looks like a scolded child. His gaze searches the room for something. Then, his sad eyes study me.
“Your life is very different now, Anders,” I say softly as I hold his gaze. “You’re worried about a lot of things that you weren’t worried about before. When you’re used to the new stuff, you won’t be as worried. Then, you won’t need to calm down because you’ll already be calm.”
“How can you know I won’t need to be stoned every fucking day you live here?”
Refusing to look away despite his prickly frown, I explain, “Because your life is better with me than it was without me.”
Anders almost smiles before his face turns sad. “What if I get attached to you and your family? Then if you leave, I’ll know how much I lost.”
“You’re already attached,” I point out. “If I ever leave, you’ll feel bad. You’ll drink a lot. And you’ll smoke marijuana. You’ll have lots of sexual intercourse with the bunnies. I heard they’re really pretty. You’ll do lots of stuff with them. But you’ll still feel bad. For a while, anyway.”
I stand up and study Anders. “Eventually, you’ll feel a little better. Just like when you stopped the drugs, and you felt awful. At first, there was no good, only bad. Then, it was sometimes bad. Now, you rarely feel bad. That’s how it will be if I leave you. It’ll hurt, but you’ll survive.”
“But would I want to?”
“I think you can’t help living. That’s why your mama couldn’t kill you. And your terrible grandparents didn’t break you no matter how hard they tried. And the bad biker club group never killed you. And why you never overdosed on the drugs. The world keeps trying to crush you, but your story isn’t over. There’s always more to tell.”
Sighing and uncomfortable from my bruised body, I decide to sit back down. “Then, one day, your story will end like it does for everyone. Until that happens, you need to find a reason to get up and smile. Whether it’s me or riding your motorbike or drinking beers with your friends. Maybe all you need is the sun on your skin or a good meal. You’re strong enough to focus on those positive moments.”
Anders sits on the ground nearby, wanting to be closer but afraid to give me too much power.
“There are many voices in your head,” I say, imagining the noises tormenting him. “They say you’re the devil’s son and a monster and a junkie and a loser. Those voices resented you, hated you, were jealous of you. But they never loved you. And I don’t think you ever loved yourself, either. That’s your problem, really. Not the drugs or feeling different than the rest of the biker men. You see them comfortable in their skin and hate yourself for being in this skin. But there’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Why would my family hate me?” he asks, sounding like a little boy desperate for answers. “Even when I was a baby, they knew something was wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Anders Van Der Haas. You’re not evil or the devil’s son. You are just a man. You have many positive qualities and some flaws. But you’re normal, and you don’t need to stop being you to be happy.”
“Pixie, I know you mean well. But it’s not just one person that saw me that way. It was everyone.”
“It’s all perception,” I explain softly as I watch the storm in his eyes subside. “From the outside, the Collective was a strange place filled with crazy people. Since we weren’t normal, the government hurting us wasn’t like hurting normal people’s friends and family. We deserved it. Besides, they were saving us from ourselves. And all it took was one person to start thinking that way about the Collective. That’s all it took with you, too. Your father was a bad man. Therefore, you were bad. And everything your grandparents did afterward was acceptable. They weren’t hurting someone like themselves. Then, other people learned from them and treated you the same way.”
“Who was the one person to ruin the Collective?”
“His name was Coakley,” I say, fiddling with the seam on my shorts. “When his daughter came to the Collective, she owned a heavy heart. I remember her saying she went to rehab and psych wards. I didn’t know what those places were, but I knew she tried to fix her broken heart. Except she couldn’t let go of her pain like how