again, listening despite myself.
“Okay. So when a little kid is living with a drug-addicted mom who sometimes disappears on him. Doesn’t always feed him enough or pick him up when he cries. It fucks up the wiring in his brain. It creates trauma-based patterns. And eventually, that kid figures they’ll need to get their needs met in other ways.”
“Like?” I ask, curious despite my frustration with this conversation.
“Like taking care of a shitty mom, so she’ll love on him for a bit. Give him the tiniest bit of affection that he needs to survive.” My mind flashes to the slaps, those little signs that she saw me.
But survival?
“Food is survival, Colt. Shelter and warmth, too. But love, man?” Maybe they’ll give him a refund on all that fucking tuition he paid.
Colt shakes his head in exasperation. “You remember those stories about kids in orphanages in Eastern Europe?”
“I…maybe?” Images of rows of cribs and sunken eyes flash through my mind.
“The kids are taken in by the government, but there are not enough people working there to take care of all the kids. So their physical needs are met, but they don’t get fucking cuddles, man.” His voice is pained. “They don’t get talked to or sung to. They don’t have people looking in their eyes and smiling at them. Loving them.” Colt backs up, his shoulders dropping. “It’s so fucking sad, man. They waste away. It’s called Failure to Thrive. A lot of the babies die. The ones that make it have permanent neurological deficits.”
Where we grew up, death was commonplace. But babies wasting away in their cribs? That’s a whole other level of fucked up.
“Jesus. That’s fucking awful. But what does it have to do with me?” I honestly don’t know where he’s going with this.
“I’m just spitballing here, brother,” He reaches out and taps the center of my chest. “But I wonder what would happen to a kid who learned the only way to get love is to try and make his mom better. What kind of man do you think that kid will grow up to be? What kind of woman do you think he’ll be attracted to?”
I sink down to the desk again, gripping the edge tightly. The similarities between my mom and all the women I’ve dated flashing through my head.
Well shit.
“It sounds so fucking obvious when you say it like that,” I admit.
“Yeah. Took me a lot of years to learn this shit. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it,” he confirms.
“So you’re basically saying that I’m fucking broken, and I look for broken women so I can fix them, hoping they’ll what…love me?”
“You tell me, man. When you helped them get healthy, what did you want to have happen in the relationship?” I lock my fingers behind my neck, looking down at the tile floor, flipping through the revolving door of shit that is my love life.
“I wanted them to stay with me without needing the drugs or the other guys,” I admit.
“Because…” he prompts. I groan. He’s going to make me say it.
“Because I would be enough for them.”
“Ding, ding, ding! Give the man a prize.” He’s smiling, but he doesn’t look happy. “You keep thinking if you fix these women, then they’ll love you. And when they leave, man? Then it reinforces this subconscious belief you have that there’s something about you that makes you unloveable.”
“So basically, I’m broken as fuck?”
He exhales heavily. “If someone handed you a five-year-old little boy tomorrow—surprise, you have a son—would you treat him the way your mother treated you? Leave him alone in a roach-infested apartment? Starve him? Hit him?”
My stomach turns at the thought. I swallow down the acid creeping up my throat. “No fucking way. Never.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Because as shitty as your childhood was, you are a good man. Your childhood damaged you some, but you’re not fucking broken. You are not a pathetic excuse for a human. You broke the pattern with Becca, man. She’s nothing like the women you normally go for. She’s got her shit together. So get your fucking head on straight and fix it.”
He throws up his hands. “That was fucking exhausting, brother!”
I have to laugh. “Oh yeah, my personal trauma tire you out?”
“Yeah,” he mutters, heading to the door. “Need pie.” And he’s gone.
