by Daya Daniels
The music shuts off.
It’s quiet once more.
“You really dream about being a king?” He shoves his fingers into his messy hair.
“Yeah, all the time.”
He grunts. “Why?”
The question irritates me. “Why not?” I make a face. “Why do some men get to be kings, Griffon, and others are forced to grovel at the king’s feet.”
“I don’t know—way of the world, I guess. I’ve never put too much thought into it.”
I suck my teeth. “Mr. Blasé right? Nothing bothers you. Everything floats under your I-don’t-give-a-fuck bridge and ends up in some abyss where you forget about it somehow.”
“Eventually.”
I laugh, covering my mouth, rubbing my jaw out of frustration when I realize I lack this component within. The ability to be emotionless. To forgive and forget. I don’t possess the calm. I’m more like the storm. The ripping wind that leaves things destroyed when I’m finished with them. I fuck shit up. It’s just my nature. I break things.
“There isn’t much that settles in me and festers, Ryker.” His voice lacks any sort of emotion. “I don’t ruminate over anything because I don’t give a shit about anything.”
“And that means you don’t feel, Griffon.”
As if I said something completely heinous, he jackknifes to a sitting position. “And why in the fuck would I want to feel? Pain. Sadness. Hurt. Anger. Abandonment. Who in their right mind wants to walk around all the time feeling like that!”
“I don’t know.” I drop my head to stare at my bare feet on the floor.
Neither of us says a word. My heart rate picks up and my blood pressure skyrockets. I boil. My ears are hot and my eyes water. When I shift my hand, I find it’s trembling.
“What’s got you so worked up?” Griffon questions.
I don’t move, only exhale.
Griffon comes closer, eyes narrowed as he peers at me as if he sees right into my very disturbed soul. “Who are you thinking about dethroning?”
I don’t say the words right away, then I can’t resist. It’s the first time I’ve spoken them aloud. Hell, it’s the first time I’ve even really considered what I’m planning to do. It’s all crazy and deranged and something right out of the fucking movies.
“Who?”
I twist around completely to face him head-on, sitting proud. “My father.”
“I see.” Griffon ruffles his hair. “You hate him that much, huh?”
“Yesssss.”
“I guess I can understand that.”
“I suppose I hate my father as much as you hate yours.”
Griffon makes a face. “I don’t really hate my father.”
My brows arch so fucking high they almost come off my face. “Sure did sound like it when I first asked you about him.”
He looks away from me. “Well, I didn’t mean for it to come across that way.”
I sense a little bit of protectiveness seeping from this boy’s veins over his dear old daddy. He sinks deep in thought.
I laugh a bit.
“What?” His expression is fierce.
“Nothing.”
He sucks his teeth. “I don’t hate him. I just wish he wasn’t so fucking weak.”
“Weak?”
“Yeah, weak.” Disgust slathers his last word.
I’m intrigued, feeling as though I’ve stolen something a bit more from him in the last few moments than I had intended to. That he hadn’t planned on giving me.
I keep my eyes pinned on the little boy who looks as though he’s been thrown out for the garbage. He’s pouting, and it’s cute.
Reaching out, I move to brush his chin.
He whacks my hand away with force.
I snatch it back.
He seethes.
“You aren’t going to talk about it after you threw me that little tiny tasty morsel about your life?” I wink.
“No.”
He won’t change his mind. I’m sure of it.
“Okay then.” I stand and walk across the room. When I reach the door, I spin around, look at Griffon then open it.
He stares back, almost gaping at me, then scrambles to the edge of the bed. “I fucking snuck all the way here. Do you know how much trouble I could’ve gotten into?”
I shrug knowing that if caught, this little midnight excursion he’d taken could cost him another week at Spero. I still don’t ask him why he came here. Nor do I really care. Now, he’s just annoyed the fuck out of me. I gesture toward the door with a hand showing him the way back from whence he came.
Muttering something to himself, he stands and slowly makes his way over to me.
The thump of bare feet against tile…
He faces me, breathing, blinking, staring at me in that way that makes me wonder what’s going on in his head. He rubs his jaw. “I don’t know why I came here.”
I laugh softly.
He doesn’t.
And now he doesn’t want to leave…
“I do know that I didn’t come here to talk.” He sucks in a breath, peering at the swell in my lounge pants, how it hangs there, hungry but considerably patient for a meal.
“I don’t do random fucks, Griffon.”
His grays search my face.
“I know I might look like the guy who does but nah-uh.”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “What the fuck are you talking about, Ryker?” When they pop open they look oh so confused. Like I just told him to build a bigger, longer, higher version of the Millau Viaduct. “You were just telling me you don’t date. You don’t want a boyfriend. You don’t want to fall in love.”
I laugh, say nothing.
Griffon shoves past me, knocking me in the shoulder.
“I never said I didn’t want a friend,” I whisper.
Then, he’s gone.
GRIFFON
I THINK I HAVE whiplash of the fucking century…
My neck hurts, honestly, and my brain burns with questions.
Not to mention that I feel like a castaway whore.
Completely unsure of why I had gone to his room, I stare up at the white ceiling above, attempting to gather my emotions that feel so scattered right now.
I’d been rejected.
Clean.
Cold.
Dismissed.
Without hesitation.
But he knows he wants me.
I laugh a bit and turn on my side.
He wants a friend and so do I. But maybe I want one with benefits.
How does a guy not want to put his hands all over a dude like Ryker Benedict?
His dick would have to be dead in his pants for him not to consider it…that’s how.
I let out a huff and twist and turn a little more, realizing it’s two o’clock in the morning and now I just may never get to sleep, despite having had a long hot shower and a dinner of grilled venison, garlic mashed potatoes, and asparagus.
I give the chef my compliments on the food here. It’s all top notch.
Spero can be likened to a five-star hotel just with bars on some of its windows and filled with orderlies who are just waiting to needle you in the neck and inject you with whatever narcotizing drug they have on hand if you decide to have a freak-out.
Sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?
Snatching up the pile of mail on the floor, I stare at the envelope which has my home address scribbled across it in Giovanni’s handwriting. My father must be one of the only men this side of the universe who still sit down and take the time to send someone a handwritten letter.
Giovanni is quite the romantic.
Who knew.
I stare at the envelope and rest it back down on the floor, next to all the books I still haven’t read. Next to all the writing I haven’t done.
I swear under my breath, looking at the empty notepad.
“A gift,” Doctor Azad had said to help me talking about my feelings. Then, he went on to tell me that instead of speaking up in those ago
nizing sessions, I could write everything down and he’d read it later. I tried, just once to put my pen to the paper. The pen hit the page. The ink blotted it. But my hand couldn’t make circles or strokes to form the words. So, I shut the book, threw it across the room and sent the pen on the mission after it.
It was a bad idea.
So, I snatch up my sketchbook and flip through some of my art.
I wouldn’t call it pop art. But it’s art. Some weird blend of cartoon drawings and something else—maybe goth. The types of images that would make people depressed.
I swallow back a laugh at myself.
Taking up a pencil, I begin to scribble, etching out Ryker’s face, getting all the sharp edges of his features down in a few strokes and it surprises me how much I remember about him.
The angry boy.
The emotional child.
The dude of my daydreams.
Pausing, I accept that I’m not quite sure how I feel.
And I do think that I should steer clear of this mind-fuck of a man.
But, I can’t.
For some brain scrambling reason, I can’t.
I pity Ryker Benedict.
But worst of all, I think he pities me more.
CHAPTER THREE
GRIFFON
SEVEN DAYS LATER…
It was a rainy summer day when my mother died.
Thick strands of it fell from the black sky and hit the cruel Hell’s Kitchen streets. Each droplet sounded like an explosion when it hit the hot ground that morning.
The scent of fresh coffee wafted from the kitchen where Giovanni attempted to make it with his shaky hands—dropping spoons, spilling sugar, slamming drawers. He took a sip of it, burned his mouth, then smashed the cup on the floor.
The ceramic pieces which scattered across the linoleum that morning resembled exactly what was happening to my father. He was broken in pieces, unfixable, forever changed.
Instead of rushing to him when he collapsed to the floor in tears, I sat in the bay window and wondered what the hell was going to happen with the rest of my life. I turned to the streets where I forced myself to remember happier times when I played stick ball and Hide-And-Go-Seek with kids who didn’t even like me.
Still, it was fun to think about.
Took my mind off the horror that was unfolding right in front of me.
I couldn’t breathe. I could barely feel my face and my heartbeat was off. I focused on the rain while each one of Giovanni’s sobs glued me to that seat.
I was frozen.
Unable to move or think or feel.
And that’s when it happened…
That’s when I told myself that feeling only led to pain.
And pain wasn’t nice.
I didn’t cry that day or any day thereafter.
I was ten years old then and the years which followed that were sad as fuck…
The tittering in the distance snaps me out of my daydream.
I’ve almost forgotten where I am.
Pressing my temple to the cool glass, I focus on the rain that falls from the sky this morning, annoyed that it has this magical ability to put me in one messed-up mood.
All the evergreen in the distance calms me.
The rain sluices down the branches of the pine trees and trickles down to the perfectly manicured glass. So calm. So pretty.
“What are you doing?” the familiar voice asks.
Instantly, a snarl turns up my lip. I shift where I’m sitting and twist around to face his smug smile. It isn’t the same smile I’d last seen though. It looks sadder for some reason.
Ryker stands tall in front of me in socks and flip-flops and wearing clothes that make him look as though he just crawled out of a dumpster, ones that have holes, stains, rips and tears and frayed edges—like me. But he looks quite comfortable in it all.
I examine the picture in front of me, confused as always.
He shoves his hands into the pockets of the hoodie he’s wearing and tosses his dark hair which tickles his lashes. Then, I’m assaulted with blue.
It’s unbearably beautiful.
My gaze cuts back to the window, away from those soul-sucking eyes of his.
He moves closer to me.
I’d purposely avoided this dude in the last few days realizing he was putting me off my game. I was here to get better, not to find whatever it was I was chasing from him. I had to focus on myself. To calm the constant craving, I had to soothe myself with narcotics. I wanted to be better. To find some direction. I didn’t want to come back here.
No way.
Ryker breathes.
I can smell him—fresh, sweet, spicy. Something you’d want to lick.
“I said what are you doing?” He repeats himself.
I have no clue.
“I’m looking out the window, what does it look like?”
He laughs. “Yeah, I can see that.” He moves closer to the large window, peering out, narrowing his eyes. “I think I see what you see out there, Griffon.”
“There’s nothing out there.” My words come out bored.
He smiles, making my spirit salute. “Ah, yeah, there is.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “I guess to some folks they’d probably see nothing out there, Griffon. Just green and grass and trees. But…” He pauses. “I see life, beauty, endless perfection. And even that birch tree out there.” He points to a lifeless one that’s cut down to the roots. The one I’d been focusing on for the last few hours. “It’s dead but…it has the chance to begin again. All it needs is water and to be protected from infection and poisons and it can grow and thrive. To become a great big tree for the second time that’ll live for hundreds of years.”
The rain falls.
Slicking the window, it obscures my view of the outside when it falls harder. The sky roars with thunder and soon the flash, crack, and sizzle of lightning follows.
Ryker keeps his eyes on the glass. “There’s life out there, Griffon.” He peers at me, forcing me to look at him, offering me up so much blue it gives me a headache.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
He almost walks away, then stops, glancing over his shoulder. “I’m sorry about the other night.”
I only stare at him, unsure of what to say, accepting that an apology was something I never expected to fall from his mouth, ever, considering he hadn’t really done anything wrong.
“For what?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I just feel the need to apologize.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay,” he whispers, then heads away from me, walking a slow walk toward the circle of pain like he’s marching to the guillotine.
Patients amble into this white room heading for the circle.
A breath of annoyance rips from me when I think about having to do this bullshit for the next two hours and even longer because I refuse to speak. Another morning of listening to Samantha sob and sob and sob. Or having to bear Mason talk about his urges to eat everything but his hand when he makes it out of this place and back home.
Fuck.
I hate having to do this bullshit.
They all take a seat—yawning, complaining. A few even look happy.
Doctor Azad strolls across the cold room, his dress shoes loud against the hard, white tile. He’s wearing that white jacket he always does and holding his white notepad and his white pen. He pushes his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and nods my way, then gestures with his hand for me to join them when I don’t immediately move.
I gaze back out the window at the rain.
It falls and falls and falls.
Unstoppable.
Cold.
Relentless.
And I wonder if the weight of the sky is changed once it all ends. If it feels lighter or somewhat relieved when it has emptied itself and pissed on the world below.
It’s something to consider…
RYKER
SHITTY ATTITUDE MARS HIS chiseled features.
Hi
s head hangs low. He stares at the floor mostly and at his boots.
We’ve been sitting here for hours, having listened to story after story.
And with each one told, his expression never changes.
He’s cold, unfeeling, crappy…
Whatever.
Samantha is enamored with him.
Every now and again she tries to make conversation with him. Then like clockwork, Griffon says something to her that makes no sense at all. She turns away with a huff, confused. Then, he goes silent again, back to that mental cave of his.
I puff out some air, finding Doctor Azad’s eyes already on me.
He’s a good doctor. I’ll give him that. He’s realistic and down to earth. He doesn’t pull any punches. He’s a tell-it-like-it-is sort of guy. A brilliant man but still relatable and certainly unconventional in the way he approaches the treatment for addiction.
“Thank you, Mason, for sharing that story.” Doctor Azad sits back in his chair, stroking his long beard.
Mason is crying.
I remain like stone in my seat, desperate to catch the silvery glint in Griffon’s orbs each time he dares to make eye contact with me. And it isn’t often, so I find myself straining for it, hoping I’ll get it at least three times today before I must go back to my room.
“There are all types of addictions,” Doctor Azad says. “Often, people like to associate addiction with illegal narcotics such as alcohol and other substances, but you can be addicted to anything. It’s human nature.”
“You can be addicted to a person.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
Griffon’s eyes flicker to mine.
“Yes, that is true.” With a smile, Doctor Azad agrees. “You can be addicted to a person.”
I crane my neck to the ceiling above, sucking in the cool air that the vent above me offers up, considering my next words very carefully.
I face them all.
All nine souls in this circle, admiring the shape of it, designed to make us all feel like equals in this fucked-up game of life and to make our problems seem no smaller or larger or less or more important than another’s.
It’s brilliant.
“But, I think it takes a special set of circumstances to become addicted to another person. And I don’t think it can be because of what they can offer you that makes the draw to them so powerful and irresistible.”
