Thorns On My Rose: A Story of the Daughter of Robert Downey Jr. (EDITING)

Chapter 17 - Part 2 - Its All Coming Back To Me Now

Alana-Rose's Perspective

These fucking reporters are all damned, I swear. I will put them in hell myself. They fricking attacked me almost as soon as I was out of the door of that restaurant, leaving my bio dad angry and dazed. I kept my head down as both reporters and paparazzi snapped pictures of me and and racked me with annoying and intrusive questions.

"Sweetheart, what really happened out there?" 

"How are you doing?" 

"Are you now dating the same guy that caused the accident? The cabbie?" 

"How is your dad taking this?" 

"What about Susan and Rob' s divorce?"

Blah, blah blah. I flipped them all the fucking bird, my hand high in the air and pushed past them.

"Get the fuck away from me, you creeps!"

I ran through, pushing past them all until I blended into a crowd of pedestrians. I sighed, looking behind me to insure that none of those crazed people were following me.

Why the hell was my life like this?

I couldn't think of anything horrible that I'd ever done, any crime I had ever committed, any past life that I had fucked up, to deserve this. To deserve this horribly shitty situation where I've lost my fucking memory, which is becoming more and more obvious, by the way. At first, I didn't believe any of what anyone was saying. But I can now.

I can literally feel that some dots aren't connecting in my brain. It's a feeling that's worse than the pain I felt when I woke up in that hospital, head pounding, lungs hurting, guts sore and twisted up in little knots. It's worse than any physical pain I have ever felt.

It's not good to look and the mirror and see your reflection, when really, the sucky truth is that you are only halfway there.

I wonder what I did to deserve to not be met by people who I have known my whole life, people who love me, but by a celebrity-- one of my favorite actors, of all people--claiming to be my father, a man who was extremely inactive in my life, and an African American surgeon, who had been my mother's rock the last year of her life.

I still have yet to see Gran and Gramps after the funeral.

As I walked along the sidewalk, I wondered why my life was the way it was.

Why I had ruined my father's marriage, even if it was a fucked up one. Yes, they had some serious issues obviously, and knew that they would probably never have good closure because of the stupid media.

But, I knew, to some extent, that Robert loved Susan Downey. I knew that if I had never said anything, that Robert would have still been with Susan, even if she was fucking his manager behind closed doors. I knew that his happiness with her would, in some weird way, outweigh the terrible cons and flaws in their marriage. He would have still loved her and stayed with her...

But, as I thought about it, I remembered what he told me at the restaurant, that he didn't want to be still bound to Susan by some metaphorical tether. He hated it, apparently and was... grateful that in a way I had released him. I shook my head.

But I couldn't believe that. I couldn't. I learned somewhere along the way, somewhere during the time of learning of my mother's cancer and her eventual demise, that while the pros may always outweigh the cons, they never overcome them. The cons will always hurt more and you will always see them as bigger, though it seems like there are many pros.

I bit my lip, walking into a small shop for tourism, wanting to be away from all the noise outside.

The man behind the counter was older and hunched behind an ancient looking cash register. He didn't even notice the bell that rang when I entered, but continued to stare at a piece of wall. I thought he was dead at first because he wasn't really mocking and his eyes looked glazed over but then relaxed when I saw heard slightly laboured breathing.