The Soulmate Paradox ✔

four: the one that got away

"My mother's fucking dead!" Gregory shouts back. "That thing's not my mother! Gosh! Why can't you just fucking understand that?"

Gregory feels a rush of satisfaction flood him at the way his father arcs off his seat, hand raised as if to slap him. His father's never hit him before, but Gregory almost wants him to. He can't do communication. He can't do sit-downs and talk-it-outs. But what he can do is fight. He's fluent in the language of fists, and a small part of him wants his father to understand that language, to be able to speak it with him.

"Arthur!" Pink-nailed fingers snatch his father's wrist out of the air before he can bring it down. "Don't!" And just like that, Ballooon Tits is hovering in Gregory's universe again, a stark blot against his mind's crimson backdrop with her fake tan, fake blonde hair, and fake Double-fucking-G's. "He doesn't mean it."

She's wrong, Gregory thinks gleefully, because every incorrect word that comes out of Balloon Tits' mouth is an indication that she's wrong and he's right. And although he knows it's a hopeless cause attempting to get her out of his life---after all, his father had married her---he can still try.

"Wrong, slut," Gregory hisses, unable to stop a hint of triumph from leaking into his voice. "I meant it. Every. Single. Fucking. Word." Balloon Tits seems taken aback, visibly recoiling slightly. She keeps her hand on Gregory's father, though, as if restraining him from giving his son the discipline he probably deserves. Gregory wants to slap her for it. He doesn't want her meddling in their arguments like how she meddles in their lives.

"Gregory---" Balloon Tits starts. Gregory gnashes his teeth at her, satisfaction flooding his heart at how she draws back.

"You don't get to use my name," he snarls. "That's an honour reserved for my actual parents." Before Balloon Tits or his father can say another word, he storms out of the kitchen, flinging the door shut. The resounding slam is music to his ears. Gregory's fully prepared to fling himself onto his bed in a fit of rage---but he stops, utterly flummoxed.

Mainly because his closet door is glowing.

"What. The. Fuck," Gregory mumbles, staring at his closet door. He rubs his eyes. He's not dreaming. His closet door is now a brilliant shade of azure, and light radiates off it in bright rays. His first reaction is to wonder what Balloon Tits had done to it---but despite his willingness to blame her for anything and everything under the sun, he knows his glowing closet isn't her doing. She never goes into his room.

Gregory finds his hand impulsively reaching for the light. Before he can stop himself, he's yanking the door open. Like a switch's been flipped, the glow recedes, leaving his closet plain and wooden once more.

Am I hallucinating?

Just as he's about to shut his closet once more, a flash of sapphire catches his eye. Sitting on the third shelf is a pair of bright blue headphones---headphones that look far too familiar for comfort. He's pretty darn sure they hadn't been there before. Without thinking about the consequences, as usual, he's picking them up.

The moments his fingertips glide over the headphones, memories flood his head. Music pounding through his brain. A ridiculously tall boy his age. The unmistakeable beep of a hospital monitor.

He drops the headphones like they're a hot potato.

"Fuck," Gregory mutters, all other words having fully escaped his vocabulary. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." He shakes the memories out of his head. Slams the closet door almost as loudly as he'd slammed his bedroom door. Breathes in once, twice, as if that'll actually help---as if he can erase the bastards in his closet with oxygen alone.