Book IV of the UNC Series
Carter Blake has a bone-deep hatred for the world-and especially for the people in it. All he wants is to keep his head down, focus on school and basketball, and avoid the mess of human connection. After enduring years of...
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It's so noisy. It's always fucking noisy.
It seems like no matter where I go or what I do, it's always so. Fucking. Noisy. As the chatter of conversations and the clattering of utensils against plates reaches my ears, all I think is: what's that buzzing? It's very faint and irritating, like a bug flying around your ear no matter how often you swat it away.
I need my deafening music or words to drain out that buzzing. It's always present but only gets quieted by music and books. I need words to drown out that humming.
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
Shakespeare was a fucking asshole at times, but his tragedies often spoke to me. It was the only way to tempt the chaos in my mind to go quiet.
I recite quote after quote in my head until the buzzing seizes to a low, barely audible hum. No one knows about my proclivity for words simply because it's a part of myself that I choose not to share with the world. Many know I favour reading over socializing, but what they don't know is that in my weakest moments, words kept me afloat in a mass of people who didn't want anything to do with me.
The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.
Hemingway knew what was wrong with the world. He knew it, and many thought his views were cocky and self-enriching. I won't deny he was a cowardly asshole for what he did to his wife. But with that single passage, it felt like he knew me.
People walk around like they are owed simply for existing. Take my mother, for example. She felt the world should stop, that her two children didn't exist because her husband had died. She felt that life owed her that much, that she could drink and smoke away her pain while we all waited for her. But yet, I somehow always place value on her opinions and thoughts.
For three years, she has led me and my brother, Carsen, to believe she'll get better. We thought she would even after she got so drunk and turned to drugs. Carsen found her passed out in some rundown bar with some random drug dealers. Carsen had to pay them off and bring her home.
Despite my reluctance to help her after everything she did, I was worried that day. I didn't want to lose my mom the same way I lost my dad. And so I tried to help her.
I stayed home, came straight after basketball practice, studied at home, and didn't leave the house unless I absolutely needed to. It wasn't like I had a social life before that, but I was willing to sacrifice anything to help my brother and my mom.
However, after the promise she made us, the hope that she would quit, she got into a car accident while under the influence. Despite knowing how Dad died, she still chose to get behind the wheel and drive. She didn't hurt anyone—just her pride—but she could have.
