“Put that fucking thing down, Nina.” I walked over to her nightstand and took out a blunt, lighting it casually, her camera still following me. “I won’t ask twice, and trust me when I say, you don’t want my dad to find out about this.”

Owl cried in pain on the floor, and I kicked him, the rolled blunt still between my lips. “Shut the fuck up, asshole.”

“Should I call an ambulance?” Tiff asked, biting her fingernails, still leaning against the doorframe. I cracked my neck and sighed.

“Owl brought this shit on himself by listening to his junkie, brain-dead wife. Let her take care of him. So, this is how you wanna play it?” I made the necessary steps to Nina, grabbed the recorder, took out the tape, and tore it to tiny shreds, before throwing the camera to the floor and smashing it into a fucking flatbread with my foot. “You wanna blackmail me with a stupid tape?”

Nina’s pupils were dancing in their sockets. Reality started to sink in for her, and it wasn’t pretty. I tipped the ash from the blunt on her sheets, exhaling smoke through my flared nostrils.

“Well?” I growled in her face. “You gonna talk, or what?”

Up until that point, I didn’t know about Walmart. I didn’t know she had abandoned me. I didn’t know she went to get fucking cigarettes and a beer right after she left me to die, naked and screaming, in a public restroom. My parents saved all the juicy parts for themselves, and I didn’t blame them. Their version of things was far easier to digest: Nina had a drug problem. She couldn’t take care of me. So she gave me to them, knowing that they would love me fiercely. Which they did.

“Like you were even going to miss this money!” she screamed in my face, pushing me away. “You got everything! They give you everything, goddammit!” Her Southern twang deepened.

“They do, because you didn’t.” It was my turn to raise my voice. I tried hard not to fling my arms around. To stay composed. But the need to kick something was intense. And Owl was right there, but he was starting to look a little purple so I didn’t want to push it. Nina shot up from her bed.

“That’s right. I didn’t. I threw your ass where you belong. In the toilet. Because you were nothing and a no one!”

The blunt almost fell out of my mouth.

“What?”

She repeated herself. Then shouted the rest of the story of my birth at me. Then she proceeded to cry and attend to her husband, mumbling to him that everything was going to be okay. Tiffany still stood at the door, watching me with a mixture of pity, pain, and horror.

“Get out of here.” I jerked my chin at Tiffany. “Now.”

“But, Dean…”

“OUT!” I yelled, pointing in the direction where the front door was. “I fucking mean it. It’s over.”

And it was. Every single thing about this part of my life was done.

I got on a plane back home the next day and never set foot in Alabama again. As far as I was concerned, the state ceased to exist on the U.S. map.

The fun-loving, happy guy I was died there, too.

And I was present at his funeral. It took place every single fucking day from that point forward.

In my mind.

What makes you feel alive?

Watching the trees flash by, the ocean sparkles, the world spinning around me like a ballroom dress. Knowing I’m a part of it. Accepting that not being a part of it is life, too.

I SAT IN THE BACK of the taxi on my way to the Hamptons, creating a sick playlist for our stay. Romantic, fluffy stuff I wanted us to listen to while we made dinner and love and unforgettable memories.

It was a big day for Dean, and as the gray sky darkened over the shore, I wondered if the weather symbolized how it was going to turn out for him. It was raining hard. I was covered in four layers. Two of them coats. I brought all of my medicine and nebulizer with me in a shoulder bag that weighed no less than I did. Truth was, I wasn’t feeling my best. But Dean booked us a Friday-to-Friday week in the Hamptons, and I so badly wanted to make him happy, now more than ever.

He was going to resolve a thirty-year mystery. He sure paid a lot to do it. I was going to be there for him, in every sense of the word, even if I had to endure a little physical discomfort.

“It’s raining pretty bad out,” the driver noted, pointing at the windshield wipers. They moved furiously across the windshield. The rain knocked on the roof like it was trying to break it.

“It is,” I agreed. “Sorry you have to drive all the way back to New York all by yourself. It’s probably a hassle.”