Prologue
NOAH
I always knew it would end like this.
It seems like everyone gets dealt a hand at birth, and you either luck out, or you’re screwed for eternity. No matter what I do, no matter how positive my mindset is, I still get only misfortune. Feels like the universe punished me from the start.
But that’s ok. I was never one of those who felt sorry for myself. Some of us are just not meant to be happy people with normal, boring lives. Some moments leave a permanent mark and change you forever.
What moment defined my life? That time when I accidentally overheard my parents fighting? We lived in that big house with a pool then, my dad’s big purchase after getting drafted to the major NFL team. I woke up in the middle of the night for whatever reason, and ended up walking past my parents’ bedroom. Avoiding the creaky floorboard, I stayed in the shadows, too curious and too young to mind my own business.
Or was it when my dad died–millions of Americans watching one quarterback falling down on Monday night football. And never getting up again.
Maybe the moment when my mother started drinking after becoming a widow at twenty eight. Or when she started taking the medication she never really needed.
Was it when we moved to the Midwest to live with my grandparents? Or when I ran away from them on my seventeenth birthday, ending up in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The list goes on, and I am convinced that I never could have changed this moment right now. It was inevitable. I am twenty two, sitting in the back of the police car with blood on my hands. No place to call home and no people to call for help.
Hunching over I lay my cheek against the cold window, my flushed skin reveling in the feel of cool glass. Midnight darkness combined with bright lights of downtown streets illuminate my face and I wonder how it will all end?
Behind bars most certainly. Beaten up? Possibly. Raped? With my looks most probably.
Dead?
Maybe that’s not so bad at all. I’m not the guy who gets his happily ever after. No, my soul is tattered. It’s broken. And as I think back to one week ago when I stood over that ashy blue corpse, I realize how meaningless my life has been. How pathetic it is. I hope nobody remembers my sad little life when it does end.
