#this kid. this sweet and unhinged child deserves all the love and joy in the world and more | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

georgiasfm · 3 years ago

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╰ ･ﾟ. * 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐆𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐈𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐀𝐘 ;

[ scarlett leithold, cis female, she/her ] have you seen GEORGIA CALLOWAY lately ? yeah, i heard they're TWENTY TWO years old and a REALITY TV STAR/PODCAST HOST now in charleston city. i mean, i don’t know if it’s their LEO vibes or that they’re -OBSTINATE and -CAPRICIOUS but also +GREGARIOUS and +EMPYREAN but they remind me of MIND GAMES by BANKS. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble around here.

hey besties ! i’m ley , i’m 20 ( well .... i will be at midnight ) , i go by she / her pronouns , and i’m livin’ in the est timezone ! i unfortunately have a super busy weekend bc it’s my birthday , so i won’t be able to be around as much as i want to be. but i’m gonna do my best to as active as possible ! thankfully i wrote this intro ahead of time so for once it isn’t a complete disaster ( it’s still not good tho so don’t have high expectations ) anyways , here’s miss georgia calloway !!

𝐈 . 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 :

FULL NAME : georgia belle calloway . AGE : twenty - two . DATE OF BIRTH : july 23rd . ASTROLOGY SIGNS : leo sun , aquarius moon , pisces ascendant . GENDER : cis woman . PRONOUNS : she / her / hers . SEXUALITY : bisexual . MOTHER : diane calloway : former pageant & debutante queen turned stay at home mom / trophy wife . FATHER : jack calloway : career politician & mayor of charleston . SIBLINGS : georgia is the middle child of five kids . two older brothers , two younger sisters . POSITIVE TRAITS : gregarious , vehement , alluring , venturesome , empyrean , altruistic . NEGATIVE TRAITS : obstinate , reticent , flighty , temerarious , capricious . AESTHETICS : the patter of raindrops against glass windows , the lingering scent cigarettes mixed with sweet perfume , drinking honey whiskey out of red solo cups , watching constellations with exhausted eyes , sneaking out by means of the vine trellis , leaving texts unanswered for days , a box of pageant awards hidden away in the closet , secrets that weigh more than gold on cherry stained lips , bending every rule just enough to get away with it , wrinkled white satin dresses and knee high ruffled socks , one too many bottomless mimosas at brunch , hearts drawn on fogged glass mirrors , lollipop stained lips . CHARACTER INSPO : brooke davis ( one tree hill ) , sarah cameron ( obx ) , lux lisbon ( the virgin suicides ) , jackie burkhart ( that 70s show ) .

click here for a quick trip to her pinterest bc it describes her better than i ever could !!

( tw ; infidelity , death , drunk driving )

𝐈𝐈 . 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 :

from the second she was born , georgia was treated as her mother’s little doll. diane had been ecstatic the day she found out she was with child for the second time , and even more ecstatic to find out she would be having their first little girl. she was dressed up in pink dresses and frilly socks , shown off to all of the women country or her mother’s weekly book club nights. she was the apple of her parent’s eyes , until she wasn’t. with brunette tresses & honey brown eyes , georgia was adored by everyone .... her beauty noted with claims that she would grow up to be a heartbreaker. her mother thrived on the compliments ; the subtle reminders to what her own childhood had been like. she had always planned on having a little girl that she could do pageants with just like she had with her own mother , and darling little georgia was perfect for that. at such a young age , georgia fell in love with the pageants. she thrived in the spotlight , with all eyes on her. and just like her mother , she won every competion she was entered in , until she didn’t. by the age of nine , georgia was starting to grow bored of the constant pageants and recitals , wanting to explore other interests. by that point , diane’s interest in her had worn off and moved onto the next child , a five year old with beautiful blonde curls and dimpled cheeks. georgia grew to know the subtle ache of rejection , and from that day forward , did everything she could to win back her mother’s affection.

from the outside , the calloway’s came off as the picture perfect family. but from the inside ? things were quite the opposite. georgia’s parents had unmeetable expectations for their children. get perfect grades , nothing below a b acceptable. sit down , look pretty , and shut up. don’t cause a scandal. their love was entirely conditional , only being shown when their was something they believed deserved rewarding. if you were to ask georgia , she wouldn’t be able to tell you the last time her mother actually hugged her for genuine reasons , and not to manipulate her into doing what she wanted. their father was rarely home , always away working or traveling for work. it became obvious that he was having an affair –– multiple affairs , but diane just looked the other way. the calloway family was very prominent in charleston , especially with her father being elected mayor , and their was nothing that diane would allow to ruin their image. even if it cost her own happiness.

things got considerably more difficult around the calloway home when georgia was sixteen. her eldest brother had gone out for a night of fun with a group of friends , and made the fatal mistake of getting into a car with someone who was far too drunk to drive. georgia will never forget the conversation she overheard from the living room that night ; “ they were drunk. lost control of the vehicle. died on impact. ” it tore the family apart , dividing them even more than they already were. georgia couldn’t stand the silence of her home after her brother’s death. so she started partying constantly , going on 48 hour benders and staying out long past her curfew. she couldn’t even recognize herself in the mirror. gone was their innocent little girl , the apple of their eyes. even this couldn’t get the attention of her parents , they barely even noticed she was gone most of the time ; all they did was yell at her to not make them look like fools.

for her whole life , georgia followed her parent’s rules. after graduating high school , she was expected required to go college and get a degree , but georgia just couldn’t be bothered. this is the one time she went against her parent’s wishes. her fear of being stuck here forever , with the same life as her parents ; a husband that doesn’t love her and miserable children , won out over the need for approval from her parents. so she ran off to la , and landed herself on love island usa after being approached by a producer. georgia is reality tv gold , and quickly became a fan favorite. her most memorable moment being after she got her heart broken on live tv , when she purposely held up a lighter to set off fire alarms ; and then laid on the ground getting drenched by the sprinklers. so now she’s single again after being made a fool of in front of the world , back home with parents that hate her for bringing them unwanted attention , and stuck in the city she tried to get away from. but , she’s got a podcast. it’s called the bimbo summit and it’s pretty much the only thing bringing her joy right now. it started as a way for her to expose some behind the scenes shit from love island , but now it’s just for fun.

𝐈𝐈𝐈 . 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 :

georgia is the girl that’s not easy to forget. she’s outgoing and amiable , but stubborn and not easy to push over. she was the one that moms would warn their kids to stay away from in high school ; she leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes , no matter how hard she tries not to. she has the purest of intentions , genuinely just wanting love & happiness for herself and everyone around her , but it seems like the universe has different plans.

she almost has this air of melancholy surrounding her ? like even when she’s happy and smiling , you can still sense it or see in her eyes that she’s not truly happy

very charismatic , she’s a major people pleaser so she’ll put everyone else’s feelings before her own . she just wants everyone to be happy even if it means she ends up being miserable .

georgia’s a selective oversharer . she’ll tell you all these useless little facts so you think she’s opening up when in reality you don’t truly know her because she refuses to talk about the things that matter .

she’s trusting once she gets to know someone , but if you break that trust even once she’s not very quick to forgive. she’ll hear you out , but it’s unlikely that she’ll ever let you back in.

she is completely unhinged. somehow picks the worst possible decision every time a problem arises. she’s not much of a logical thinker , and tends to let her heart make decisions for her. it’s gotten her into a world of trouble one too many times , and yet she’s never learnt her lesson.

she’s also a serial dater. in her pea brain attention = love so she’ll flock to wherever she gets that. she likes the validation of relationships but hates the commitment , so pretty much all of her relationships end before they ever really start.

don’t ever tell georgia she can’t do something. she’s a stubborn bitch and she’ll either do it immediately just to spite you or dedicate her entire life to proving you wrong and that’s not something anyone needs to deal with.

very opinionated and not afraid to make sure you know !! she will stand up for what she’s believes in without even a second of hesitation.

she would not be caught dead looking unpresentable .... she’ll do her hair and a full face of make up even if she’s waking up at 4am. and don’t even bother to ask her to go out after she’s done her skin care routine .... there’s no chance

doesn’t really know how to handle her emotions ? so when she’s hurt she tends to just .... shut down & push everyone away

she is a hardcore adrenaline junkie , she does so much stupid shit just for the thrill. making spontaneous and impulsive decisions is her favorite pass time. she just holds a lot of emotion in , so anything that will release all of that or make her feel anything other than the things she’s avoiding are very much welcomed.

#charleston:intro

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whump-town · 4 years ago

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The Lies We Tell

Aaron Hotchner has been lied to his entire life. That’s the thing about good intentions...

Warnings: abuse

The day that Haley’s family moved into the neighborhood is seared into Hotch’s memory.

He was pulled out of bed by his father. The older man slurring his words, heavily affected by whatever cheap liquor he’d been drowning himself in the entire afternoon prior. He had no chance to understand what was being said. He’d gone, regardless, in the direction of his father’s pulling to alleviate the pressure on his shoulder joint. Knowing too much of the pinned, awkward angle would spell misfortune for him.

Sure enough, his shoulder comes free with a pop and a chocked grunt of pain-- he knows better than to cry out. He suffers through the drunken rant his father’s worked himself into, careful to keep his wounded arm tight to his chest. In the privacy he’s afforded, only after his father’s taken a few blows and has resigned himself to sleeping off his slump, he can reset his shoulder. Should he do it by himself? No. There, simply, isn’t any other option.

With word of the family moving in down the street, the Brooke’s, his father sobers up to put up his best front: loving father who day-lights as a lawyer and spends his nights beating the shit out of his family. That doesn’t mean that Aaron doesn’t manage to “step out of line” just as they’re leaving-- how dare he existed in his home.

With his ears still ringing from the blow to his head, vision swimming, Aaron Hotchner stands between his mother and father on Brooke’s lawn. His father beams down at him, pride and joy in every area of his face except in his eyes. The only place it matters is the only place it isn’t. The family across from them doesn’t take note of how empty his father’s eyes are or how hard his grip is on Aaron’s bony shoulder. All they see is a family that mirrors their own:

A father, a mother, and two children.

The Brookes are a good family. It takes years for Aaron to grow out of his contempt for them. By then, his father is dying and the beatings are getting worse.

“Aaron--”

He falls hard for Haley Brookes and for some reason she gives the world’s worse pirate #3 a chance. She starts to wonder how a guy like Aaron falls through the cracks. He does plenty of clubs and he’s as sweet as can be. His personality is a little underdeveloped, as are his social skills, and he doesn’t always understand current social things, but he’s funny, and he’s handsome.

And he’s got an awful home life.

“Oh God,” she reaches for him and quickly realizes that was a mistake. “Sorry,” she whispers, taking a step back. She hadn’t expected the broken sob to leave his mouth when she reached for him. Sure, she’d noticed that sometimes if she reaches for his hand too fast he flinches away. She just hadn’t connected his bruises for… for this.

He’s shaking in their doorway, soaking wet from the rain pouring down outside. It’s too cold to let him stand out there for too long.

She wracks her brain for what to do and with shaky inhale she forces herself to calm down. Aaron’s always fed off of the energy others give, it’s one of the first things you notice the longer you’re around him. His empathy is high. “Aaron,” she calls softly, extending her hand out of the doorway to him. He still has to step to reach her but that leaves their proximity in his control.

It takes him a moment but he steps closer and allows his fingers to brush against hers.

He knows Haley is safe. Haley will help him. He’s struggling. The line between pain and comfort is distorted. He’s scared and it immobilizes him. Rationally he knows-- he knows Haley will help him but he’s afraid his father will see. What if he hurts her too?

“Son?”

Mr. Brookes. He’ll protect them from his father.

“Son, what the hell--”

Haley steps between them, seeing the way Aaron’s eyes light up at the sight of her father. He’s not in his rational mind. This isn’t his fault. “Daddy,” she warns softly. Mercifully, they pass between them an understanding. Her father hates the Hotchners and he distrusts Aaron and his motivations. But he understands this. He understands where the bruise swelling on Aaron’s right cheekbone came from.

“Let me help,” Haley whispers to Aaron. “Come on, you’ll be okay.” She offers her hand back out and watches as Aaron’s eyes pass between her and her father. There’s another moment, more hesitation but he finally breaks the gap. He trusts her. He’s always trusted her.

Once he steps forward, this time, he doesn’t stop until he’s got both arms wrapped around Haley. He sobs into her collar and she holds him. Pulls him close until he’s practically folded into himself to be at her height. To allow himself to sink into her arms and just be held.

Haley’s mother brings in a bag of peas, cliche but the only thing they have to reduce the swelling in his face. Mr. Brookes stays in the kitchen, watching from the doorway as his wife and daughter aid Aaron. As uneasy as the situation feels him, there’s a stir of pride in the pit of his stomach at the side of Haley being so tender.

“Shh,” Haley runs her hand through Aaron’s wet hair. He flinches from the touch of the cold press to his cheek, pushing himself closer to Haley. She expects the movement and wordlessly takes the bag from her mother. “It’s alright,” she soothes and this time he sees the bag coming. He doesn’t fight it.

“I’m right here.” She promises, “always. I’ll always be right here.”

He places his hand over her own. It takes him a moment to realize where he is-- laying in the Brookes’s living room with his head in Haley’s lap. Blinking tears out of his eyes he asks, “do you promise?”

Haley nods and presses a kiss to his forehead, “I promise, Aaron. I’m right here.”

That was the first lie she ever told him.

___________

He makes it through training. Paperwork comes and goes. He can wrap his head around the cases that hurt the most but... he still stumbles. He’s not figured out how to hide these things from people trained to detect exactly what he’s doing. Jason and Dave are unforgiving. They push and push at his broken pieces. There’s a moment, suspended, where he can recognize that he has exactly two options: fall apart or tell.

And the time to make that decision is quickly leaving.

The silence is building and while he understands that there is nothing wrong with the silence normally, here it is baited. Each moment he allows Dave’s question to go unanswered is another ticking time bomb that allows Dave to come to his own conclusion, however right they may be.

Hotch doesn’t typically appreciate people getting into his head. He doesn’t appreciate anyone getting into his head. There’s a strange give and take with Dave, though. He’s come to understand a certain level of giving-- personal information as little as a review of his day or, from what Dave wants, an in-depth analysis of his childhood. These things equate to trust and… and, well, love.

“Well?”

But he can’t say the words. They’re stuck in the back of his throat-- worse than choking. Exactly like choking. He doesn’t want the words there. He wants them aired out. He wants to tell Dave that his father hit him so badly once that he was hospitalized for three days in the ICU. That the hitting wasn’t enough. As he got too weak to hit, the verbal abuse was just effective.

But there’s no Heimlich maneuver for emotions.

Just growth.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Hotch doesn’t dare look up from the paperwork in his lap.

The question had been if he was willing to tell Dave what it was that had bothered him so much about the family of their almost victim. Almost, being subjective. The boy had still been through the trauma of being kidnapped, it was just some cruel mercy he wasn’t killed.

And for what? Hotch knew exactly what they were sending that boy back home to.

It’s the same thing he used to go home to.

Dave hums, it’s a specific sound he makes in the back of his throat and Hotch knows exactly what it means. He looks up and Dave just raises an eyebrow and shrugs it away. “I was just wondering,” he mumbles. “I also thought you should know that Jason called child protective services and I have a friend working on getting those kids out of that house.”

So he had seen the bruises.

“Oh,” escapes his mouth before he can bite it down. He nods his head and looks away, afraid of what he might see if looks at Dave for too long. “The father was unhinged,” he profiles. “Those kids won’t survive much longer with him.”

Dave nods, he’d come to the same conclusion. “Can’t imagine what it would be like to be raised by a man like that,” Dave says with a sympathetic shake of his head. “No one deserves that.”

Hotch refrains from nodding or even acknowledging that statement because he knows it’s meant for him. At him. Saying anything is admitting that Dave’s right.

Clearing his throat, Dave settles his attention back on the road. They’ve got a long drive ahead of them. Plenty of opportunities to have this discussion another time. Aaron’s just starting to hope that’s exactly what’s going to happen when Dave glances over at him.

"When was the last time you slept, " Dave plays his worried glance off by looking in the rear view mirror. Checking behind them. But he doesn't need to be looking at Hotch to know if he's lying or not. The kid looks like shit. He hasn't slept properly in days.

Hotch looks out the window, leaning his temple against the cool glass. "Don't know, " he mumbles.

Rossi hums.

"Why?"

Rossi glances at him, for a long hard minute it's a battle of wills. With a raised eyebrow, Dave shrugs. "Just checking in on you, am I not allowed to do that?"

Hotch doesn't reply. He doesn't even look up.

“Kid?”

Dammit. He wants to keep to himself. He wants to just crawl into a hole and act like nothing’s wrong. His childhood was great. His father was a hero. His mother… but he can’t even breathe. Each inhale gets caught in his throat and he can feel panic setting it. He needs to get out of this car. “P-Pull over,” he gasps, fingers going to his noose-- tie. “Pull over!”

He throws his door open, rushing out and toppling over onto his knees, gagging into the tall grass. A small voice in his head warns of the dangers of a snake, he did grow up in the south, but the way his stomach keeps cramping pushes that thought away. There are more dangerous things than a snake-- he used to live with one.

“Easy,” Dave mumbles from behind him and Hotch realizes he’s now leaning into Dave. Allowing the older man to hold him. “Easy, kid, just breathe.” Through each shuddering breath he pulls in, Hotch can feel Dave rubbing his hand up and down his back. His head is pounding, his ears pulsing. “Tell me next time you’re feeling sick, okay?”

Hotch leans back over, gagging miserably but unable to bring up anything with nothing left in his stomach.

“Look at me,” Dave asks, handing him a handkerchief to wipe his face off with. “I’m not going anywhere, kid. You can trust me. I’ll always be right here.”

Two months later he retires. Hotch doesn’t even get two weeks’ notice.

___________

He keeps counting. Jason Gideon keeps counting and each time he comes up one short. The radio in his ear buzzes, body counts over and over listed for the personnel looking through the carnage. There are plenty of missing officers, a single swat agent, and-and Jason’s one missing agent. Possible missing agent.

Six agents in… If six agents went in then there should still be-- Aaron.

Swaying where he stands, Aaron’s looking at the ruined building before him. His dark brown hair is pushed in disarray atop his head. No amount of gel keeping his crazy hair down. Jason’s always found it an endearing, if not silly, thing for someone so serious to have. But right now he can’t appreciate the cowlicks.

“Aaron,” Jason calls, knowing how the younger man startles when he’s not expecting being touched. “Can you hear me?” The closer he gets the more blood he sees. It might not be Aaron’s. That’s a very real possibility but Jason doubts that the crimson stain on his chest is entirely someone else’s.

Neither of their luck is that good.

And Jason knows he’s broken his promise to Dave.

“Watch out for the kid, huh? He…--”

“Get himself into trouble? Yeah, I know. I’ll watch his back.”

Who was watching his back today? Not Jason. He let six agents die. He was stupid. It was a stupid mistake and now everyone else is paying for it.

“Gideon?” Aaron turns to him, confusion pulling his thick brows down. “I can’t--” he looks around them, to the smoke and the building. “I can’t find Morgan. He… I just--” He winces in pain, his left hand touching his abdomen and he pulls it away bloody. He looks up to Gideon, tears in his eyes, “I can’t find Morgan.”

Jason nods his understanding, keeping his slow approach. “That’s okay,” he reassures him. “Don’t you remember? I sent Morgan back to Quantico.” He’s close enough now to touch Aaron and he offers a squeeze to his shoulder. “He’s okay. He’s safe.”

Aaron sucks in a breath, it sounds like a sob but he nods his understanding. His knees start to give beneath him, no reason to keep fighting if Morgan’s okay.

Jason catches him around the waist just as his knees cave beneath his weight. “It’s okay,” he breathes, shushing Aaron’s incoherent mumble. “You’re okay.” He places his hand over the wound, it’s easy to identify. It’s the only warm place on Hotch’s entire body. The strangled cry that leaves his pale lips rips through Jason.

His breathing immediately becomes more labored, his eyes slivers. “Hurts…” his face is awfully pale. His skin is clammy.

“Shh,” Jason looks motions for the medics running towards them to run faster. “I know, I know.” He tries to step back and give the medics room but the moment he moves Aaron grabs his hand. “Alright,” he settles back down, making sure to be out of the way but holding Aaron’s hand back. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here.”

The minute he passes out, Jason pulls away. He just can’t do it. He needs to get away.

Hotch spends weeks in the hospital.

Morgan’s there… but that’s because no one else can be. Their unit is dead. They have to start from the beginning. It’s just Derek, Hotch, and Gideon. And Gideon’s off… God knows where.

The day Hotch is released from the hospital, Jason visits. He stands in the doorway of the room, smiling as Hotch and Derek argue while Haley stands to the side, obviously displeased. He’s always enjoyed Morgan and Hotch’s brotherly friendship. No one was faster at putting the other in their place like the other but let either hear someone else bad mouth them and they’d go down swinging.

Derek wins the argument and Hotch lets him help him into the wheelchair. When Derek looks up, pushing the feet of the wheelchair so that Hotch can rest his feet on them, he follows Hotch’s eyes to the doorway. “What are you doing here?” he spits.

It’s unkind but Jason’s expecting it just as much as Hotch’s soft reprimand in the form of a Morgan’s name grunted.

Morgan looks back at Hotch, about to start another argument but they share a glance and before either says anything Haley steps up. “Come on,” she motions for Morgan to follow her. “Just give them a minute.”

Morgan gives Jason the look. It means many things but today it’s a warning. If Jason hurts Hotch, Morgan’s going to do worse to him. Boss or not.

“How are you?” Jason asks, settling himself on the edge of Hotch’s vacated bed.

Hotch looks down at his hands, nervously picking at his nails. He shakes his head, “I’ll be back at the office in two weeks but they’re not letting me back into the field until at least the end of the month.” He looks up at Jason, “ and I have to pass all the field requirements.”

Jason nods, “that’s good.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “But that’s not what I asked.”

Hotch raises an eyebrow, not exactly playing stupid but not playing along either. “Mmm,” he looks back down at his hands, brows furrowed now. “Haley’s pregnant, she--” he looks up at the doorway as if expecting her there. “She wants me to transfer. Go someplace safer.”

Jason takes this in for a moment, looking to the ground. He shrugs, “it’s understandable. You’re going to be a father, Aaron. Of course, she wants you alive.” He looks down at the floor, in shame or contempt, or just vulnerability. “You’ll be safer anyhow, now,” he adds. “If you decide to stay you’re going to be taking the Unit Cheif position.”

Hotch’s head snaps up, “they-” He looks away from Jason, processing the information. After a moment, he looks back up. “They took your job?”

Jason shakes his head, “no.” He nods his head towards Hotch, “they gave my position to a worthy candidate, whose name I put in the ring myself.” He smiles proudly, “and I am going to watch him build a new team as his senior agent.”

Hotch looks up at Jason and shakes his head but he looks away, unsure of what he’s supposed to say. He knows he can do the job. That’s always what he wanted-- hell, it’s what Dave and Jason both wanted. He just wasn’t expecting it so soon. He’s not sure he’s ready for it so soon.

“You’ll be great,” Jason reassures him. He gets off the bed and crouches down beside the wheelchair. Leaving the two men eye-level. “There’s no one that could do this job better.”

Hotch feels pretty adamant about this.

“Look at me,” Jason requests. “Nothing is going to happen. You’re a natural leader.”

Hotch nods.

“You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Two years later, as Hotch stands before Strauss knowing that the last year has been an unraveling-- a never-ending list of things that have gone wrong and reasons to fire him-- he wishes Jason were here. He shouldn’t have to deal with all of this alone. And yet he does.

___________

The world was on fire. Flames licking at the side of his arm and the way his legs refused to properly hold his weight. His knees hitting the gravel and the sting of skin tearing. But he’d sat in something wet. Crimson.

Morgan was there. He was kneeling beside Hotch, his hand on his shoulder.

“Agent Hotchner?” He flinches away from the penlight in his eyes. Someone says something and a palm settles across his forehead, this time he can’t move away as the light comes back. “Can you hear me, Agent Hotchner?”

Morgan stands up from his chair. He pushes himself between the doctor and Hotch. “You’re hurting him,” he accuses hotly. The doctor can’t refute that statement, Hotch is still groaning from the pain spiking through his head. He’s raised his hands to ward off another attack from the light, writhing as he moves his sore body to get away from where he knows it came from.

The doctor sighs. Of course, he understands the proximity of agents. This isn’t his first time dealing with government agents. Things are just becoming tricky. Agent Hotchner’s condition is critical and Agent Morgan understands that a little too well. He just doesn’t understand that his friend’s not going to catch his death with a doctor flashing a penlight into his eyes but he might if his concussion worsens or turns into a brain bleed.

“Agent,” the doctor says, growing impatient as Agent Hotchner grows more restless. “I understand your concern but your friend needs my help.” He knows he’s won the moment Morgan turns to look at Hotch. “Let me get him something for the pain and we can discuss this some more, okay?”

Morgan looks over to Hotch.

He’s crying, most likely not even aware of the tears streaming down his face. His hands are pressed over his ears and he’s turned over so that his back is to them. He’s managed to draw his knees to his chest. He’s entirely defensive, his pain is that bad.

“Okay,” the doctor repeats and this time Morgan nods. “Okay.” He steps right up to Hotch’s bedside, gently shaking the agent’s arm. “Agent Hotchner, can you hear me?” He doesn’t shine the penlight in his eyes, he just tries to get some sort of answer out of the other man.

Hotch manages a grumbled response, it’s too soft for Morgan to catch but the nurse facing Hotch looks up and repeats it. “He’s saying he’s okay.”

“He--” Morgan steps forward about to make sure they understand that’s very much not true but the doctor raises his hand and Morgan stops in his tracks.

“I know, “ the doctor confirms. He leans back over Hotch, “Agent, I’m going to have our very helpful nurse Sarah give you some pain meds, okay?” He pulls at the back of the gown Hotch’s bloodied clothes had been replaced by. He frowns at the road burn he finds but doesn’t comment. “You’ll be feeling a lot better in just a moment.”

The doctor steps to the side and motions for Morgan to follow.

Hotch cracks an eye open, fighting the currents of pain trying to drag him down to watch as the nurse pushing something painfully hot into his arm. It’s clear and his slurred speech doesn’t stop her. She pulls the syringe free and he just watches, that intense warmth working its way up his arm and into his chest. It hurts and it itches but his eyelids start to drop. Impossibly heavy.

Derek appears out of… well, nowhere. Hotch’s eyes move to the left, following the direction from which he appeared but he’s too tired to move his head and really figure out what’s happening.

“Hey man,” Morgan greets.

There’s something about the face that Morgan makes as he sits down in the visitor’s chair that sparks a sudden memory. “Kate,” Hotch rasps.

The doctor had just told Morgan that any stress is going to be too much. That Hotch’s heart and body just can’t take it.

Morgan looks up as the nurse tries to step between them, allowing her through. She places a mask over Hotch’s face, replacing the canal he’d worn just a moment ago. Worse, Morgan recalls, the doctor said he was getting worse. So when he sits down he puts on his best show.

“Joyner,” Morgan says. “You mean Kate Joyner.”

Hotch manages a small nod.

Morgan has to think carefully about his lie. He’ll have to recall these details later, to make sure the others understand his white lie. More importantly, Hotch has to believe him without a shred of doubt. “She’s downstairs,” Morgan says, which true. He’s just hoping Hotch assumes the E.R. and not the morgue. “You don’t need to worry about her, though,” Morgan says.

Hotch nods, “she’s… she’s okay?”

Morgan pulls in a steady breath, “she’s okay.” He smiles and offers Hotch a reassuring nod. “Get some sleep, man, you could use it.” He reaches over and squeezes Hotch’s hand, making sure he knows he’s not going anywhere.

Hotch can’t fight the drugs any longer. “The others,” he whispers. Morgan can’t hear him. “The others, are they okay?”

His breathing has become steadily worse and Morgan knows that if he doesn’t shut Hotch up soon they’re going to kick him out. Which may seem like a good thing but they don’t know Hotch. He’ll kill himself trying to get out of bed to make sure no one else is hurt.

“Everyone’s okay.”

And Hotch doesn’t need to know any more than that. They’ll catch the terrorist and he can worry about not dying on them. Because Morgan’s not sure he can handle anything but Hotch walking away from this.

He… He will walk away from this, right?

“Rest,” Morgan whispers. “We’ll handle everything.”

A month later, with ears as healed as they’re going to get and Morgan by his side, Hotch visits Kate Joyner’s grave.

“I’m sorry I…” Morgan can’t look at the gravestone or Hotch so he averts his eyes to the grass.

It takes a moment but Hotch’s voice cuts through the cold air with the thickness of his surfacing guilt. “It doesn’t matter.”

It did.

___________

Eventually, Dave leaves and Hotch is left with nothing but his previously raised question: what will his son remember about his in ten years? And no answer.

He falls asleep. It’s not a conscious choice but one his body makes for him. He’s been awake for the upwards of five hours, pushing past the mental fog a little too far. That had always been a problem for him. He could push his body, and he certainly would, but eventually, his brain would catch up. And, just as it had today, would override his determination to keep pushing.

He wakes to the sight of Emily Prentiss. She’s curled up in the visitor’s chair that she’d occupied earlier. Despite the days unraveling, she seems as relaxed as possible. But, then, she’s always held the danger of still water.

“You should have gone home with the others.” His voice seems caught around his sternum, lower and more agitated in tone than normal. Grumpy. He can’t help it. He’s not sure he could even smile right now if he had to. Not that there’s any reason to.

He’s completely alone.

She doesn’t pay his tone or attitude much mind but when has she? Given the last two years, he knows she’s grown some traction with the team and… well, they’ve grown closer as well. He knows this with an unfailing certainty when she simply shrugs away his comment.

Sometimes, they can really test him.

As she does frequently.

“I did go home,” she clarifies, flipping the page in her book without looking up at him. “And before you ask, I even got a good eight hours of sleep.”

He rolls his eyes, definitely something he wouldn’t do if not for the hefty amount of strong pain killers being dumped into his bloodstream. He knows he’s been beat, as he often is when it comes to Emily Prentiss, because he can’t disprove she’s slept or went home.

She reaches up and pulls--what he assumes is coffee-based off of the container-- a cup to her. She sips it and glances up at him. “Besides,” she says, putting the cup back. “I’m taking the first watch. I have to be here even if you don’t want me here.”

He understands well enough. Taking watch is not a new concept but the notion that he’d be on its receiving end is. He also knows she doesn’t mean the Bureau has assigned them to set watch, they’ve decided it amongst themselves. It almost makes the pain in his chest… numb.

He averts his eyes, looking to the ceiling. What’s he supposed to say to that anyway?

“How are you feeling,” she asks, tucking a bookmark in between the pages of her book. She sets it down in her lap, her full attention coming to him, even if he doesn’t want it. “Don’t lie,” she warns. “Your heartbeat is being measured out for me to see and you’re not that good at lying when you’re high.”

Like he’s let his heart rate give away if he was lying or not… besides, they both know lying while high thing is true. He hates that. “Fine,” he mumbles, eyes still on the ceiling.

She hums, “fine.” Sure. He gets stabbed nine times in his apartment after a case sent from hell by a serial killer they have profiled and know will continue to stalk Hotch for as long as possible. His only family has just been sent away for the next to foreseeable future and he’s fine. Just fine.

But what’s she to say. Everything’s going to be okay? She doesn’t know that. Even if they catch Foyet, that’s not going to mean Hotch can still look at himself in the mirror. It’s not going to fix the physiological torture.

She probably shouldn’t but she reaches between the two of them and gently takes his head. “Aaron,” she whispers because this isn’t the time for business casual nicknames. “We’re going to catch that son of a bitch,” her conviction feels misplaced but he can’t even bear to look at her and tell her that. “And you’re not going to lose anyone else.”

He nods, not able to trust his voice.

He’s exhausted. Too tired to argue with her.

“Okay.”

She sits back in her chair and they sit in one another silent comfort. A few minutes pass and she looks up and finds him sleep peacefully. Those brows finally having relaxed and his mouth open. She’ll be right here to keep the demons away and if Foyet decides to show his miserable face? He won’t be ready for the beating she’ll lay on him.

She just has no idea how wrong her promise is.

Now, she can squeeze his hand and promise him that he won’t lose anyone else. And he doesn’t for a few months.

Then she finds him crouched over Foyet’s dead body and Ian Doyle claws his way from the grave.

And he has to bury her.

He looses her too.

#criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #aaron hotchner #david rossi #jason gideon #derek morgan #emily prentiss #tw abuse

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years ago

Text

Life Story PART 66

When I got back from Texas, things pretty much went back to the way they had before, like I had never left. It felt like the people around me were becoming more and more unhinged though – like all this craziness was eventually going to lead to a death in the family, like the decisions and the way everyone treated one another was going to accumulate into a chaos that would rip through the centuries and become the psychological ailments of future generations of people distantly related to us one hundred and fifty years in the future. The chaos that was created by my parents, my older sisters, and my brother was going to pierce the heart of a city. The decisions we made today could create the right stuff to breed a monster, the same way that some drunken alcoholic rapist for a dad back in the late seventeen hundreds likely abused his kids and the abuse and dysfunction prevailed throughout the family line and created a school shooter several hundred years in the future. I truly believe my family is unknowingly planting seeds.

It might have been that I was just noticing things I hadn't noticed before. That was always happening now.

Me, Allison and David, we all got really into Fight Club for a time and would watch it every night. I loved the inner dialogue of the main character – and didn't really know how played out Fight Club kind of was. Most people complain about the ending when Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter's characters hold hands and watch the buildings fall – but I personally loved it. It's just such a moment. I have double feelings about Fight Club. On one hand, it has this postmodern honesty to it that I had craved – and hadn't known I had craved. I understood the disenfranchisement in my own way. I adored Marla. On the other hand many of the fans of Fight Club are these fake 'revolutionary' dudes who think it's a movie for and about women bumming men out. They look at Tyler Durden as some kind of role model – Brad Pitt's character in particular – in a way that sort of completely misunderstands the book. Most of the people who think they understand Fight Club actually do not. Which is okay. We all have the right to enjoy media entertainment in our own way. It just felt to me at times like it appealed to and eventually helped breed the fedora wearing meninist nationalist Mr. smooth voice dudes. It really has been misused – a lot.

David and I got into boxing. Really, it was my father who was into boxing – and he thought that maybe David could use his access aggression to become a boxer – perhaps even a successful one. My father had had a friend who boxed professionally, being one of the better boxers in the state, and that man had told my father that he himself could have been a boxer had he chosen to dedicate himself to it – which he was probably being honest about. My father has a very thick skull. I don't believe this is the worst idea my father ever had, but it was in a way emotionally lazy to believe that what David had was an access of energy that could be fixed by buying a punching bag. David was personally suffering and acting psychotic and boxing didn't fix anything/ However, we both did like to box. It's hard to believe it now, but for about three months I mulled over the idea of perhaps taking up boxing myself. My father was a little taken aback by my ideas in this regard. He didn't condemn me for this idea per say, that I might be the boxer of the family and not David. He more just didn't like the idea of having a girl in the family who was physically tough. In the end, I gave up being a boxer, some for reasons I will explain, but largely because I didn't want to have a permanently smashed up face.

What I liked about boxing was, there was something incredibly liberating about being able to mock beat the fuck out of something. All my life, I guess since I had been a sweet shy little child in a homemade sundress, I had been really messed with and I had been psychologically socialized to not think that I was capable of getting my way, emotionally, psychologically or physically. And that had gone so badly for me. Having been abused in so many different areas, when I boxed I felt like I had the control again temporarily – as if I was knocking down those who victimized me. Secondly, though I know it would hurt like hell in the ring with a professional, I sort of enjoyed getting punched. I know it's weird, but it brought me this weird kind of joy. Sometimes I would do poorly when jousting with David just so he would punch me repeatedly. So, for this reason, given also that I am much stronger than most women physically, I thought that it might be a plan for my future – maybe. I also liked how boxing was a game of strategy. I watched all the famous boxing matches, all the Muhammad Ali fights.

David got a lot of attention for being interested in boxing from my father, and it became this really unhealthy thing in the end as I soon came to find. My father taught David a limited amount of defense techniques that he knew, and bought him a punching bag. But there was never any further training for David. David would walk around at first – pumped up believing he was going to be a pro boxer. But without a trainer he would never have a chance, and my father of course was not willing to spend any money on it. You could see this mounting disappointment growing on David's face – as he was now feeling cheated more by my dad wanting to fantasize than anything ever actually happening. Secondly, my dad only got into the whole boxing thing because he wanted to distract himself from online relationships he was having for a few months. As soon as he was with someone new he met online, he totally neglected David's interests in boxing. It was not hard to see the true feeling of being betrayed and abandoned on David's face, but nobody could say a thing.

David about a year or two later ended up putting my father in his place. My dad was just beginning to be intimidated by David. He was afraid that David, being as he was young, somewhat tall and muscular would eventually overtake him. My father believed that all sons want to destroy their fathers physically and make them the bitch of the house (as to any real verification of this, maybe, I don't know because it's so outside my zone), he became intimidated by David boxing. He wanted the local fuckheads and losers to see how much tougher he was than David. So, he decided to set up a boxing match between himself and David while David was still young enough to be beaten. He set the boxing match out in the backyard of Billy's house and a handful of these idiots came out to watch my Dad essentially put David in his place. It was so, so backwards. Well, David was starting to really resent my father. I think he resented dad on some level when he had been talking about moving away from all of us to live with Patti in Boise instead. It had really rattled David's understanding of his place in the family at that early age, and this all was beginning to feel, and rightly so, like my father was more or less using us kids to fulfill his own emptiness and David was nothing more than a vessel for my father to relive his 'glorious youth' through.

And well, David ended up catching on to just how fucked up it was that my father wanted to beat him up in front of a bunch of guys. My father was actually beginning to punch and hurt David in the boxing match – pretending that David was being weak and he was merely trying to 'toughen him up', but David somehow turned it around, realizing it was not a fair fight and putting all his might into it, he slammed my father in the face and bloodied his nose. David didn't pulverize our father, but he knocked him down, in front of 'the guys' which he completely deserved and it humiliated my father, though in order to save face with himself he acted proud of David. The dynamics between them were getting stranger and stranger.

As for me, I once went outside and overheard my father talking to David out by the boxing area around our porch. They didn't know I was out there. What I overheard managed to upset me to the point that I did start to cry. Basically, David was being mostly calm and agreeable. I don't blame him for this. My father was making fun of me, saying that it was very dumb of me to think I could ever become a boxer, and he was prepping David to beat me up really good in order to teach me some kind of lesson. Basically, my father was trying to get David to beat me up for him. David just mmhmmed it, and it was an open rule among me and my younger siblings that mmhmming things when our parents were talking badly about one of us to another one was a perfectly acceptable way for us all to survive. Our father was actually quoting Fight Club, him being one of those fucking idiots I guess who think that the story was antiwoman. And it really hit me then, not that I hadn't instinctively and at times somewhat directly understood that my father resented women. But he wanted to take that anger out on me specifically – there was something about me that bothered him the worst, and he wanted to kill the poetic bird inside my heart, chop off my wings and my sense of self sufficiency, and he wanted to see me physically and psychologically beaten. I hid behind the house and cried against the wall. I asked David about the 'talk' I had overheard, and David confirmed to me what my father had been saying.

A year later, I decided to spar with one of Kyle's little brothers who lived next door, Khris. He was really strong, but I knew more techniques, and in any case we were only doing this for some fun. We both agreed not to punch as hard as we could or anything. Well, he wouldn't get close enough to actually be in a match. He stood seven or eight feet away and wouldn't get near me enough to fight. I should have just said, 'hey, I don't spar with wimps,' and took my gloves off, but instead, after waiting for three or four minutes I decided to get in there and just take this to some kind of conclusion. As soon as I walked over to him, he threw this wild haymaker and rabbit punched me behind my head, between where my head starts and my neck – and he did it as hard as he could. You aren't supposed to punch like that, since it can cause spinal and brain damage, and it really did mess me up. I started crying and I had to get in the house. Everyone was very annoyed at Khris, knowing full and well that he had intentionally cheated in just about every way. Khris just kept saying 'wow, it's because I am so strong! I didn't know I was this strong because I just tapped her!' which was total bull. He wanted to pretend he was superman, basically. And I just decided as I held my head and cried against the tool shed, that I was never going to box again. Second to that, David and I had gotten into a disagreement and then proceeded to box once. We both had gotten really aggressive with one another, which was stupid. I guess I was infuriated by David and I wanted to be able to take it out on him. But me initiating that fight had also been stupid. So for me, being a boxer was not meant to be. I didn't want to deal with my father being a sexist prick, getting rabbit punched by cheaters, and using boxing as some kind of coping mechanism. So I let that dream die.

Upon my father's behest, I attempted to apply to ATK where my father worked for a job at the sorting lines. This involved going through a very large process of applying, and going to a class in the unemployment office that tested our basic IQ's. I still could not write, nor did I have a social security card, but my father seemed to think you didn't need these things to work there – you did. I think he wanted this because he wanted to control me – and in his mind I am sure he saw it as helping. In any case, if I got the job, the starting pay was thirteen dollars an hour. That sounded amazing to me. I didn't even fully understand what could be done with that kind of money. I couldn't manage to scrap together thirteen dollars a week most of the time. I had to somehow bleach the rainbow out of my hair just in the hopes I might get the job– making the mistake of doing it right before we had to leave was a sorry mistake and it pretty much destroyed my hair. I mean, it was blonde, but I didn't even finish washing out the bleach before I left. My head dried with crusty bleach since I didn't wash it out well enough. My skull bled a bit, the hair wasn't even hair anymore. It was falling out. I really had not wanted to change my hair color, but work would never allow me to have rainbow colored hair. For this reason, I hoped dearly that I would be able to at least get the job I wanted. Nothing hurts worse than sacrificing parts of your identity for someone/something, only to be rejected anyway.

I went in for my final assessment where I was going to talk to some people about getting hired. I went into this office, where I was called in. Two men came in. They were very phony to me – you could tell they had moderate positions of power, had to kiss ass to their bosses, but also loved getting their ass kissed too – which I guess made it all worth while to them. They used a bunch of absurd company lingo, and they didn't talk to me directly at all. They looked over my application and my basic information, and they talked about me as though I were not in the room. I didn't have the job. They didn't want to invest their time and energy in someone as young as me. But rather than have someone come out and tell me that I wasn't a good fit, I spent twenty minutes listening to this absurdly phony banter, which I assume is some kind of cheap ass corporate technique of letting people off easy. I hated it. I would much rather they just looked me in the face and explained what was up. In any case, I hadn't really wanted that job. I just needed it. Which kind of sucks worse, but you know.

At my mother's it was the same old same old. Roxanne and Jeremy had gotten into the low income housing they needed, so they no longer lived at my mothers and I had more reign again. Roxanne was pregnant again, with a baby girl. She seemed happy, but she seemed unhappy about it too – very unhappy. Jeremy had basically forced her into getting pregnant so that she would never have any recourse. He wanted to be attached to her forever. Roxanne likes having babies. It's sort of her thing. But I had this very eye-opening experience with her where she showed a rare moment of clarity and honesty. She was crying after a fight her and Jeremy had had. I don't remember all of what was said. I was laying on the couch a bit mystified. But essentially she told me that she dreaded having the baby. She almost wished that she could get an abortion, and part of her was willing to go to hell for it, just to not have to be attached to Jeremy. She wanted away from him. He was dangerous and sociopathic and controlled every aspect of her. She was sobbing uncontrollably, and she had pretty much spelled out that she knew full and well what this pregnancy was. But there was also no place for me to stop this train. I listened and I tried to agree with her. But I knew that agreeing too hard would get me shut out, and she wouldn't even have the opportunity for these rare moments of hearing herself say something that made sense. I was hoping she would listen to herself. She did not.

I began to go to bible studies with Roxanne and her family. This particular group was mostly younger and middle aged people who had really messed their lives up. It wasn't your typical older folks church. I was an atheist there, disguised as a Christian. I mostly went for the food and because I was always feeling anxious and alone and it at least gave me something to do, but there was something really humbling and comforting about being around people who were trying to better themselves, no matter how misguided I felt like it was ultimately. I went because for one, there were honestly, passages in the bible about love and about how we are to see one another that I thought were pretty damn deep coming from someone nearly two-thousand years ago. Even if you don't agree with those statements, it's really worth understanding and appreciating that they really were dealing with certain elements of the human condition in the best way they knew how, and in certain ways, society hasn't changed from then. Most of the bible is totally frivolous demanding statements without explanation and the other half is fairy tale, but here and again, if taken a part piece by piece sometimes you find something is there. I thought the guy who ran the bible study, was a completely self righteous asshole. He had a lot of power in the community, and I guess he helped a lot of people. A long time ago, he had been a heavy drinker and had become an alcoholic, and he had turned his life around. People groveled to him, and when they had Christmas and Thanksgiving get togethers in the community hundreds of people would treat him like he was a prophet. But to me, I thought he was a sick arrogant bastard. The whole thing had gone to his head. He not only looked down on those he helped like they were freeloaders, he also thought that his wealth and his influence in the community meant he might actually be some kind of messiah. Maybe he did a lot of good – he was definitely a smart guy and he was able to rally up money to help needy kids, but his personality was shit and he was homophobic and sexist – though he generally didn't talk so much about sinning and rather applying the bible to your life so it didn't come up much. I looked around sometimes and could not people were so in love with this guy.

All the same, I went to his meetings for about a year. I sometimes got free top ramen and I was given a free raincoat once. He didn't talk offensively about 'the gays' and he was never rude to me. He made possible, and offered places for homeless people to live, and offered up and found places, sometimes even in church basements for people in bad places to stay for awhile till they got the help they needed. It was no wonder in many respects that people of the community cared so deeply for this guy. I guess I couldn't personally complain either. I just knew he was a real douche, I could read it on his face and I could tell how much be looked down on people – I just couldn't tell anyone I thought that.

I remember very vividly a terrible fight I ended up having with my mother and David. It was up to that point one of the worst fights we had had in some time. It started with my mother was being really virulent towards David for no reason. My mother has some kind of unspecified personality disorder. Everybody who has ever met her has said it. I think it's likely she has several and they interact with each other strangely. My father thought bipolar and sometimes sociopath (though he's no angel either honestly). I think borderline and anxiety. She's been diagnosed with ADHD. It could be that she is just massively insecure. Now that I am older and I can see her not as my parent, but as the weird woman that she is, and can identify in myself the things that came from her, I have learned what I can and cannot tolerate from her personally and have to leave, and what isn't worth getting into with her. Because she won't stop. Her moods and her entire identity will fluctuate and her fantasies will proceed more deeply. If she is being mean towards you, it's a petty power play. She might really hurt a person and totally forget she ever did it. I don't think she can help it. Anyway, living with her is a drag. She likes chaos and will find ways to create it. She was intentionally being mean towards David this one Saturday evening, pushing his buttons to make him snap.

I put my book down and tried to stick up for David. It is a weakness I have. It might slightly be fueled by my ego. I have troubles understanding what is acceptable for what I accept, and therefore I will accept a lot of abuse. I am also a bit of a coward. I am not the most cowardly person mind you, but I know I could be better. But when I see someone I care about being given a hard time I jump in and try to protect that person and I rarely think of the consequences. That's what I did, and when I stepped in and tried to tell my mother to knock it off, or tried to explain the misunderstanding that I thought the two of them were having, it all went to hell and she was screaming at me, and I was trying to defend myself. Pretty soon, David, who I had been trying to protect, sided with her and the two of them were screaming at me together calling me worthless and a number of other things I don't even fully remember. David saw this I think as an opportunity to blow some steam at me, which made little to no sense, but he was a fucked up angry kid in certain ways so it was to be expected I suppose. I was being attacked at different angles, I was being told I was a loser and that my dreams were nothing, and I suddenly felt myself snap. I called my mother a bitch and told her she could fuck herself and she was a terrible person and just about everything I could think of. I was sobbing and I knew if I stayed I would physically attack them, so I slammed the door and left. I was crying and out the door grabbing my shoes and coat as I went

I thought about running away. For about five minutes it all made perfect poetic sense to run away. I didn't know how I would survive, but people surely did this kind of thing all the time. I knew there was a world out there that wasn't my family's house. I wanted that freedom. But then, as I walked on I realized flatly that it could never happen. I had less experience out in the world than most. I could only survive with a book in my face at this point. I felt ugly and fat. I was already starving and I needed to pee. I was freezing without a coat. I had no money. It was basically winter. But I felt this agonizing frustration at the idea of going back. It didn't seem emotionally possible for me to simply stroll back through the door. Things had been said that had been malicious. I just figured I would walk around, cold and miserable as I was for awhile. I was hoping the library across town would be open – it was not. I knew I had to walk back or take cover somewhere.

Meanwhile, my mother called up my father and told him that I had freaked out on the family, and had been acting crazy and suicidal. Like a fucking sucker he bought her story of all people, and he came over – convinced that it was yet again me who was the true culprit of all things terrible in the family. Honestly, I think at the heart of it my parents wanted to snuff out a certain kind of clarity I had that they found offensive. When people talked to me, I tried to be honest and thoughtful and thorough in my responses. I was a listener and found ways to be trusted and needed by my family when they talked.

I went back to the area, but I saw my dad's car in the apartment complex driveway and I just couldn't do it. There was some guaranteed drama in there. I listened in. My parents were talking about me. They were talking about how I was a mooch, about how reading and studying philosophy was ruining me for the work force – I was too poor and too lower class to be thinking that I had any potential to become anything. I had been talking loosely to my mother about a dream of mine to travel the world. I fantasized about hitchhiking since I had just read the Dharma Bums. I wasn't actually going to do it, but I wanted to travel like the beatniks did back in the day. Her and my father both spent a good deal of time talking about how I was unrealistic about my goals. I don't even know what they were even trying to say about me after awhile. I was just a horrible person I guess, with no specific crimes other than being who I was. My goals had had nothing to do with my mom attacking David over the remote controller mind you. Also, my parent's hated one another. They both saw the other as a sociopath. My mother had tried to get my dad into prison for not keeping us one weekend only a year and a half previous because she and Danny had wanted to party. They hated me because I was passively rebelling. I wasn't fucking up like my older sisters had by having gross boyfriends, drugs, getting pregnant with babies I couldn't take care of and didn't want to. Even though I generally said very little, I had dismissed their way of life, their world views and their existences and had become a voluntary orphan of sorts. And I was so bad that these two shitshows for people had seen fit to side with one another against the common enemy – me. I was mad, and I didn't want to be spotted by anyone lurking outside the window. So I left.

I had to go pee so bad, it was pitch black out and my skin was ice. I could see my breath, I felt exhausted and cried out in the winter air and horrible and panicked. Down the road quite a ways there was a gulch, and I figured I might be able to pee there. I didn't have toilet paper. It was going to be a mess. I just couldn't walk through that door with everyone revved up to attack me like this. So I walked over there and tried to pee. I ended up slipping as I tried to pee, which caused me to fall on a bunch of puncture weeds which are the curse of Clarkston. So there was not only pee all over me and my clothes now, but I had scratched up my butt and the pee that had gotten all over me made me even colder and I smelled and I had no future and I hated myself but resented the reasons why other people hated me and I missed the few people in my life who had ever cared about me at all, and it was seriously, no fucking fun. I wish this misery on absolutely no one.

I trudged back to the apartments frozen with pee all over me and I walked down into the laundry area. It was a really fucked up laundry room. Part of the wall had been torn down and there was broken wood and knocked over dead washing machines and various parts of debris and garbage all over floor. It looked like someone might have squatted down there. I found a place to sit. I sat there and sang to myself and rocked back and forth. I felt sick and alone and mentally unstable. Eventually, the voice of utilitarian pragmatism took over, and I knew that sooner or later I would have to go back into the building anyway. It was two in the morning by that time. I had been outside frozen and feeling awful for eight hours. My mother was still up and she tried to say something to upset me as I walked through the door. I just closed my eyes and said nothing. All that mattered was that I get warm and get clean clothes on. I just pretended she didn't exist.

Of course, my father's later retelling of that story is that he protested my mother's snarky confusing comments about me. While it is true that she initiated the entire thing and made up the most about me that wasn't even true, she had also gotten my father to speak pretty unfavorably about me. He doesn't remember it that way. He honestly remembers being some kind of honorable ally to me this night, but he doesn't know that I had been hanging out outside the window and had heard it all.

On the positive – kinda. There was this beautiful husky that lived a few doors down. Her name was Tikka. She was well trained, she wasn't reserved at all as some huskies are. She loved people and she loved especially children. For some horrible reason her masters just left her when they moved. It made zero sense to me. Tikka ended up come up to our area of the apartment complex, and more or less became everyone's dog. Everyone fed her, everyone let her stay in our apartments (this despite the fact that there was a no dog rule). She would knock on your door when she wanted in. This went on for a few months I think until someone found a permanent home for her. During the days she would play outside with the children. I seriously remember this almost cartoonishly sweet scene out the window one day. Tikka was smiling ear to ear. On her back as she walked were two small toddlers. She was seriously voluntarily giving the children free rides. I know that things like Tikka being a good community dog are really small. But they were literally the only things that kept me afloat. I had to really have a blind faith that things were going to work out well for me. Because I had no indication that they were. I was pretty much trapped, by my own inability to operate in the world like a normal human being, my lack of connections, but mostly my family. I sometimes just started thinking about killing myself. I didn't really ever have a plan of action. I didn't openly express that I was going to commit suicide. It just felt as though death's door presented itself to me and creaked open a little bit. I didn't go through, but I didn't keep my eyes off it either.

I sometimes would look at the old letters Zack used to write to me about me having a destiny and being a very special person and about how the world was trying to dim my inner light and I couldn't let them do that to me. I would remember that he had told Casey that he loved me still. It hurt. I couldn't face him, he had a girlfriend. Zack also was not a caretaker. There are the types of people who want to take care of others, and there are the types that do not. Zack was not someone who took care of people. In this sense I think I was beginning to understand that he wasn't a particularly grand human being. I had never seen him kick anyone while they were down. But I hadn't seen him help anyone either. I had read enough books, and knew enough very real feeling fictional characters to know that he lacked a lot of positive traits I had never thought to look for when I was naive in my early teens. And I was so full of the kind of pain someone might very well run from. I didn't want to be seen as a weak person filled with pain. Perhaps if I had known Zack better. But I really didn't. I understood that now. And he hadn't known me either. But I had to believe he knew me well enough to have seen that inner light I had, because if that inner light wasn't real, and I wasn't special or perfect or loved, than nothing was worth it for me. It wasn't worth being alive for me really. Not like it was. Still, I just knew somehow that he and I were meant to be. My new reason for not telling anyone that I was still in love with Zack wasn't to avoid talking about him or to deny it myself or get people to not want what I had. It was to prevent people from thinking I was fucking insane. Because at this point, five years after all was said and done, for me to be holding on to this in some way really was absolutely crazy.

PART 65 - https://tinyurl.com/yb22o6rv

PART 64 - https://tinyurl.com/y98zxljs

PART 63 - https://tinyurl.com/ybosu235

PART 62 - https://tinyurl.com/ybjrvccn

PART 61 - https://tinyurl.com/ybm99k8o

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-60 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far).

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-60

#text

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