Saving Boston (Rewritten)

Somebody Needs To Start Talking

The therapist told me to find something to keep me grounded whenever my feet started to rise. Even if the clouds were beautiful, we didn't live up there. Our life exists down here, and I need to stop looking for a getaway whenever the pain becomes too much. She told me I had to get better for myself. Sobriety won't work if I rely on someone else because I am the only thing in my life that remains constant. Well, I guess it has kind of worked because I have been sober since the night John begged whoever it was he cried too to keep me alive.

And I didn't start therapy because John begged me to, even if he did. The court system ordered it. After my lawyer assured the judge my childhood trauma was the reason for fracturing a man's eye socket. Not only did I have to pay for the surgery he endured after breaking it in three different places, but I was reminded of how I shattered his jaw. They installed metal plates to reinforce his bone structure, and I don't even remember what started the fight because I drank so much I could barely recall my name.

It isn't like I hear about it every time I step onto the streets, but it wasn't as if people didn't hate me before everything happened either. That didn't stop my anxiety from eating at me whenever I wondered about Bo and if she heard about what happened. Ninety percent of the time, I couldn't stand myself. I couldn't expect any less from her.

Somehow I drifted away from the gym, and it has been over a year since I slipped into a pair of gloves. When my eyes dropped to my knuckles, I couldn't lie and say it has been that long since I fought somebody because the bar incident only happened a few weeks ago. Now I am just a washed-up boxer who had it all but let it slip right through his fingertips.

So, as I was saying, the therapist told me to find something to keep me grounded. I should have been healing from the pain that Bo caused, but healing starts with accepting, and I finally accepted that she didn't do anything wrong. I killed her mom, and I don't know how to live with myself. Instead of forgetting her because I knew it would never happen, I got a tattoo.

Whenever the pain became too much, I would look down at the typewriter lettering on the side of my wrist that said the word, Yellow. Her favorite color and the one thing my life revolves around now. I could practically live in it -

"How was therapy?" Trevor slid a white mug toward me.

My shoulders lifted slightly as I stared at the coffee below me. I didn't feel different, just more like shit than before. The guilt has been weighing heavy on my shoulders, and when it started to hit me, I didn't have a defense mechanism. So, I stared over the word etched into my skin as I hoped for relief.

"Did you get the paperwork I asked for?" I lifted my eyes as I brought the mug to my lips.

"They are on your desk," he wiped down the counter with his white rag. "They have been increasing. We have made more money this week than we did last year in a whole month."

The black coffee fell down my throat as I nodded. "Thank you."

As I slid off of the barstool, I picked up the mug to take with me. The anxiety rising in my stomach made me feel nauseous, but before I could round the corner to get away, Trevor called out to me. My eyebrows perked up as I stared at him with confusion.

"Are you okay?"

I swallowed harshly. "Yeah."

"You can stay out here," he nodded toward the barstool as he looked at me. "Everything is okay between us."

My head moved back and forth. "No, it's not."

"I forgave you a while ago -"

"I can't forgive myself."