beautifully broken:if i break 3(41)

“I don’t care about the inconvenience. If he does this, I won’t be able to deal with it. If he’s able to make this happen...” I say honestly.

“I can have someone tail you.”

“Follow me?”

“Just in case.”

“He’s resourceful, I think you need to tell Lauren what’s going on.”

With all that has happened, and all she has worried about, I don’t want to put that type of stress on her. Telling her that he…that I’m intent on killing someone—my biological father. That’s not something she needs to know.

“I’d rather this stay between us. She has enough to deal with.”

“Your choice, my friend.”

“My people are very discreet. It will be like they’re not even there.”

“It has to be. I don’t want her to think we’re being followed. I want things to be as normal as possible.”

“Thank you Dexter,” I tell him, before reaching for the door.

“There may be another way, where you don’t have to live like this,” he says casually.

“Like what other type of way?”

“It would come with some risks…”





Cal



April 16, 2011

Same dream, almost every night. One of the only ones I wish I could get away from. I used to wake up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through me, now I’ve grown immune to it. Or at least that’s what I tried to convince myself. Trying to convince myself that it doesn’t affect me. That it isn’t as terrifying as it used to be. The woman in my head I can’t forget. Her creamy white skin contrasting against the pool of red blood surrounding her, soaking her clothes and mine. The little boy in the dream crying for hours before someone found him. My own cries won’t leave my head while panic tried to suffocate me.

Now it’s different. I look over at the woman next to me that’s made my dream feel worse. Before her I never wanted kids, I never wanted a family, to be so close to someone that their loss could be worse than this dream I have every night. A love interferes with my only cure. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to love anyone but myself. The only feeling I ever wanted was revenge. Revenge and pleasure—nothing more, nothing less, both became one and the same to me. An obsession that became an addiction. But this, her arms wrapped around me, her breath on my skin, it feel almost like peace, and peace and vengeance don’t work well together. Having one sacrifices the other.

She graduates soon. She’ll be done with school, going into another chapter in her life and I feel like the chapter's about to be closed on me. She’s not sure what she wants to do after school, she talks about getting a job. She’s hated every place she’s interviewed for, about to jump into the cycle I loathe. Work for pennies, buy a house you really never liked and grow old and miserable as each year passes. She should travel, see the world and draw it on that sketch pad of hers. I want her to see the places I was able to see once I broke free. Paris, Rome, the Alps. I’ve been around the world and back. She deserves the same, she deserves everything she wants. The problem is she wants me, but she doesn’t really know what having me comes with, and the problem is I want her more than anything. That’s what drove me to the jeweler Dexter uses, what caused me to sell my bike to get her one of the most expensive rings in the store, but what's stopping me at the same time is that I love her, and I know her. I know that she wants marriage, but not the kind that I can give her. She wants children, she wants someone that she can grow old with. A normal guy, and that’s just not me.

Then why do you have the ring?

“Good morning,” she says groggily, running her hand through my hair, her eyes barely open.

“You still have two hours to sleep,” I tell her, glancing at the clock.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, cupping my face.

“Nothing,” I tell her playfully before rolling on top of her. She laughs.

“It looks like your mind is somewhere else,” she says, her face scrunched up looking at me.

“Just thinking about how I want to take you to Europe,” I tell her and she rolls her eyes playfully.

“Yeah right,” she says disbelievingly. Then I tilt my head and look into those hypnotizing eyes and they widen.

“Are you serious?” she asks, her excitement growing by the second.

“Your graduation present,” I tell her and she pushes me off her.

“I-I can’t go to Europe with you,” she says, and I have to hide how much her words sting. They’re stern and like a kick in the nuts. I try to think of something to say to brush it off.