Digging graves

Being honest sucks

Look, I just want to be able to tell the truth, what really happened, finally. That's what everyone wants from me too, right? The officials have their official version of events, those closest to me know the PG version- safe for friends and small children. God knows the newscasters put out what they put out- complete bullshit. Then there's the angry conspiracy theorists who make me out to be some kind of evil mastermind... To them I am not a survivor, but a serial killer, who got away with murder. Worse than them are the  freak fans who seem to be turned on by just the whisper of what I lived through. I think they picture me as a willing accomplice to my own torture. There's a lot of sick fucks out there, and they all seem to want my phone number. But what actually happened? No one has heard that version- I couldn't talk about it, for the obvious reasons; they'd think I was crazy, or on drugs, or both. And maybe that's all it was, just the drugs and the stress.  Hell, I'm seeing a therapist, so I must be a bit crazy right? Are these memories real, or just some symptom of trauma, PTSD shit or whatever? It was all too real to me anyway, and now I can't sleep, and I can't talk about it, and every time I see a certain kind of truck, or hear a car backfire, or a thousand other things, I panic you know? 'Feels like I am dying over and over again, which is so stupid because I made it out alive. I survived, which is supposed to be a victory...Well, anyway, writing is not my thing, but it is supposed to help, to"just write it down" so I can get it all out of my head. See it on the screen in black and white. Getting it all out is supposed to be like excising a wound. I'll put all those screams into a jar of ones and zeros where no one can see it or hear it or care.  Then maybe I can finally just push delete on the whole thing and let it go. That would be nice.

Ok, so where to begin?

I guess maybe I need to explain how I was hitchhiking on that road in the first place. Hitchhiking, pretty fucking stupid, I know. Most people these days don't hitchhike, and God knows I had never needed to or seen it as anything but a really dumb way to get yourself killed. I mean, I've seen all the horror movies that you have about serial killers. Hitchhiking if Hollywood has got it right is kind of like is like taping a neon sign screaming "victim here" over your head. Maybe that is just movie exaggeration but and I am just not a "for the thrill of it" kind of guy. Besides, I had enough money, and I had wheels. I had everything you need for a road trip. The road trip was my idea of course. Mr Waite wasn't exactly pleased, but hell he's my attorney not my warden. He would have preferred that I had taken a plane, first class and direct to the university my dad had wanted me to attend. Then again, a road trip across the US meant that I could legitimately leave in the beginning of July instead of being another month in a house now empty of everyone but me and memories. Getting out meant Mr. Waite could do the paperwork, to put it on the market, and that would be one less thing to worry about. Eventually the money from the house would join the rest of my trust fund which was substantial enough, (thanks dad) that I didn't really need it, but selling the house wrapped up loose ends and Mr. Waite like loose ends wrapped up neat. Made him a good lawyer, I guess. I think he figured he was the closest thing I had left to family, being a friend of my dad's and all. All I knew is that I couldn't live in that house anymore. It was full of dead ends, it had never really been "home" to me, and now I wanted a new beginning to my life. So, road trip was perfect. Yeah.

Ok, so I am an orphan now, I don't really want to make a big deal out of it, but I guess maybe I should explain that too. I mean at 19 it wan't like I was a "real" orphan if that make sense, I wasn't a kid anymore. It wasn't like I felt devastated, and maybe I should have felt that or even a little scared. Anyone who had any kind of family obligation to me was dead, but it had only been Dad and me my whole life anyway and I just wasn't all that close with my dad in the first place. I mostly just felt numb. And yeah it's kinda awful, but I was a little relieved.