Watching him lose it brought me over, both hands clinging to his nape, eyes devouring him like he might disappear.   

Afterwards he carried me to bed, which was fitting.  I let him.  I was limp, too weak to stand, let alone walk, and it was all his fault. 

CHAPTER

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. 

"Dump that piece of trash, for starters.  Leave her and marry Tiffany." 

I wanted to kill her.  I looked at my mother and pictured wrapping my hands around her neck and choking the life out of her.

She smiled like she was reading my mind.  "I'm not the only one that knows.  You think I don't have a backup plan?  I have several."

"I could just say no.  I'll turn myself in.  I'll take the punishment.  I'll do the time."

"I know everything.  You weren't even there when the shots were fired.  She killed him.  She killed a cop, and she'd never let you take the fall for her.  That girl is a fool.  She'd go down with you."  She smiled when she caught my unguarded reaction to that.  "You know it as well as I do.  If you go down, you'll go down together.  Pick your poison, son.  My way, or yours." 

"I won't marry Tiffany.  Not fucking happening.  Dream on." 

She shrugged as though she'd been expecting that.  She probably had.  "An engagement then.  One year.  Give it a chance.  You might find it's to your liking to be with a girl of your own class.  And if it's not, feel free to break it off.  Whatever.  So long as you don't taint the family tree with that Theroux girl, I'll let you do what you like." 

"A year?  No fucking way." 

"Six months then." 

"And that's it?  You just expect me to stay away from Scarlett indefinitely?  No.  I'll take my chances the other way." 

"Five years.  Stay away from her for five years, and I'll leave you alone.  That'll be long enough, I think, for you to realize what a silly idea she was.  Time enough for you to grow up and grow out of her."  

"And in five years, if I go back to her, you'll just let me?" 

She shrugged.  "You won't.  You'll have forgotten her name by then, but if by some miracle you haven't, fine, you can go play with the trash to your heart's content." 

It was a frightfully quick interaction.  My entire life changed in a few short sentences, a handful of minutes.