Rich Prick – Tijan Page 0,105

how she tried to make me identify him at school.

But the scars were still there.

It was like he was still fucking with me. He was still in my head. He was still contaminating my life.

He could still take everything away from me.

“Blaise!”

I reacted.

I didn’t mean to.

Later I would understand that I’d been in a flashback, but in the moment, a hand touched my arm, and I turned.

I ducked. I grabbed the hand. I twisted, and then my fist was in his face.

It was Griffith I saw. It was Stephen I hit.

The screams didn’t penetrate, not at first.

Not until Griffith was on the floor. Even then I kept swinging.

My knuckles were red.

That got to me first.

They were red and bleeding, and I stumbled back. That wouldn’t be good, not for my first day of practice.

That thought gutted me.

I started laughing, and I fell to the ground.

I pulled my knees up, my elbows resting on them, and lowered my head to cry.

When was the last time I’d cried?

“Stephen!”

My mom’s voice filtered in, and I turned…I looked…I saw.

I felt nothing now.

I took almost a clinical assessment of the scene.

He’d been beaten to a bloody pulp. My mom went to him, and he pushed her aside.

His eyes were on me, or the one eye that could see.

Fuck.

Stephen pushed himself up. He crawled to me.

I watched him, detached from myself. What was he going to do? Try to hurt me? He was crawling. But then he moved to sit next to me, and he reached around me.

I tensed.

I was ready.

He could do it. He could hurt me. I deserved it this time.

He touched my shoulder and pulled me close—my head to his shoulder, his hand cupping the side of my face.

We sat like that.

No way.

I was frozen.

I was in shock.

I had no idea where my mom had gone.

This whole thing had happened in the blink of an eye.

I hurt him. Stephen. Not Griffith.

I’d hurt someone the way Griffith hurt me.

I was like him.

“I’m him,” I muttered.

“No, Blaise. You’re not.” Stephen shook his head, hissing from the pain. “You thought I was him, and you defended yourself. I shouldn’t have touched you. I should’ve read the signs, and I didn’t. I am sorry.”

No. I pushed him away, scooting over at the same time. “That’s fucked up. I just beat your ass, and you’re apologizing to me?”

“Blaise.” He started for me again.

I scooted farther.

It never occurred to me to get up, to stand to my feet.

He kept moving over, and I kept scooting away, kept shaking my head.

I stopped when I hit a corner and couldn’t go any farther.

He kept coming, though.

Finally, I folded in on myself, cowering, trying to hide.

I couldn’t hide.

I couldn’t disappear.

“Blaise.”

He was still here. Why wouldn’t the fucker go away?

“Blaise, you’ve been through trauma.”

He was still touching me, a hand to my head.

I wanted to shove him off, kick him away, but I didn’t have it in me. I was done. The fight was gone.

He could beat me now, and I wouldn’t raise a finger against him.

I heard crying —my mom. I recognized her voice.

And where was I?

Not a closet, or a room at the New York apartment.

I was in my apartment.

I was under the kitchen table, backed into the corner between the wall and the fridge.

Shit. How had I gotten in here?

“Blaise.” Stephen had crawled under the table with me.

“What are you doing under here?” My voice didn’t sound like mine. It was different, a stranger’s. I didn’t like it, instantly hating what I heard in my tone.

Weakness.

Stephen stared at me a second. “You came under here, so I did too.”

“Why?”

That shit didn’t make sense to me.

“Because you’re my son.” He said this like it made perfect sense. “Because you’re hurting, and I’ll heal from this—and I know you’ll never do it again—but you’re still hurting. Blaise.” His hand went to my ankle. “You need to see a counselor for what you’ve been through.”

“I have.” None worked. They all twisted shit so it seemed like my fault.

He gave me a look like he knew things about me I didn’t, and I hated that too. Who gave him that right?

“You saw therapists he paid for. They weren’t real professionals. It will help you, I promise.”

Promises meant nothing to me. They were just words, just something meant to manipulate, give you hope, and they were a weapon to take that hope away.

Promises could crush you, if you let them.

“No, thank you.”

“How about this?” His tone grew more assertive. “You see a therapist or—”

My nostrils