Gabriel took a labored breath, and started again with a hitch in his voice, “She did okay for a few months after she was released from the center, but she was hiding her pain from us and the doctors. She took her own life on her thirteenth birthday.”
A lone tear fell from Gabriel’s eye and he quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand. “She’s been gone over two years now, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her and wonder if I pushed her to open up, or did more things with her, if things would’ve been different. But, I ignored it and hoped that it just went away on it’s own.”
Gabriel looked up from the utter zombie stare he’d formed on the bar top and pinned Tristan where he stood with a pained look. “I want to help you, Tristan. And I can see you shutting everyone out, just when you should be pulling them close.”
Gabriel clenched his fist and tapped himself on the chest a few times. “If you got someone that gives a shit, don’t push ‘em away. Let ‘em in.”
Tristan stood there, completely stunned; the pain of watching a father relive his biggest regret in life, and being left behind wondering what could have been. Which was strangely just the opposite of what he felt with his own father leaving him. It wasn’t often that Tristan let his father take up residence in his brain, but watching Gabriel suffer like this, made it hard not to.
Tristan decided he needed another infusion of numbness to kill the pain. He took the shot glass that was already poured and tipped it to his mouth. He didn’t know what to say to Gabriel. Didn’t know if there was anything he could say right now that would make things easier. For either of them. His disease was a bitch, but he didn’t want to bring Gabriel back into the pit of hell by telling him the whole truth about where he was right now: knee deep in the belly of the beast. Not able to shake himself out of this funk, other than what progress he’d made at his job here. And that wasn’t even saying much, other than holding a steady job for not even a full week. He’d made steps in the right direction with Peyton, but right now, he wanted to keep himself away from her. Not because he didn’t want to be with her, but he felt like he was relying on her too much, and he needed some space to get his head on straight.
“Peyton is a good girl, Gabriel. I just want to do right by her.”
“That’s good kid. Because the love of a good woman can move mountains.”
Tristan knew that, somewhere deep inside, but being loved wasn’t what scared him the most right now. What scared him was that he would love her back and she would leave him. Just like everyone else did.
Tristan’s head throbbed, but it wasn’t because he woke from having a nightmare this time. That was a first for him. Maybe he didn’t have nightmares tonight because he and Gabriel had finished off the bottle of bunk whiskey and shot the shit until the wee hours of the morning, and Gabriel’s sister had to drive them both home. Well, Tristan crashed on their couch because he really didn’t want to go home, in all honesty. It was too cold and sterile there, the place was a reminder of what he could’ve had, if things in his life were different. But they weren’t. He had to salvage what there was. Starting with getting out from under his uncle’s thumb, and figuring out some things about his past.
Peyton had been texting him all morning, and this last text sounded as if she might have checked up on him at his apartment, and since he wasn’t there, she’d gotten a little frantic.
Talk 2 me pls
Tristan decided that he needed to respond this time.
Im ok
Where r u
With friends
Coming over?
No, need air
She didn’t reply again, for which Tristan was grateful. He didn’t want to be so cold, but right now he didn’t know how to deal with her. There were things they needed to figure out; they needed to see if they could figure out a way to proceed without Peyton holding on to him so tight, and Tristan relying on her so much. Because the day would come when Peyton would realize what a piece of shit he was, and walk away.
Tristan’s drunken stupor last night brought back thoughts of his dad. Memories of the good times they’d had, as well as a few of the bad. He remembered fondly the times when it was just him and his dad. But something broke inside Tristan the day his dad left. The part of him that loved without regret was gone and in its place he’d erected walls to keep people out and protect himself. If Tristan couldn’t keep his own father from leaving him behind, what was to stop Peyton, a virtual stranger, from leaving?
These tangled thoughts were making his head hurt worse, and Tristan knew that he needed to go somewhere that he could gain clarity. But he needed Peyton there, so they could hash this out.
Meet me at the lake in an hour? Its on old hwy 10
Sure
Chapter Twenty Two
“Hey, fella, whatcha doing?”
“Nothing, I guess. Seemed liked a nice enough day to come down by the water.”
“Yeah, it is pretty sweet out here today. Hard to believe it is November. Do you know how much longer this nice weather is gonna last?”
Tristan shook his head, but didn’t say anything. Peyton sat next to him on the old wooden dock, and stretched her legs out into the water, mimicking his position. They sat next to each other for a long time, neither one of them speaking. Peyton bumped shoulders with him, and asked, “Baby, can you tell me what’s going on? The last I saw you, things seemed to be going pretty well. I’m guessing at some point you had an appointment with your therapist, and now I find you down here. Not talking. Which for you is damn near impossible,” she teased.
Tristan gave her a weak smile and turned back to blankly stare out at the pond. He was actually thinking back to the awesome times he spent fishing here with his father, but everything kept flowing back to the shitty memories. The times that weren’t so awesome; the painful year after his grandmother died, and he was left alone with his mother. It was a bleak existence and Tristan had to be the caregiver for her, or risk being taken away. Even at eleven years old, he was aware that staying with his mother and taking care of her was the only way he would be able to avoid being forced away to someplace dreadful.
Tristan was swaying back and forth with the motion of the trees blowing on the other side of the lake, when Peyton stopped him with her hand on his knee. “You’re scaring me, Tristan. Please. What’s wrong?”
“The last good memory that I have of my father before he left was right here on this lake. I was seven years old, and he brought me down here to go fishing. He bought us sandwiches from a little bait shop that was right over there.” Tristan pointed back to the shoreline, and over to a small patch of weeds that were growing through the cracks in an old cement foundation.
“We fished for the whole day, just him and I. I don’t even remember what we did with the fish, or if we even caught anything. I just remember that it was so quiet, and my dad was asking me questions about school, and what I wanted to do when I got bigger.” Tristan huffed and paused for just a few seconds before continuing, “I didn’t have to worry about trying to stay quiet so that I would upset my mom. Dad was even laughing with me and paying attention to my stories about the kids that I was friends with. I think it was probably the best day of my life, Peyton.”
“It’s okay to remember the good stuff about your childhood, Tristan. I think that it would be healthier for you to recreate the parts that made you happy, rather than focusing on the crap that you can’t change.”
“Is this it for me, Peyton? I mean, am I going to be stuck in this listless cycle of being up,” Tristan moved his hands from above his head to a swooping arc as he brought it down, “then crashing down? Dr. Martin told me that I would be on medication and need to work with him for the rest of my life.”
Peyton was looking at him like a three-headed sloth was crawling up his back. “And?”
Tristan gave her a mirthless laugh. “And what? I don’t want to fucking have to deal with this forever. I was hoping that there would come a time tha
t I would be cured, or at least better…God damn it! I still feel like fucking shit, and I just want to feel normal again. Feel like I did that day when I was the center of my father’s universe. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I would get a break and I could just have a few days that weren’t clouded with this….this….fog! I mean, if this is it for me, then, fuck, where is the reset button?”
Tristan was trying his best to laugh off his pain, but he knew that Peyton wasn’t buying it. Instead of her laughing with him, she grabbed his left hand in both of hers, and clutched it in her lap. “Hey, you can’t mean that, Tristan. You’ve come so far. Don’t you admit that things have gotten a lot better for you in the last few months of your life? Is it honestly that bad that you would throw it all away, rather than take what you were given and make something of it?”
“Make something of myself, Peyton? Seriously, what the fuck do you think that a high school drop out that most of the time can’t even spell could honestly fucking do to be a productive member of society?”
Peyton was quick to snap back at him, “You were given a second chance, Tristan. Most bi-polar patients who reach the point that you did aren’t that lucky. You have to be the one that wants to make something of yourself, but if you are content to wallow in self-pity, then you can do it on your own. I said that I would help you, emotionally and physically. But you have to want it just as bad as I want it for you. Otherwise, you’re right. Find the reset button and hit it. Smack that fucker for all it’s worth, Tristan. Because I won’t sit by anymore and watch you wither away to nothing just because you can’t pull your head out of your ass and see what’s right in front of you.”
Tristan was stunned by her aggressive words and a little confused. What was right in front of him? Experience told him that Peyton was very rarely riled, and for her to be this upset was unusual. Her normally soft demeanor was one of the first things that he noticed about her, and the fact that he could see the vein pulsing in her neck was proof that she was absolutely pissed.
But that didn’t change the fact that he was breaking down inside, again. It was as if all the medication, all the therapy, all the hours of beating his head against the wall were pointless. The pain was back, and it was clogging his insides again, and it fucking scared him.
“I know what was given to me, Peyton. My second chance at life is a gift. But right now, I’m tired of being broken. Tired of being so emotionally twisted up inside…” He emphasized his words by making a fist out in front of himself, and squeezing it tight as he screamed, “It hurts!” A few stray tears dribbled from his eyes as he continued, “Peyton…it hurts to even get up in the morning. I want more for myself, but how the fuck do I get there? Nothing is helping me to get over this shit. I still feel like half a person…”
Peyton pulled her legs up from the side of the dock, and scooted closer around Tristan. She wrapped her arms around his mid-section and pulled herself tight against him, leaving one leg draped over his thighs and her chin resting on his shoulder.
“You’ll get there, Tristan. I don’t think that it’s possible to get over being bi-polar. You have to learn to live with it, but that will take some time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, baby.”
Tristan smirked and shook his head as he laughed at her words, “Rome wasn’t built in day, huh?”
“It wasn’t. It took like eight hundred years or something like that. It’s been a long time since I was in history class.”
Peyton had lifted her face off Tristan’s shoulder and was looking back out over the water again. Tristan took the opportunity to stare at her face, and the tight expression she wore. There were worry lines forming on her forehead, and dark circles under her eyes. The normally darker color of her face seemed washed out in the sunlight, and she just looked tired in general.
Tristan felt his gut twist as he thought back over the last few days, and all the shit that Peyton had put up with. Maybe she could handle it this time, but what about the time after that? Or the time after that? When would it be enough and she would walk away?
Or was she ready to throw in the towel, and was just fucking with him? If she was accusing him of not being able to see the writing on the wall, that he needed to just shut the fuck up and stop bitching, then he wanted her to actually say it. Right now, he was clueless, and if Miss Fancy Pants was so fucking smart and knew what he needed to do, then she could at least do him the courtesy of being honest with him. Knowing that she would never have the balls to say it, but was damn sure ready to do it, he was going to call her out before she could walk away first.
“I can see it in your eyes, Peyton.” She quickly turned her head to face him, and started to speak, but he shushed her with his hand across her mouth. “Let me lay this all out first, okay?”
Peyton nodded her head very briefly, and Tristan released her hand.
“You’re frustrated and tired of me. I can see that. But, you don’t have to stay with me anymore. I gotta do this on my own, now. Maybe that would be the best way for me to figure this all out, if I was just on my own to do it, ya know? Chris paid you for two months but you don’t have to stay with me anymore.”
“You think that I’m only here with you because Chris hired me to be your…your…whatever the fuck I am?” Peyton bounded off his lap and was standing before Tristan could even answer the question.
“I don’t fucking believe this. I was just about to tell you how much you mean to me, and you accuse me of staying with you through all this shit because I work for you. How fucking stupid are you, Tristan?”
It was Tristan’s turn now to bound off his seat on the dock and stand toe to toe with her. Of all the things that he could handle, being called stupid was not one of them, no matter what frame of mind he was in. That was one of the many things he heard growing up that felt like a dull butter knife was peeling off his hide, layer by layer, until there was nothing left anymore. That was one of his mother’s favorite things to say to him, and hearing it again from Peyton was like gasoline on a fire.
She was glaring up at him with venom in her eyes when he fired back, “The only thing that I was stupid about, Peyton, was thinking that I needed help to do this. Obviously, your help is just making things worse…for both of us.”
The transformation in Peyton’s expression was vivid as she went from fuming and her nostrils flaring out, to round eyes that were glossy and a low set to her chin. “If that is what you want, then, okay.”
Tristan jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching out to brush the lone tear that was trailing down her cheek. She certainly switched gears on him quickly, and he didn’t like to see her hurt. Peyton was a great girl, but that didn’t mean that he could toss aside his gut instinct right now, which was to do this solo from now on. Seeing Peyton crying did lessen his anger considerably, but it didn’t change what he had said. He was tired of the constant nagging inside bringing him down, and he needed to figure some things out…on his own. This was for the best.
“Yeah, it’s not like I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Peyton, but if I’m going to do this, I can see that I gotta do it alone.”
As Peyton swallowed, more tears spilled from her eyes. Tristan’s conviction wavered when her lip quivered just a little, but when he stepped forward to grab her hands, she flinched and pulled back.
“Don’t lie to me, Tristan. You’re running scared.” She had poked him in the chest with her fingernail as she spoke. Tristan was a good half foot taller than Peyton, and even so, she was doing her best to remain intimidating.
“Fuck that, Peyton! Hey, if you really want to help me, you’ll leave me to do this my way. Before I can be someone that isn’t poisonous, I have to find out who I am and how to BE me. How to live and be a person and not just a bi-polar fuckup. I need to do that and I think it would be best if I did it alone.”
Peyton was the first and only person that had ever stayed with him for this long, and she had dealt with some of the worst of his rollercoaster emotio
ns. But, it seemed as if even she had her limits on how much she could handle. Thinking of life without her was like throwing a glass of cold water into his face. Peyton was hired to be his “caretaker” until he was able to get his shit together, but she had given herself to Tristan freely. Cared for him, stayed with him, helped him, and given everything of herself to him.
“You once told me that you felt like you were always lost. I thought that by being there for you, maybe you could figure out how to be found. I didn’t want you to do this alone.” Peyton’s voice was quiet and her lower lip was quivering the entire time she spoke.
She sobbed, “I love you. Don’t you see that? I’ve loved you ever since you said you wanted to try. I love every broken piece there is of you,” she sobbed. Her face was red and splotchy when their eyes met, and her eyes bored directly into his soul when she said, “if you don’t want me, have the balls to say it. Don’t pussy foot around it. You don’t need me, then say it. I want to hear you say the words.”
Tristan looked at the pain and anguish written all over Peyton’s angelic face. Every tear track down her cheeks was a product of his doing. He’d put the hurt in her body. She was suffering because of him. Another person that was a casualty of his worthless life.
Peyton’s happiness depended upon his strength right now; he needed to do this…for her. The words were forming in his mouth, like acid on his tongue, “I don’t need you. You need to walk away.”
Almost as if the words cut her skin, Peyton flinched, but an eerie calm settled across her face as she said, “I hope you find what you need, Tristan.”
More coming this fall in
“Being With You”
Book Two in the Redemption Series
Hazel St. James - Fighting For You (Redemption#1)[ Page 14