September 1st 20XX

I finished the summer semester strong, I didn’t re-enroll this fall because I didn’t feel like I honestly had it in me to do so after the breakup. I know it’s weak from me but it’s been so hard to think about trying to do school. In spite of quitting school I’ve been seeing and training with Farth more than ever, but I’m actually more out of shape than I’ve been over these last three months. It’s like the stress and depression is making me fatter and I’m pretty sure it is and on top of that BicepMasterX7 is posting again. There are no more awesome bicep pics, she just posted to say that she’s stepping away from anonymous postings or posting her physique in general and that for if any friends want to stay in touch to DM her to get her personal info and when I read that I realized I never got her number, or her socials or her anything and my initial gut feeling was a resounding, screeching, heart wrenching feeling of “message her” and the same little asshole who told me not to ask to go with her to North Carolina just shakes his head and knowing he knows my long-term happiness I don’t message her, instead I text the Doc and almost instantly she responds and I ask if I can come in to talk and as quickly as the first message she finds a spot to see me tomorrow.

I wake up at 1 P.M. now. I spend most nights and days in front of a computer screen either coding or playing League of Legends. I just recently got diamond rank in League and I’ve been working with a client who's paying me $30 bucks an hour to do the back end on their website. They don’t really know much about the job or what I’m doing and if I’m being honest, neither do I, but so far everything I’ve been googling has been working. But that’s been the last week maybe more, I don’t or can’t remember, today I have therapy which I do remember.

I walk into her office. I showered a few hours ago, but some part of me thinks I still smell, her nose doesn’t scrunch up when I walk in so I think that’s a good sign. We both sit and when she has her notebook and pen in hand I begin talking.

“The last month has been hell. I’ve been wanting to message her every second of every day, there is not a single waking moment where I don’t regret not getting onto that plane, not a single solid fucking ounce of sanity that isn’t lost stuck in this hurt.” my voice drones out, monotonous in a way that annoys me.

“What happened?” She asks.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Arthur…it’s your money, it’s your time, it’s your pain.”

“I knew if I went I would’ve just…”

“Just what?”

“I would’ve become a completely different person because of her and because of the relationship and because of how good everything was.”

“Were you scared you were going to ruin it?”

“I think in some small part yes, but mostly just in the reality that it, and being with her would’ve meant that the day I leave here and my family behind would’ve come and I don’t know if I’m even ready for that.”

“Well Arthur you haven’t really processed any of that have you? Is that part of it?”

“I talked to her about it. About what it was like, what my siblings and family were like.”

“Oh.”

“She said I should talk to you about it, among other things.”

“What other things did she say?”

“That I shouldn’t let them have this amount of control over my life. That I should, I guess, maybe, let go of it.”

“Will you?”

“It’s like you said I haven’t even processed it.”

“So talk to me about it.”

Abruptly, I say it, finally “My brothers abused me and my parents ignored or at least partook in some weird non-confrontational abuse as well. A lot of emotional and mental abuse too from everyone.”

“I thought your relationship was good with your mother?” I involuntarily shake my hand in the air in a so-so motion.

“My mom’s made an effort. Same with my sister. I’m not doing justice to what they did to me Doc.”

“And why is that?”

“Cause, you know who I am, you know who the Silvas are and you know that Meta-humans or ascended or whatever have a certain reputation that they want to keep.”

“So what?”

“If they find out I told my therapist about the shit they put me through….”

“Confidentiality Arthur.”

“That doesn’t matter. They’ll find out and they’ll do unspeakable horrendous shit to you before probably killing you and everyone important to you.”

“How do you know that?”

“They did it to this friend I had, it was after the incident, his name was Timothy. He was a nice enough guy, I met him at the college and we played games together, mainly minecraft, and one night I talked to him about my family cause he was talking about some issues he was having with his. I think his mom had cancer or something, she was sick and it was weighing down on him since she spent all this time helping him with rehab and supporting him and what-not. He felt like maybe in some way he had caused her to get sick because of his own shit that, y’know, as a guy he felt he should’ve taken care of on his own. Something that had shattered his family and led him to have not an inconsequential amount of time taken from him and the people he loved. He worried about being a burden and that’s why he was going to college. He wanted to get a certificate in accounting and be a bookkeeper for a bunch of business, he was good with numbers too, he was doing this all without his mom knowing and away from his family. I guess they thought that he was maybe up to no good again and for Timothy, he felt like he couldn’t tell them what he was doing, I don’t know if he wanted to surprise them with all this extra money or to show he could do more than fast food, I don’t know, and I will never know because after I told him about how hard things had been since I moved out and how much I envied him with his mom caring about him like that and standing by his issues and by him and just how powerful that was and we just really bonded over our own struggles, I never heard from him again.”

“Wait…are you telling me that Timothy is the same Timothy that was in the news a few years back?”

“Yeah the story of the drug addicted idiot son who killed his mom and whole family? Who was a monster to friends, family and was better off dead? Who was just a hapless victim to a fucking monster that ruined any chance of a future or redemption just cause a guy named Tim saw a vulnerable 16 year-old kid all on his lonesome looking for a way out of the new found freedom and pain he was in. Yeah it was that Timothy and I cannot tell you how absolutely angry, beyond words I was: slamming and breaking everything. It’s how I got these,” I show her some scars on my knuckles, scars that still look like fresh and new “I uh, smashed a lot of shit up and really fucked up my knuckles. Most of the time they feel fine but they look weird right? All the white scar tissue is just spreading across and looking like cracked pavement on my brown skin.”

“Tell me exactly what they did to you”

“What?”

“You heard me Arthur.” I can only stare dumbfounded at her, I was lost when I came in today and staring at her I’m lost even more. But I don’t hesitate.

“I wasn’t born like them. They were all meta-humans and shit, my parents are literally thousands of years old and have been together for about as long, and they’ve been waiting a long time to settle down and have kids. I’m the fourth of my mom and dad. I want to say of six, maybe ten that are just my dad’s, I don’t know. I don’t talk about it with my mom or sister. All my siblings are metas, they call themselves gods by the way, when they’re at dinner parties amongst each other or when they feel like they’re safe, that’s how highly they think of themselves. And just like the cruelest of gods, they do not care about the subjects beneath their feet or what happens to them. So that’s what I was, something to be stepped upon. I was a creature who looked suspiciously like his father when he was not meant to, who soothsayers of the gods say was meant to be powerful and bring honor to their elder line who instead only brought shame and ridicule upon his brethren and parents. That’s what my mom told me when I asked her why they all hated me. It would’ve been nice if they just…forgot about me and allowed me to rot, but for the type of man my father was, he could not allow his own blood to be looked down upon, no, I was not something to be ashamed of, at least not when the eyes of others were on him. But behind closed doors where no one could hear me wail or cry or beg for even the slightest bit of mercy, that’s where he showed his true feelings of apathy and revulsion and allowed my brothers to do whatever came to their sadistic little minds. It went on like that for so long that I lost track of the years, all the pain and misery have just bled into each other and even now it hurts to remember it or talk about it, it feels as though I’m reliving every little slash, beating and scar they left on me inside and out. I was alone the entire time too, always just waiting and hoping against all the suffering that I could be let out of the hell I was forced to live in. My uncle, well I guess not my uncle, the old fart; Farth, he I suppose was my first friend. My mom drove me when I was young to his house, she just had her arms crossed and gave him a look and from then on he was my teacher and for a long time, my only friend. Then I met (REDACTED). I don’t remember how, but it was through the internet that I met (REDACTED), I’m just gonna call (REDACTED) if that’s okay with you? It’s how I knew her best and it’s what she’ll always be to me, the middle of the alphabet who I met in the midst of my torment and gave me the only real and true respite I had known from the suffering my brothers wrought upon me. It was a long distance relationship, one that was founded on secrecy, video chats, texts and a remarkable emotional bond that I can honestly call love. Comparable even to what I felt for Katherin, made worse by the fact that it didn’t need to end. I had kept the relationship as best a secret as I could from my family, if my brothers knew they would’ve tormented me over it, either by threatening or legitimately harming her. I didn’t know at that point if they were capable of doing that but I didn’t want to try given all the unspeakable shit they did to me. And so I kept it hidden as best as I could for two years, and for two years from age 13 to 15 I persevered with the love for (REDACTED) being the only thing I could hold onto, but after so long the secret wasn’t going to be one for longer and in attempt to try and hide it and protect (REDACTED) I broke up with her, cut all contact with her. I had saved her, protected her from claws of my family and the punishment they were sure to bring her and me, I thought I saved her, how stupid I was. I came back from school the next day and to my usual anxiety my brothers; Mark, a tall blonde scandinavian looking asshole and Perry, a pig faced, short korean-appearing douche were laughing and whispering in hushed yet loud enough to hear tones. The anxiety turned to dread when they faced me and said “How’re you feeling bro? We know about how you and your little girlfriend broke up, don’t worry though, you won’t have to feel hurt over her for long; Me and Mark will make sure she won’t stay heartbroken”. I saw red, I saw blood I felt an anger that I thought had been beaten out of me arise from the ashes of my heartbreak and I took all of it and confronted them, grabbing Perry by his collared fucking shirt I shook him and yelled at him telling him “You won’t do shit you pigfaced pigfucker, if you go anywhere near her I’ll fucking kill you, I’ll gut you alive!” At first I think they were shocked at what I said, that I could even stand up or gather enough courage or anger to do or say something like that. But that was just at first, soon that shock turned into anger and the next second Mark punched me to ground and Perry was kicking me in the gut and Mark joined in and after a few minutes of guarding my ribs as best as I could I got to my feet, ran to my room, grabbed my sword and shield and then it was just on. There was no going back, I didn’t care anymore if I lived or died or whatever, I was going to fucking hurt my brothers, I was going to go for my pound of flesh for the ton they had taken from me. At first I was struggling, they both had powers, Perry could control and summon knives and Mark could shoot out huge pressurized beams of water at me, but where they had powers I had training and whatever Farth had been doing with me was working because after a little while I was holding my own and then some. To be honest it was mostly them being so completely undertrained and unprepared for an actual fight. By sunset I was the only one standing, Perry was bleeding from a knife in his belly he had accidentally stabbed himself with, Mark laid in a tattered heap at my feet, the giant mansion my parents had trapped me in was in utter ruin and any semblance of fear and anger had turned into pride in myself. That was when the door opened and my father stepped through, unlike my brothers he didn’t stop to take in what had happened, he just attacked. On instinct I blocked the first strike, it’s why I have this (motions towards a nasty gash on my left arm). When I came to, I was in the hospital and stayed there for a month or two. I had an entire wing to myself and my own personal doctors whose only jobs were to keep me alive and to forget who I was. My oldest sister was there the entire time with me, feeding me when I couldn't do so myself, playing cards with me, sneaking in a game console that she knew our mom wouldn’t let us have or play. That was the beginning of actually having a sister. When I healed she drove me home and when I stepped through the door I felt my father’s fist greet me, knocking me unconscious before I even had a chance to react. Thinking about it now, he’s probably even stronger and faster than Farth. Anyways, I woke up to him sitting in front of me in this really annoyingly expensive oak chair, in a strange room with the fireplace billowing which filled the whole room in this weird smoky oak scent. “What you did was an embarrassment I will not atone. Before I gave you the privilege of allowing you to live in this house with your family. It appears that that was a mistake, and usually when faced with this grave of a mistake I would not give you a single ounce of mercy, but you are still family, so I will give you two choices. The first is simple, you stay with this family, you do not raise a single hand against your brothers again and in exchange I will personally oversee your growth into a respectable man, at which point you will be awarded all that I have given to your siblings. Or you leave this home, you forsake the Silva name, you forsake your family, your mother, your sister, everything that has allowed you to survive and suffer and we will forget you, but if I so much as see you or hear of single untoward action you commit against a meta-human or your brothers or, the devil help your soul, me? I will cleave your head where you stand and there will not be a single more second of your precious little life to live. You will live unbothered utterly separate from anything we could ever forget to give you.” I remember his words perfectly and when he stood up to leave my mother appeared behind him and told me very clearly I had until tonight to decide and so without a second thought I stood up, went for a walk, bought a soda and cried tears of pain and joy, walked home and without a second thought packed everything I felt worth packing.

“What happened after?”

“My mom and sister set me up in my current place and with their help I was finally free.”

“But I thought they couldn’t help you?”

“Luke would have an easier job trying to go to Pluto on his own than trying to get my sister or mother to bend to his will.” The therapist laughed at that and I think I did too. It feels as though a great weight has been lifted from my chest, like a burden has in some ways, been relieved, though in other ways, dead feelings have been resurrected. Feelings of past loves of a good girl named (REDACTED) who, when I think of her and the small moments we shared together, makes the hurt from Katherine a little less bad. And I wonder if it was worth even thinking about M and Katherine and all the other women who I have allowed to enter my heart and stomp away the clamor and tremors of my previous traumas. If it was fair to be bound to them. It didn’t feel fair to hurt this badly though, not after so long and as I left the office, my eyes slightly water and my soul a bit lighter, I couldn’t help but think about M and on the short road home, distant memories of hushed calls, cute low-poly selfies and not-so empty promises of what and how it’d be like when we finally met rushed through and for the first time that night, I didn’t go to bed missing the smell, shape and self of Katherine, instead I missed the distant dreams I shared with another oh so distant other.