Dirty Princes (Hot Candy 3)

I clench my hands helplessly on the covers, twisting the thin blanket.

Let’s go over this again, Ryan. Why would they want you in their lives? You acted like a selfish prick, you pushed them away repeatedly, you weren’t there for them. You basically threw them together and gave them your blessing.

They’re happier together, without you.

And then there’s the matter of lust.

I lift a shaky hand, place it over the extensive bandages covering me from navel to clavicle. I haven’t seen the incision yet, but I bet it’ll leave a nasty scar.

Behold Frankenstein’s Monster. Who’d want to see this while having sex?

Nobody in their right mind, that’s for sure.

I’m still gathering the pieces of this past week. The days after the surgery were hazy at best, the infection I developed and the high fever throwing me out of the loop even more. Today my thoughts finally seem clear. It’s as if someone took off my brain’s glasses, cleaned the lenses and put them back on, so that I can see and hear and think.

&

nbsp; Small mercies. Small victories.

Also, the nurses and doctors stopped running inside whenever the heart monitor went off for whatever reason—a bad dream, an emotional thought…

I got a lot of those. Both bad dreams and emotional thoughts. Apparently it’s the drugs. But not only.

And yeah, I am thankful.

But I also feel… lost. Without direction. Not having the energy to lift the spoonful of wobbly Jell-O to my mouth sure isn’t helping things, but it’s more than that.

I’ve always been a confident guy. Apart from spending half my life with the certainty I could die at any moment from my faulty heart, I never thought twice about hooking up with chicks and boys, even if just for the night. Never questioned their attraction.

Never questioned my general lack of involvement, or the fact I wasn’t after anything more. Because I was here temporarily. On lease. Because it was just a night of pleasure, nothing more. Because I didn’t have to search any deeper inside me.

I can’t hide anymore. I’d give anything to get Brylee and Riddick back. But stuck here, I don’t know how to fight for them. How to win them back. Breathing on my own and eating Jell-O isn’t much of a win in the battle toward regaining their trust.

This sucks balls. It feels like, I don’t know… Like knowing all your life Santa doesn’t exist, then you find out he does exist but you told him to fuck off one time too many.

Yeah, this is definitely the drugs talking.

Or else I’ve gone off the deep end already.

My father comes and goes, and I’m too distracted to pay attention to half of what he says. The doctor comes to check me up and the only thing I want to know is whether Brylee and Riddick are coming to visit today.

But they’re not. The first day that I’m really lucid, and they don’t make it.

Or maybe now I’m past the danger of checking out of this mortal plane, and they don’t feel they have to visit anymore. They’ve done their duty as friends to the prickly son-of-a-bitch and now they are done, and who can blame them?

Not me, that’s for sure.

I’m not angry. I have no fucking right to be. Or sad. I’m happy for them, I really am. Instead I try to focus enough to read a book I brought with me—“try” being the operative word, as I can’t manage more than a paragraph at a time before falling asleep.

Having your body carved open and your heart cut and sewn together again takes a lot out of a guy. Seriously. I don’t recommend it. Not fun at all.

I read, I sleep, I slurp my tasteless soup, I nod when my father speaks when he drops by the next day, and I don’t mope.

Not at all. I’m a grown man and I won’t panic and won’t fall apart, drugs or not.

It’s a struggle though, as the hours pass, and they don’t show up. Maybe I dreamed it all up, their smiles, their warm arms around me, their concern.

Or maybe I misread it.