Appreicate

idk?

Reverberations skipped through the air as the sultry hymn of the femme fatale continued to spout its nonsense, the words falling upon deafened ears as his mind reeled over a simple comment that had already been uttered. It caused his skin to crawl and blister as the heat of rage boiled inside him, but he was careful not to allow it to froth about, less he became content with scalding her. And they both knew that he would allow himself to disintegrate to despicable embers before he dared to scorch her, often times he was turned to a pit of campfire simply to keep her warm.

 

"I appreciate you,” she repeated, a foreign confidence still attached to her tone.

 

It was a simple and mundane string of syllables, the only thing distinct about it was the middle word sandwiched between normality. And even then, he knew that there was a time where that particular diction meant relatively little to him. But all that had evolved and transformed the instant her boon of a mother dared to call him unappreciative. And to what end? Upon what basis? Because he contested and challenged her when she was vehemently in the wrong? Or because he didn’t roll over and piss on his own belly every time she treated him with the same decency she had shown her.

 

With a curt shake of the head, he would allow for his baritone to slice through the air with the sharpness of a blade as he severed her words and forced her ranting to come to a halt. "F**k that," he sneered. Instantly, his s**t-brown orbs devoured the scenery around him. The house she had all but forced him to frequent on an evening she had practically wrangled out of him. She had left him only a feint of a choice after all. It was her way or the highway, compromise being a foreign enigma in her mother’s teachings.

 

All around him, he was smothered in the stench of her mistakes and wrongdoings, and yet he made no idle chatter of it. Spoke not of how he knew all too well the frames that had sat upon those cushions, creasing the texture and riddling it with their musk. Of how those she prostrated herself for often bent and broke her, whether she knew it or not, as they drug her name through the mud much as she had done his own. It was humorous. Amongst the demons that she had intertwined herself with, she credited some with knowing her above any other, to include himself. And he felt the subtle slap not to his pride, but to her reputation as he had defended her time and time again. And with a subtle comment, she invalidated every one of his arguments and attested to the other side being right. Perhaps she was the type of woman to cheat on her husband, perhaps she truly would never learn her lesson until she got divorced, more so, perhaps she should be referred to as a dumb b***h that would never leave because she operated off of her emotion. All had been claims made by those that knew her better than he, after all, apparently. The last particular memory danced through his mind as he sat at the same Costa Vida table mere hours before, eating a similar delectable meal as he swam in the sea of sharks that frequented that city. He remembered the smugness in the bass of a former friend as he cooed about how you "simply had to keep hope alive to get what you wanted out these hoes".

 

He blinked away his fury, momentarily pondering if that too was a lesson that he had taught her to utilize upon him. He spared little mind to how he had looked out for both of them and yet they…

 

Abruptly he would rise from his perch upon that stool and stare upon the ceiling, boring a hole into the ivory as he steadied his voice and soothed his own anger, refusing to erupt for he knew the outcome would merely be the cowering of womanly flesh.

 

"Appreciate, noun. Definition, to recognize the full worth of something. Synonyms: value, admire, to hold in high regard, to think highly of." Each word came out flat, unhinged by the madness that touched at his silhouette as he simply conveyed the reality of the word that she dared to throw about when it so visibly was untrue.

 

Forcing his gaze upon her, he dared her not to cave under its harshness as he allowed a trace of his fury to creep across his tongue. “When?” There was a notable inflexion to the word as he shrugged his shoulders casually and released a hearty cackle afterward. “When I gave up my family for you, and came to you for the holidays?” Admittedly, that wasn’t even his own idea, but he had embraced it fully knowing that it was a necessary evil if he was to atone for his own sins and display his care for her. “Perhaps it was how I sacrificed my friends for you when I defended you, a newcomer, against their aged wisdom. More than that I never refuted you, giving you more time than I could’ve allowed.”

 

Shaking his head wryly. “I certainly hope it was when I put you before myself. I recall asking you for the simplest of things, and you twist them to your own ends. Remember draft weekend, when I wanted to be alone? Suddenly I’m ungrateful when you say f**k that, demand I come over for the weekend, and then throw a cancelled trip in my face as a sign of something I should kiss your a*s over.” Tapping his finger against his chin, he pondered for a moment. “I wonder if that’s the best friend you sucked off? Was that trip a plan to go get some action? If so, I should be so grateful that you didn’t go, yeah?”

 

Exhaling slowly, he pivoted on his heels and extended his back toward her as he traced his finger along the wall in a whimsical motion. “Somehow you managed to express lie after lie, without vomiting. Yesterday you managed to express that you used me like the world used you, and didn’t burst into flames. But you will not be permitted to say that you appreciated me without me checking you.” Refusing the urge to surge upon her and wrangle the life from her curvaceous flesh, he managed to continue on. “And the truth is, you won’t appreciate me until it’s too late.”

 

It was an aged saying, you didn’t understand what you had until it was gone. But perhaps it was a cliché because there was truth to the words. “You won’t appreciate me until you have someone who lies to you regardless of how you plead for the truth. You won’t appreciate me until you see that not everyone will bear against the tides of your emotionally turbulent seas without injuring far more gravely than scathing words. You’ll likely appreciate my bluntness in the coming days when you unravel the truths of your friends, but those whispers I will not oblige you with. The last time I did I was greeted with a cute denial. No, you will not appreciate me till you have aged and come to understand that the effort I placed into you far transcended the norm, and the limits of the rationale.”

 

Allowing his bare feet to pad against the wooden floor, he rudely ignored any retorts or sobs she may have offered him as he walked toward her fridge and opened it as if it were his own. There had been a time where she pleaded with him to treat this home as if it were his own, as if this was there little getaway from the world. At the time he had felt special, but now he knew of the numerous masculine hands that had likely gripped the same handle. And those that would come after him, likely opening the fridge later in the week after they parted her thighs. With her parents gone, her descent into madness was unchecked. But who was he to judge? He too had reached similar dominion, although driven there by different reasons. He understood her. And he understood how she would spend years mending what she had done to herself and her reputation. How she would relapse when things got hard. He didn’t judge her for, no. He merely felt the disappointment of not being able to save a younger version of himself, scathed and ignorant after losing his first love.

 

“Arielle called while we were dating once,” he sighed as he reached into the fridge and removed a canned Perrier, the sparkling water he hadn’t cared to drink until after they had dated. “She called to thank me about a lot of things I used to do. Five years later. She appreciated me. And that’s cool, and that’s something to be proud of, but damn it, I’d do it again.” Popping the can with a swift motion of his thumb and index finger. “Damn it if I wouldn’t do this again.”

 

“I will live my life a fool. Broken into a thousand splinters over and over, bearing the scars of those who were inconsiderate of me. And I will die happy. Happier than those who take advantage of others. Happier than those who bitched about how the world wronged them, and then wronged those who loved them. Happier than those who cry themselves to sleep after a stern scolding. Or quit because simply put, they’re a quitter. You see there is glory to be found at the finish line. And it doesn’t matter how you get there. It doesn’t matter if you sprint, walk, or crawl. There is a difference between the participant and the spectator. Five years ago, you were quoting Nicholas Sparks, but when you have your real-life romance. When you have your real life struggle. What do you do? You crumble, you focus on your lack of playing time, or how high the mountain is, rather than taking it one step at a time.”

 

Downing the contents of the can, he would crash it absentmindedly before dropping it upon the floor for her to clean up, just as she had dropped him and left him to pick himself up.

upon deafened ears as his mind reeled over a simple comment that had already been uttered. It caused