Page 267
Chapter 267 of "Tempting Venom" opens presenting twists: âThank you, Dad. It feels good to know he suffered.ââAnytime, son.ââAnd, Dad?ââYes?âI gulp past the... Keep following!
âThank you, Dad. It feels good to know he suffered.â
âAnytime, son.â
âAnd, Dad?â
âYes?â
I gulp past the feelings clogging my throat. âDo you think Iâll ever get better?â
âYou already are, Preston.â He rests his hand on my head, his fingers sliding gently through my hair. âYoualready are.â
37
PRESTON
All those emotions drained me.
Yikes.
Someone come numb my brain.
But also, not really. The hours I spent talking to Dad about everything and nothing, jumping from one topic to another like a hyper monkey, were everything I didnât know I needed.
The entire time I yapped, Dad just listened. Yes, there were a couple of huffs andBe serious, Prestons, but, mostly, helistened.
And Iâve never felt so close to my dad as I did at that moment.
We had a talk with my nemesis, Dr. Fenwick, and agreed to meet more regularly once Iâm physically better.
Just kidding, heâs not my nemesis. Dr. Fenwick can be all right, I guess. I modeled Dr. Duret after him and Mom in my mind, a half-professional, half-mother figure.
He said it was my hallucinations acting up again, and theyâll probably continue to do so. Itâs how my brain is wired, after all. What we can do is make sure Iâm more self-aware of the signs, so I donât let my imagination blur reality.
Dr. Fenwick mentioned that the next time I see Dr. Duretor Lenin, I should scream bloody murder. He didnât say those exact words, but he said I should talk to him immediately or tell Dad.
We ended up talking about traumaâmy favorite bedtime story, apparently.
And by âtalking,â I mean Dr. Fenwick said a bunch of things that made uncomfortable sense while I pretended not to have an existential crisis. He told me something I never really let myself consider.
âListen, Preston. When you get hurt young, before your brain has fully developed, the damage doesnât just sit there like a bruise. It builds foundations. It sneaks into the wiring. It molds itself around the abuse because thatâs the only blueprint it has. It shapes who you become because you donât get the opportunity of growing without it.â
So basically, I didnât grow into whoever Preston Armstrong was supposed to be.
I grew into whatever my trauma sculpted with its filthy little hands.
I didnât get normal developmental stages; I got survival instincts in funhouse-mirror shapes. My personality became a patchwork of coping mechanisms no one warned me were optional. And the worst part? Iâll never know who the untraumatized version of me was supposed to look like. Maybe he wouldâve been softer. Maybe he wouldâve been boring. Maybe he wouldâve been a nerd, who knows? But that boy is gone, and I canât resurrect him.
And thatâs the miserable, liberating truth.
I canât go back in time and pull my younger self out of that house, or out of that room, or away from those cigarette-coated hands. I canât edit the past the way I rewrite my own lies. All I can doâand this is the part Dr. Fenwick insists ispossibleâis learn how to live with the version of me that survived. Stop letting fifteen-year-old wounds sit in the driverâs seat while I pretend itâs all just static and bad vibes.
The trauma isnât going to vanish into thin air. Itâs not going to wake up one day and decide to stop haunting me because Iâve âgrownâ or whatever self-help nonsense people write on Pinterest boards.
But it also doesnât have to run the whole damn show anymore.
Maybe, for the first time in my life, I get to decide who I am.
Not the past.