Home > Pieces of Us (Second Chance Sinners #1)

Pieces of Us (Second Chance Sinners #1)
Author: Claudia Y. Burgoa

 

Prologue

 

 

Zeke

 

 

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?

It sounds like one of those mediocre lines people use to cheer you up when shit is hitting the fan.

“I’m sorry your mom died. Everything happens for a reason.” Doesn’t that sound like the most condescending piece of crap?

Let me tell you the reason: cancer.

It was fucking cancer that killed Mom. No one can justify what happened to her or call it a fucking miracle that’ll save me. The only miracle is that I survived without her. At least, until now.

Was I supposed to learn something from my mother’s death? Other than life sucks?

I’d be more interested in proving that the butterfly effect exists. Maybe even use some of my money to develop a time machine to fix my past. I could analyze my entire life and find what I can change so I don’t end up here, in this precise moment.

Not that I can remember anything from my childhood. I bet you can’t either.

Think back to your first memory.

It’s almost impossible to recall anything before the age of four or five, isn’t it?

Some people can only go back as far as the age of eight.

Why is that? Childhood amnesia.

Childhood amnesia is the inability to remember episodic experiences that occurred during the first few years of life. There are lengthy studies about this phenomenon.

It’s ironic when there are many theories establishing that the first years of our lives are the foundation of who we become later in life. Let that sink in before we continue.

The shit we can’t remember is what makes us who we are as adults. That’s a bunch of nonsense. Isn’t it?

They contradict each other. In other words, there’s no way for me to know why I’m so fucked up. And you know what? I take that as the best way to explain why at three forty in the morning—in the middle of winter—I’m lying on the floor of a dark alley.

I’m fucking freezing, bleeding, and alone.

The probability that someone will find me before I die is low, which is fine by me. I don’t want to be found.

What’s the point of being saved when I can’t ever be happy?

Everyone I love dies or leaves.

What’s the point of living when nothing ever changes?

Someone once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Before you say it was Albert Einstein, let me stop you right there. That’s one of several quotes misattributed to famous people. Thank you, Internet, for making shit up on the go.

If I survive, I’ll start a website where I can set those quotes straight. That’s better than saying, “I’ll go back to rehab, and this time it’ll be different.”

The rehab centers I’ve visited are a joke. They’re just fancy resorts where I talk to a bunch of losers who claim to know everything. They swear they know the reason why I have a need to consume anything that will numb the pain in my soul.

They don’t know shit.

They don’t even know that there’s always a resident who has access to drugs and shares them. In the end, I come out promising my friends that it was the last time—until it’s not.

Until the pain of being alive chokes me like a pair of hands squeezing my throat and my heart. Until I need my next fix so I can breathe again.

Until…until I can no longer stand being alone.

The difference between all those times and today is that I’m ready to die. It’s been thirty years in the making. Thirty years of living in a cruel world where I’m always alone.

Tomorrow, the headlines will read “Another Artist Taken Young by His Vice.” A reporter will do his homework and figure out that I left rehab without finishing the program. I’ll be judged by everything I’ve done and never remembered for my music. They won’t care who I was or if they hurt my loved ones while printing a bunch of words that don’t relate to the real Zeke Hutchence.

My life will be another warning for the young. Catnip for the mob that feeds on others’ failures.

What they won’t see is the pain that lingers under my skin even after I die. The reason why I had to reach for the numbing elixir.

Everyone likes to judge our choices. It’s easier than looking into their own fucked up lives, isn’t it?

Let me tell you, it’s not a choice. For me, it’s a way to survive in a world that can’t understand me. A place that invalidates my pain, judges my lifestyle, and wants me to be a part of a cookie-cutter world.

Just because they can’t see my pain doesn’t mean I don’t hurt. It means I’m fucking good at masking what’s underneath my soul.

And maybe it’s okay that this is coming to an end. What are the chances that there’s a God who’ll send me to heaven to be with my parents?

I’ll probably end up in hell because I proudly became a sinner, and that’s exactly the way I’ll leave.

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

Zeke

 

 

Fifteen years ago …

Check if there’s an alarm system, you idiot!

I facepalm my forehead as I poke numbers, trying to figure out the code to deactivate the alarm system.

Who installs an alarm system in a flower shop?

No one in their right mind will break in to steal a plant. I, on the other hand, thought it’d be the best place to stay for the night. Okay, I admit, running away from the group home without a plan was a moronic move.

My breathing becomes shallow as the timer reaches ten. The stabbing pain in the pit of my stomach increases when the countdown continues.

Just fucking leave before they catch you!

I run toward the exit. I push the back door to escape, but it’s locked or stuck. I have no place to run. How can it be easy to break in, but I can’t leave? My other option is to slam my body against the glass door. If I do it hard enough, I can break it.

The sound blaring throughout the store increases. I cover my ears while I search for a place where I can hide. My stupid long, lanky body doesn’t fit anywhere except the open industrial fridge. If I hide in the very back behind all the countless shelves filled with flowers, I might be able to go undetected.

I shiver as I step inside. The irony doesn’t go unnoticed. I broke in so I could spend the night in a warm place. The coldest spot in the store might be the one that’ll save my ass. At least in here I can’t hear the deafening sound of the alarm.

There’s enough space between the last shelf and the fridge’s wall. I squat behind the roses, sunflowers, and green branches. This place reminds me of Mom. She loved flowers. That’s one of the few details I can recall about her. I spent hours with her in her art studio, her garden, or when she was playing her guitar. I colored or played with clay while she worked. I helped her with her plants. When she played, I listened. There were a few occasions when I played the drums—with pots, pans, and wooden spoons.

The one memory of her that I carry in my heart is when I asked her what I’ll do once she left. She made me aware that she was sick, and that one day she’d be traveling to heaven—a place where I couldn’t join her—not until I lived my life.

The emptiness in my chest, the pang in my heart, and the knots in my stomach remain. That fear of losing the only person who loved me still hounds me.

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