Rock Bottom (Bullet) Read Online Free Page A

just looking for the perfect moment.  Something in my head.  It had always been there, but it had been pretty quiet, pretty dull, and it would rear its ugly head every once in a while, but a hit of coke would usually send it running.  Not this time.  It was heavy.  Jesus, it was…”  He let out a long breath, suddenly tired of talking, but he pressed on.  “I guess you could call it depression, but that sounds so fucking weak, you know?  So fucking lame.  That’s what Val said it was.  But…what I’ve read about it, I think maybe she was right.  I just wanted to sleep all the time.  I wanted to die, but I didn’t have the guts to kill myself.  With H maybe.  Maybe I could do it that way…just float away on a cloud and never come back.  But I knew if I just blew my fucking brains out, Val and Chris and, hell, even Brad and the other guys would hate me for the rest of their lives.  I couldn’t give up on them, but I couldn’t make myself go on anymore.  I wasn’t doing anything anymore—wasn’t writing, that’s for damn sure, and I wasn’t doing anything else.  I wasn’t hanging with my friends, wasn’t making love to my wife.  I was just eating, getting high, and sleeping.  I just wanted to go to bed and never wake up.”
    His voice got quieter.  Thomas had stopped writing in his notepad, was instead just patiently looking at Ethan, urging him with his eyes to continue.  Ethan nodded his head and then looked down at his hands.  “Anyway…one day, Val was harping on me, telling me to get out of bed.  I don’t even remember half the shit I said to her, but I was pissed that she wouldn’t just leave me alone, wouldn’t just leave me to die.  She was pleading with me to get out of bed, to spend time with her and my son.  And then something just snapped.  I don’t know what made me do it, but I just shoved her up against the wall and my hand started closing around her neck.  Slowly, slowly, and I just wanted to shut her up.  I didn’t want to hurt her, but it was like I was out of my mind, like I wasn’t there.”  Ethan closed his eyes, forcing himself to relive the moment.  “I was so fucking angry…but I don’t know if I was mad at her or myself.  She knew I was depressed.  She even said so.  And she was calling me out, said she wanted to help me.  I kept telling her to leave me alone and she wouldn’t.  She wanted me to spend more time with Chris.  That made me feel like shit.  I knew I’d been a shitty father, but I didn’t need the reminder.  And then she just threatened to leave and started walking to the door, and that’s when I just snapped.  I lost it.  And it was like my dad took over my body.”
    When Ethan stopped talking, Thomas ran his hand over his bald head and then said, “What do you mean by that?”
    Ethan gulped and opened his eyes.  Oh, God…his father was a whole other can of worms, something he didn’t really want to talk about, even though he’d already hinted at it.  But he knew he had to press forward.  He didn’t have to tell all, not today, but he did have to try to help Thomas understand.  “My dad was a bastard.  A real son of a bitch.  He abused my mom, me even, and I was glad when he left.  But…”  Ethan swallowed again.  What the fuck?   His eyes started stinging.  He swallowed again, forcing himself through the pain.  “But…after he left, I felt empty somehow.  And I always resented him for that…for not being a better dad, for not loving us enough to treat us right, and for leaving…even though I knew it was the best thing, the right thing to do.
    “Anyway, choking Valerie, almost killing her?  That’s something I’d seen my dad do to my mom when I was a kid.   But it was like I couldn’t stop…like I just needed her to shut the fuck up, and that was the only way to do it.  She was begging me to stop and I couldn’t.  But then she couldn’t say anything else and she started slapping me on