October 2nd 20XX

The fire started early in the morning and when I gained enough sense to douse it out, it had already spread to the empty villa next door. But I was alone on the cliff, filled with empty beautiful corpses that to some could be called houses but never homes and with the hose in my hand and the other holding my phone I sat on the cool pavement and watched. At first the white plumes raged and waved while the angry embers danced and demolished to their hearts content and after a few minutes the foundation of the house cracked and slowly it collapsed under itself, when the firefighters finally came the house was over and done with, the anger of the morning subsided and I went back to sleep in my empty house, feeling numb, as I had been over the past few weeks.

I woke to a knock to my door and after a quick few words and a striking phone call from my sister the firefighters left me alone; the question of what started the fire unanswered in their minds and unknown to me. I think I don’t know anymore, I’m floating in the cool pool of my emotions and so many things pass me by nowadays that it’s hard to tell the days apart, hard to breath, hard to do anything but lay in bed and feel the A/C wash over me. I think yesterday I was in the shower, maybe the day before, might even be tomorrow but still! I was in the shower, and I was in there long enough for the water to go from warm to cold and at first when the cool bite of the water touched my skin I flinched and moved away. It was an instant thing to be honest, my hand might’ve moved it the knob or maybe somebody else did but it was instant, and the water stabbed straight into me and at first I was in shock but after a few seconds of forcing the water to wash over my scars and skin it calmed me and for too long I just let it all wash over me, and I’m not just talking about the water, I’m talking about LIFE! Even if it’s mine and precious and oh so little. My precious little life, and all of it’s sufferings and tribulations and how little and far away it feels in some ways. Doesn’t even hurt but I guess I’m just reeling. I haven’t done much in the last month, as I said, the days are skimming together and it’s only differentiated by how badly Farth kicks my ass and how bad the feeling gets to message (REDACTED) or Kat or really anyone.

I can say life has been good, but stagnated. Elaine is paying for everything and I think in some way my mom is disappointed but she hasn’t told me anything about it, which is unlike her and Elaine is just happy to help, just like she always is. Not that the bills or anything are too expensive anyways, we own the small little place they’ve had me in since I was 15. They’ve been taking care of me the day that Luke kicked me out, so in a way I’m still part of the family but also not. It feels like my mom doesn’t even care about my success, like it would suck but also be nice if she was mad at me for just fighting farth and laying in bed, wasting my time jacking off, feeling numb and doing nothing, but when we speak and her eyes trail off I know she’s feeling the same numbness I am and it makes me sad because for as powerful as my mother is, I’ve never even seen a shred of this kind of emotion in her. Honestly I thought she was old enough and experienced enough to really stop feeling, maybe in some way I thought she was beyond even being my mom, that she was just this disappointed overseer who silently documented my suffering and helped me when it had the least impact on my life. Now I see an old woman battling against what she wants to say, what she can do, what she wants to do and the reality that the next second or minute, hour or day brings.

The fire didn’t spread to any other house. It started from a bush on their side and the smoke and smell awoke me and within a half a second I was rushing out in underwear a size too big for me reaching for a hose. I didn’t tell the firefighters that, just that I slept through everything. I’ve always seen people like that as extensions of my father and I don’t like to associate with people that remind me of my father.

I’m just an extension of my father aren’t I? Just a little him and not just in how I look, not just in how we have the same jaw, nose, forehead, basically the same face. I haven’t seen him since I was 15, at least no in person but I know what he looks like because he’ll never stop being 35 and every day I get one day closer to looking like him and every day I disassociate more and more. So far it’s been nine years, 468 weeks, 3278 days of stepping away from my skin, hoping that when I get out of the shower the person staring back at me isn’t him, that one day I’ll look like my own person, that I won’t be staring in the mirror my father bought, that he’s allowed me to have in spite of his threats and hate. It’s night again, it’s early but it’s fall so even if I hate it I’m blessed that when I get out of the shower I won’t have a visible mirror to look into, that the darkness or steam can give me some respite from all of it. The shower is hot and wraps around me like a comfortable blanket and when I’m done the water is still warm and inviting, but I leave it for the cold bed.