Darkness surrounded Victor. Inside and out. He was darkness. He didn't deserve the guys or Sophie. Not one bit. He was darkness and they were all bright lights that he would one day engulf and extinguish.
He laid in bed staring at his ceiling. Alcohol was coursing through him, burning every vein and organ it touched. It still wasn't enough. He would never be enough. He could still feel and think. He could still note the emptiness in his heart.
He felt like such a fucking loser. His brain couldn't even function properly without alcohol. It would always go down the same dark hole it always went to. That hole where he burrowed the demons and the pain.
He didn't know how to get out of the endless cycle of misery that was his life.
Every time he tried to focus on the good, he thought of his mom and the bright, angelic light that she was. It was always a good thought for a few seconds before the thought of his father entered and shattered the good. Victor wanted to get better, to be better. But he would always just be the alcoholic, college-dropout with boring, stereotypical daddy issues.
Victor squeezed his small thirteen-year old body under his mother's empty hospice bed in the spare room. He was malnourished, so it wasn't a tight fit. He covered his mouth with a purple hand like he always did, and stilled his body in a way that only years of abuse could teach. He would not get caught.
"Where the fuck are you?", his father called out. His words were slurred and Victor could hear him stumbling about.
He grabbed the pencil and notebook he always kept stashed under the bed, and began mindlessly sketching the same drawing that had always plagued his brain.
It was a giant building with safe, nice people. It was built for kids like him who were unprotected and scared.
His dream place.
Victor's shoulders sagged in relief as the house shook with the front door closing and he just kept sketching.
His sister Sam laid right next to him, paralyzed in fear.
Victor shook the wicked thoughts dancing on the edges of his mind, sat up, and took another shot.
He knew he should be better than the man who raised him, but he just couldn't stop. He couldn't break the cycle. He couldn't be the hero to save troubled kids like himself.
There was always tomorrow.
YOU ARE READING
Healing Sophie
Romance"Such a naughty girl," Theo tsked. Sophie felt like a small lamb in a pack of wolves. They all stared at her with an intense hunger. "What do you want, Soph?", Chase cooed. "I-I want you to touch me," she said shyly. "Who do you want to touch you, p...
