As I finished reading the last word, I dropped the board to the floor and slumped back against my newest sculpture, feeling like my chest had been ripped open, exposed for everyone to look inside.

How the fuck did she know to write the board that way? How to write what I was feeling this way? How the fuck did she know how to read my work and me perfectly? Like a goddamn fucking book.

Feeling like my lungs were being squeezed in a fist that I couldn’t friggin’ fight off, I pulled out my smokes and lit one up. Taking alternate long hits of my Marlboro and huge swigs of my whiskey, I looked up and stared at the young marble boy holding a gun, crying red painted bullets and a fucking uncontrollable rage swept through me.

With every drag of my smoke and every swallow of whiskey, I was pushed farther and farther to the edge. Images of Levi’s rejection tortured my mind. Aliyana’s damn disgusted face when she realized it was me, Axel Carillo, not her precious Elpidio, Molly’s hand shaking in pure fucking fear as she took mine in hers. And that cunt, Rome Prince’s stupid fucking scowl as he glared at me with nothing but hatred, acting like he was Austin’s blood, not me.

Fuck them.

FUCK THEM ALL!

Standing, I began to pace back and forth on the studio floor, gripping the glass neck of the whiskey bottle tighter in my hand, the ash from my nearly-done Marlboro falling on my chest.

My heart beat faster and faster keeping rhythm with the heavy metal of Pantera’s “Walk” now vibrating off the walls.

I was done. I was done with trying to prove to everyone that I’d changed. I was done with this art bullshit, with motherfucking Elpidio!

I didn’t know how to do 'normal'. Because I wasn’t fucking normal! Never had been. Having a drunk abusive cunt of a papa, a cripple as a mother, and forced to be the man of the house at ten years of age kinda fucks up a kid’s idea of ‘normal'.

Draining the rest of the whiskey, I threw my head back and screamed out my fury, launching the bottle against the wall, hearing it smash.

Spitting my finished smoke to the ground, I marched to the workstation and poured a packet of coke onto the top, reaching into my back pocket for my driving license. Taking the rectangular piece of plastic, I chopped the powder into lines, that sense of excitement swirling in my stomach just imagining the hit that would follow.

I’d never got addicted to this shit, too busy pushing it on the streets, but I’d sure as fuck take a line every now and then, when things got bad. I liked the buzz, the damn mind-numbing buzz the magic dust takes away.

And I needed that now more than ever.

“…You’ve been in prison! Shit, Elpi! What we’ve shared these past weeks… what we shared last night… and you’re fucking Axel Carillo!”

Aliyana’s words throbbed in my skull, her disappointment feeling like the worst kind of migraine. I lifted my head to try and shake off the damn pain, only for my gaze to settle on the image of that fucking sculpture.

Levi…

Levi who couldn’t look at me with anything other than fucking contempt… The memory of him shooting me down today cut me in half.

With the whiskey running thick in my blood and that motherfucking sculpture torturing my mind, something inside of me snapped.

Seeing my hammer lying on the workstation, I picked it up, feeling the cold metal in the palm of my hands and turned to the almost completed sculpture. Wanting nothing more than to have it gone from my sight… gone from my fucking life, I positioned myself behind it, raised my hammer and—

“ELPI!!!! NO!”

Freezing on hearing her voice cut through the loud music and my drunk ass mind, I snapped my head to the doorway, only to see Aliyana friggin’ Lucia staring at me, mouth open and her hands held out trying to stop my destruction of this pathetic sculpture.

At first sight of her stood there in that short pink dress, cowboy boots and her dark hair pulled back, my cock hardened to a painful level in my jeans. But then the more I stared, the more the fire built in my chest.

My hands began to violently shake. Dropping the hammer onto the ground, I whipped to face her, my arms rigid at my side.

“What the fuck do you want?” I snarled.

Everybody from my past expected me to be Axel Carillo? The dark fucked-up prick who only brought pain?

THIS was fucking Axel Carillo! I could BE Axel fucking Carillo!

Aliyana’s mouth dropped open at my question and her face drained of blood. I stepped one step closer, and she stepped one step back. My top lip curled in sick humor. I almost could smell her fear from all the way over here.

“What’s wrong, little girl? You scared?” I said in a low, graveled voice, my eyes narrowing. “You scared of me?”

Aliyana inhaled a terrified breath, her hand lifted to stroke the hair back from her face, and for one moment, at that simple action, I could tell she was really scared… and, for that one damn moment, my anger seemed to fucking fade to vapor.

Part of me really didn’t want this chick to fear me. But remembering that blond prick kissing her lips, and the fucking repulsion in her eyes on finding out her precious Elpidio was really the black sheep Carillo, had me right back to incensed.

I didn’t need none of them. I’d survived this long on my own. I could do it again. I could do it all on my fucking own.

Seeming to pluck up courage from somewhere, Aliyana walked forward, her face nervous. “Elpi, please…”

And that did it. Her breathy plea using that fucking false name ruined me. She knew who I really was, but she still couldn’t bring herself to say it.