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THIRTY-THREE
"If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose."
~Charles Bukowski
PAST
DANTE
The moment I entered my apartment I knew something was wrong. I didn't see anything at first glance, nothing was messed up or askew. It was more of a feeling in the air. A presence where there should have been only emptiness.
But I didn't see anyone. The entryway was empty, as well as the living room. The small dining room, as well.
But it was there that I saw something different.
On the table, splayed out in a fan, was a thick stack of eight by ten pictures.
Something sharp and unpleasant twisted in my gut.
Before I ever saw what they contained, I felt sick enough to wretch.
I knew. Somehow, I just knew that I was looking at my ruin.
I approached the table with no small amount of trepidation.
I didn't touch the pictures. Much like finding the scene of a crime, I didn't dare disturb it or leave behind any sort of mark.
But I could see clearly enough just what they were. Photos of the trailer Scarlett had grown up in. The outside of it. The inside of it. Pictures that very clearly told the story of the darkest day of my life.
Pictures that painted my guilt, and worse, hers, in stark, vivid red strokes.
My mind raced as I tried to figure out how someone had taken them; how I was only just now seeing that we had clearly been found out.
Someone had been watching. Someone had seen it all. The ramifications added a new horror to it all.
Someone had known what was happening to her and hadn't stopped it. Instead they had built a case that I could tell at a glance could not and would not be disputed.
They hadn't gotten shots of anything going on inside of the trailer until after I had carried her out, but that was about all they'd missed.
There was a barrage of photos of me carrying her limp body out that eventually led to pictures of the body still in Scarlett's old bed.
I didn't realized I'd taken a seat, head clutched in my hands, still staring at the horrors in front of me, until Adelaide entered the room.
I looked up, still too shocked to react.
It was offensive how put together she looked, how polished she'd made sure to be for the destruction of her only child. The crazy bitch was even wearing her favorite pearls.
Her eyes raked over me with spectacular disdain. "Checkmate," she said with relish.
She was my mother and the architect of my destruction.
"We all have a weakness, my son, and I always knew that someday I'd find yours."
"It looks like you managed to find it quite some time ago," I choked out.
I never bothered to ask her why. I knew. Control was everything to her. My whole life we'd been locked in a struggle for power, and while I'd just been fighting for freedom, she'd been playing to win.
"What do you want?" I asked her. All was not lost just yet. Perhaps we could negotiate.
