Frozen

**Approximately 12 Hours Later**

I’m not running anymore.

I’m not running away.

I’m walking forward.

Back to all my problems, and I can’t seem to go anywhere else. I hadn’t realized how far I had actually run last night. I’d say I was a good three miles from my house. I wish I would’ve collapsed sooner; I would’ve had less time to think.

In the hour it took me to walk home I realized how much I hated myself. I hated that I had this sick need. That I let it get the better of me. That I didn’t even try to stop it anymore.

What is this need?

I have the need to be yelled at. Screamed at and told that I’m wrong. I don’t particularly mind if there’s physical pain either but it isn’t necessary to make myself feel that emotion that makes everything worth it. Love.

My dad was never one to yell. He thought that it was too harsh. He believed that compassion and understanding would raise a decent, well mannered child. And he was right, for the most part. I just wasn’t that child. Carver, my brother, was.

I was defiantly my mother’s child. When she was still alive she would always be the one to yell at us. Mostly me though because, like I said, Carver was the perfect child in our family.

Although she would yell at me, mom always reassured me that she yelled because she loved me so much and sometimes she couldn’t help but yell because she only wanted what was best for me. She was very passionate. She loved me with all her heart. She would do special things for just me and not Carver because she knew I needed it more. I wasn’t liked much in elementary school not that I was liked now.

Daddy didn’t yell. Never. Sometimes he would scold mom for raising her voice but he wouldn’t do so himself. It slowly made my young self believe that he didn’t love me as much as mom did. I know now that he does love me but that doesn’t mean I believe it all the time.

When mom died three years, two months, and nine days ago I wasn’t sure how to function anymore. She wasn’t there to tell me what to do or how to act. I missed her instructions because without them, I was socially impaired. Mommy would always tell me when I was wrong in a certain situation; even if she didn’t yell it made me feel better. But when she died it all stopped. The love that I had felt stopped.

I spent four months and twenty-nine days simply following the rules, written and unsaid, because I was so afraid of what would happen if I did something wrong because mom wasn’t there to tell me how to fix it anymore.

Then one day I did something wrong. I had spent all Sunday night crying because of how much I had missed my mom because my fifteen year old-self couldn’t handle it anymore. That was the first time I had contemplated suicide. I decided against it because she wasn’t there to tell me if it was the right thing to do or not. I was that dependent on her.

The next day I woke up an hour late and rushed to school in nothing but the clothes that I had worn to sleep because it was an exam day. When I finally made it to my first class I was told I wasn’t allowed to take my exam and that I would have to take the zero.

When dad was informed he didn’t yell or get frustrated like mom would’ve. He understood that I was having a hard time dealing with everything and he probably heard my sobs the night before. That Monday was the day that I truly started to resent my father. I felt like he didn’t love me enough to get angry.

Seven months and fifteen days after her death was the first time that I had purposefully, whether I knew it at the time or not, done something wrong. It was little, but I had stayed out an hour past curfew. I didn’t even do anything. I sat on a bench in the middle of town until I slowly walked home. When I had gotten home my dad didn’t scream at me like I wanted him to. He didn’t shout about how worried he was. He was simply disappointed.

Slowly it escalated. Not to anything that could land me in prison like drugs or drinking, just things to annoy dad with.

Sometimes I wonder if I turned gay just because I thought he would be a upset. I even brought a boy home and got into a very…heated make out session with him around the time dad was supposed to get home from work. When he got here though he didn’t scream for me to get off of the boy, nor did he tell the boy to get out. All he did was awkwardly take me aside and said that I should have told him about my sexuality and that he understood. I didn’t thank him or show any sign that I was relieved. I simply said a curt “okay” and stalked back into the living room telling the boy to leave. I can’t even remember his name.

Then I remember how disgusting I find women. When I went to a gentleman’s club to see if I really was gay I wanted to shoot myself in the foot just to stop the torture. I actually liked the way some boys looked. But I do wonder if I was straight if I still would’ve brought that boy home to “meet’ daddy.

Carver was kind of in the background these past years. Not participating in my self-destruction, just standing on the side lines and watching. He was like dad that way, not getting too involved in my life except when needed.

It’s kind of as if he was frozen in the state of limbo. Not helping or hurting me. In a way I liked him for that. It made him neutral.

Six months and twenty-four days ago was the first time I ever met Evan.

He was the new badass that had just moved her from the local ghetto. He had gotten into four fights in the first three days. One of them with me.

I had been attracted to him since the first time he spoke to me. He wasn’t afraid to yell and tell me how wrong I was. He wasn’t like everyone else who knew me three years two months and ten days ago. He didn’t watch as I was slowly but surely crumbled away. Everyone else was afraid to talk to me for fear of me going off on them. I tended to do that every once in a while.

Because he didn’t know of my past he thought I was just another life he could ruin. Little did he know that he improved my already decimated life. Even when he realized I wouldn’t fight back, that there was some part of me that accepted what he was doing, he still did it. That’s why I love him.

He made me feel as if he cared even though I knew how much he didn’t. I was always good at imagining.

I knew that my dad really did love me.
I knew that I was psychologically messed up.
I knew that mom didn’t mean to ruin my life.
I knew Even would never love me.
I knew I needed help.

But I ignored all the facts and just kept living my life, searching for the love I needed in all the wrong places. It was like I couldn’t help myself.

Evan may have called me nasty names, beaten me, made me more of a social outcast than I had already been but he made me feel loved.

I embraced it with my whole heart. I loved all the scars he gave me. All the words he threw at me. I loved them all.

It’s not like I enjoyed pain during sex or anything like that. I liked hot, meaningless sex just like normal people because sex wasn’t about love. I kept the two separate. I knew I would never experience love and sex together. I don’t think I really want to either.

Either way, Evan was the reason why this was the best school year since I was thirteen.

Day by day I made sure to get more irritating in order to receive harsher punishments. He knew I was doing it on purpose, he's not stupid. He just doesn’t know why, and I planned on keeping it that way. I didn’t want our one sided relationship to change even though after tonight it’ll never be the same.

Thirteen days ago I found out my dad was in the hospital. He had a very interesting past to say the least.

He was a trust-fund kid who was MIT bound before he could spell his name. He was a computer software genius. He and mom had eloped at the age of nineteen and had mostly happy marriage until the day she died. By the time that mom was twenty I was born and mom stopped going to school. Not that she needed to go to school in the first place. Dad could support our family ten times over. Carver was born two years and 30 days later.

By the time dad had graduated from MIT he had already fully developed a multi-million dollar software company. He was one of the most powerful men in the country at the time. By the age of twenty-seven daddy had grown tired of the business world and wanted to do something that would give back. He already donated millions each year but he wanted something exciting.

After talking it over with mom he promptly sold his company to the highest bidder, making enough money that even my grandkids would still be feeling the wealth.

Then, at the age of twenty-seven, he became a volunteer fire fighter. He loved the thrill and the feeling of saving someone’s life. Mom didn’t like the idea but she could never crush his dreams.

It’s because of his fucking dreams that he ended up in the hospital.

For thirteen days, after I had received the initial call that daddy was in the hospital, I didn’t leave the house, answer my phone when Carver called, nor did I answer the door when relatives came.

I barley saw Carver. He only stopped by a few times to change his clothes and take a shower. I wouldn’t let him speak to me. I didn’t want to know what was wrong with dad or whether he would make it or not or if that was even an issue. I didn’t want to lose another source of love. Even if I refused to see it I knew it was there.

So I sat in the house for twelve days doing nothing. I shut my mind of like I did last night. On the night of the twelfth day, after almost two weeks of ignoring the constant vibrations it was making I decided to read one text message. Just one. The last one that was sent. It just so happened to say that daddy would be coming home tomorrow.

That was when I finally snapped out of my trance. I did something I hadn’t done in twenty-seven days. I tried my best for daddy.

As soon as I had awoken the next morning I took a shower, cleaned my room, and made myself presentable for him. Navy blue v-neck and all. He had told me one time that it was his favorite shirt.

Even though I did act out because of my sick needs I still tried for dad. I knew he didn’t deserve what I put him through, and I tried not to be a completely horrible child. I made sure my grades were up and that I didn’t get in enough trouble to get anything worse than a week’s detention.

I impressed his friends because they didn’t need to know about what a terrible child I was. I made sure not to embarrass him too much.

I hadn’t tried in almost a month though but I knew I needed to do it.

I styled my hair nice for him and waited for him to come home with Carver.

I may have longed to be yelled at but that doesn’t mean that i didn’t still want to feel happy from praises or moral support, even though I never did feel content with it. I still willed myself to want to be commended. It wasn’t the same though.

I think I sat in the living room for four hours before I heard Carver’s voice calling me from the foyer. What I saw was the last thing I had ever expected to see.

I saw dad. Sitting in a chair. A wheelchair. I’m sure my face was frozen in shock. He sat there beside Carver and another strange woman in pink scrubs.

He quietly told Carver and the woman in pink scrubs to leave the room while he told me what happened.

Apparently as he was exiting a building that was on the verge of collapsing a piece of a wall fell on top of him when he was outside. The other fire fighters were able to pull him out before anymore damage could be done but the debris left him with a severe spinal cord injury. Daddy won’t ever walk again.

Apparently he wasn’t home to stay. He just needed to tell me face to face what happened but I refused to go to the hospital to see him. Dad, being the powerful man he was, convinced the hospital to let him have a day trip home as long as he brought a nurse. The woman in the pink scrubs. After his visit he’d need to stay for a few more days until he was recovered enough to stay home.

He had already scheduled renovations to start soon to make the house wheelchair accessible. He also schedule physical therapy sessions to help keep his legs muscular.

Then came something else I didn’t expect.

Carver and I wouldn’t be living with him anymore. Or in Carver’s case, he wouldn’t be living with him until the new school year. I’d be off to college.

During the renovations dad wants Carver and I to stay at Aunt Ellyn’s house from now up until I go off to college and Carver starts the new school year. He said he didn’t think the construction would be a good environment for us. he wouldn’t be alone though. He hired a team of skilled nurses to help him through this so we wouldn’t have to feel burdened with the responsibility.

He finally finished his speech almost robotically. He didn’t show emotion. He used his business voice. I think he just didn’t want to break down in front of me.

As I comprehended all the information I was given I became enraged.

Enraged by all the things that I had been holding back through the years. So instead of holding it in like I normally would’ve done I let it out.

I raised my voice as loud as it would go and let loose the furry inside of me that has waited to come out for three years, two months, and nine days.

I told him that he could never be mom and that I would never be happy to have just him. I told him that he was selfish for sending Carver and I away because it was obvious that Carver so desperately wanted to help.

Even in my fit of anger I still didn’t let it slip, the fact that all I ever wanted was for him to be mad at me and to show it. I wasn’t that stupid.

After I was done throwing my extreme temper tantrum I stormed out of the house. Running to a place I didn’t know of. Just running.

After becoming disoriented and being carried into Evan’s house the only other words he muttered to me as he sat me down on a soft couch and put a warm towel around my shoulders was a quiet “be out by noon”. And so I was.

It seems that Evan Glight does have some sort of heart, no matter how small. He let me sleep on his couch instead of outside in the rain like I thought he would’ve. Granted he didn’t exactly ask me what was wrong or if I was okay. I obviously wasn’t mentally capable of forming a sentence.

After everything that had happened I didn’t understand why he would grow a heart now. He had seen that I was at my breaking point all year. He encouraged my twisted behavior. I don’t think I’ll ever understand him.

I ended up passed out on his couch only to be awoken by my internal clock telling me that it was five thirty in the morning. The time I normally got up for school. And just like that, I slipped out of his house seemingly unnoticed.

And so we’ve come full circle. I’m now standing at the base of dad’s long, paved driveway, wondering if it’s really worth it to make the trek up towards the house.

I wonder if I’ll ever see Evan again. Aunt Ellyn lives seven hours away in another state so it’s highly unlikely. The thought made my chest hurt.

Maybe I’d finally talk to someone about my urges. Maybe I wouldn’t. Would I have new friends? I decided I didn’t really care. Friends weren’t going to change anything.

I’d have to find new people to mess around with.

My mind purposefully stayed away from any topic that included daddy.

But there I stood after walking a good three miles, without my glasses. Frozen.