Page 44 of Her Sloth

I am too much part of a world that separates me from this here.

“Don’t go,” she says, grasping my arm.

“I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Cass,” I say, removing myself from under her grip. “The world is alright right now, because we just sit here on a roof and it’s silent and it’s night. But in a couple hours the sun will be up, and then reality will hit, and you will know that I don’t belong here.”

“You are so good at pretending,” she says, “So good that you convinced yourself you don’t.”

“Because I don’t!” I say. “I have to lead a fucking conglomerate that just shuffles trillions and fucks over people. I made films people saw in cinemas. People recognize me everywhere. I can’t just say I leave and I’m gone.”

“You could,” she says, and it enrages me, because she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand the world and the pressure I am under.

“No,” I say harshly and get off the roof. Instead of climbing back into the house, I use the lower patio roof, hang from it, and jump onto the ground.

“You can’t outrace your heart,” she calls after me.

“It’s not that I have a choice,” I tell her, staring up at the roof.

She climbs down, too.

“You always have a choice,” she says as she walks up to me. “It’s ride or die. It’s breaking free or dying in a cage.”

Dying in a cage.

“I can’t just walk away; it’s not that easy if you have shackles tied to your ankles.”

“Jailbreak them,” she says. “What would happen if you were dead tomorrow? They’d deal with it. Someone else would take over. Contracts would be canceled. Telling yourself you can’t is the easy route. The easy path because you don’t have to decide anything. Because you keep fucking doing what you always did.”

It is one word she said, one word. Easy.

“None of this is fucking easy!” I roar at her, building myself up in front of her and gesturing aggressively. “Do you think I fucking want this? Be stuck in a glass cage with fucking idiots?”

“Apparently you do,” she says, completely unimpressed by me. “Because otherwise you’d fucking change it. Proverbs 19:24. A sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bring it back to his mouth!”

“You just don’t get it,” I say and turn away from her. “You have this here, your refuge where the world has no access to you. You’re the outsiders, lawbreakers, the street kids. But that’s not reality. Reality is filled with responsibilities. Responsibilities for millions of lives that people like you don’t understand. I can’t just run away from them and dump them in a beer on a roof.”

I know I said one thing too much. Her expression hardens and her lips purse in disgust.

“Yeah,” she says. “You’re right, you don’t belong here, elitist brat. Us the roaches, we’re nothing to you and your fucking money. Go, and never come back here.”

“Cass,” I say, softening my voice. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s exactly what you meant; you’re just too polite to say it because you’re scared of being rejected.”

My nose tickles as my eyes get watery, and before I cry once more in front of her, I storm to the car and drive off into the night, leaving everything behind.

I am so stupid. Why do I always have to destroy everything remotely good?

I cry tears of anger and hate as I punch the steering wheel.

I hate myself so much.

I hate this life.

I hate this fucking world.