numberblock 18

I spent that weekend feeling increasingly more guilty. What had I done? Pussy was one thing, but sticking my dick in her ass? Sticking my tongue in her ass? Gross and probably illegal. No cell phones or email, so I couldn’t get in touch with Carol and find out she was okay or have her talk me off the ledge. I was afraid she would realize the next day what I had done and call the police. I went to school on Monday thinking they were going to haul me into the principal’s office or just take me away.

She heard her dad rummage around the kitchen, cutlery clanked together, and the microwave hummed for a minute or so before he collapsed onto the couch with the bowl of leftover lasagne steaming in his hands. Like muscle memory, he quickly switched on the TV and started wolfing down the food like a starving man. Only after demolishing half the bowl of pasta, barely paying attention to the random game show playing softly in the background did he turn to his daughter and notice the look on her face.

“Don’t you lecture me. You’re just fighting so that people will like you. You’re so desperate for their approval, yet have the nerve to call me spiteful. My path as a warrior doesn’t lead to acknowledgment or people carrying me on their shoulders. I don’t fight in life because I want to be idolized. I fight to understand myself, to know my limits, to know what I’m capable of, and to go even farther. The challenges I’ve overcome, the setbacks I’ve endured, the boundaries I’ve surpassed! Those are what define me as a man, as a warrior! I walk this path because life is most valuable when you have to fight for it!”