As I reach for my shorts, I see the paper.
Folded over, with my name scrawled on it, propped up on the desk. My stomach drops like a piece of lead, into my feet, into the floor.
This can’t be good.
I don’t want to open it, but at the same time, I know I have to.
My body goes numb as I read her words.
Brand,
This was more than I bargained for. I’m sorry. I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Nora
She doesn’t mean it.
She can’t possibly.
Yet, she’s gone. And this letter is here in her place.
I ball the paper up and throw it in the trashcan and then before I can control my anger, I smash my fist into the wall. It breaks through the drywall with a crash, and little pieces of it fall to the floor.
It doesn’t take Jacey long to come running.
“Jesus,” she breathes, taking in my bloody knuckles and the hole in the wall. “I’ll get a washcloth.”
She disappears and comes back within a minute, forcing me to sit on the bed and pressing the wet cloth around my hand. “I’ll pay for the repairs,” I mumble.
“I don’t care about the wall,” she tells me. “I care about you. Are you going to be ok?”
I growl and look away. “Of course. This isn’t the first time I haven’t been good enough for someone.”
Jacey sucks in a breath and looks at me, her eyes wide and blue and hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just…fuck.”
Jacey rubs my back, her head on my shoulder. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry, Brand.”
“This is bullshit,” I tell her as I stand up. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
But it makes all kinds of sense.
No one stays with me. For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve never been fucking good enough. It doesn’t matter how good I am, how strong I get, how good a job I do… it’s never enou
gh.
Not for anyone.
“Fuck this.”
I stride from the room, intent on going somewhere, anywhere… to get this shit out of my head.
Everything is swirling through my thoughts… my father who beat me, my mother who hates me, Jacey who didn’t want me… and now Nora. It all bleeds together and I can’t tell the emotions apart.
I’m simply not good enough.
As I walk through the living room, my eyes fall on that fucking wooden box and I pick it up, gripping it tight. It just symbolizes one more failure.