Scarlett

35 - Jackson

Two weeks and nothing. 14 days of complete radio silence, no calls not even a text message.
In my head I guess I had really thought this would all work out, I thought this was what I wanted - now I wasn't so sure. Now I was ready to give it all up, forget it and do what I had always been good at - walking the fuck away.

Going into this, making up my mind, pushing Scarlett to tell Mya, at the time I had myself convinced it was what I'd wanted more than anything. I thought I had really wanted a relationship with my daughter, I thought that maybe having a relationship with her, having a relationship with someone who was a part of Scarlett may fill the hole that losing her mother had left in my chest. I was so very wrong.
This feeling was pure torture and there is nothing that can prepare you for this feeling - for the pain of rejection, for the the constant anxiety from waiting for her to reach out, Fuck this shit was messing with me in a way I didn't even think it would and set me on a path of self destruction.

I'd started with attacking Shay not physically - but I was pushing her away big time and honestly there was not a single part of me that cared. I told her I was a waste of space, I told her she had wasted her life with me, I told that I was never going to give her more than what we had because she was my second choice, that she wasn't the one I'd wanted to spend my life with, Yes, I actually said that to her. I told her there was no way she could ever compare to Scarlett and that what I felt for her wasn't even half as strong, I told her I could never have really given my heart to her because my heart always had always and would always belonged to someone else. I told her id always known these things, always thought and felt them but never voiced them because there was no way I would ever have what I truly wanted. She cried, she yelled at me, she threw things across the room in anger - I didn't care.
Instead I just asked her if it was easier for me to pack my bags and leave or if she wanted to be the one to go, she told me to get the fuck out of her face and never speak to her again - so I just left.

My next step was calling Seb and telling him I needed some personal leave. He argued with me that taking time off was the worst thing I could do - he told me work would be a saving grace for me - keep my mind busy and focused on something else. He told me I needed to be patient and give Mya time to come around. I didn't listen. I told him I would be taking a month off and hung up the phone. Then I blocked his number.

Then I disappeared, I didn't tell anyone where I was, I had completely shut myself off from everyone and everything.
There was only one person I wanted, no scratch that, there was only one person I needed and I don't even need to say her name for you to know who I'm talking about.
That however wasn't on the cards for me, so I allowed myself to sink deeper into my black whole of pity.

Finally I was able to forget, with the help of alcohol and some lovely little white pills, the constant stabbing feeling in my chest and gut twisting pain that had been present since that day in the park disappeared. It was a delicious cocktail that made me forget it all, it made me forget this version of Jackson Knight I had created, it made me feel free.
Maybe this should have been my life all along, I was born into shit, with my shitty house, no money and a mother that couldn't give a flying fuck what I ate let along care if I had to spend the entire night outside while she fucked her way to her latest fix. Maybe it was time I embraced who I really way, maybe I should forget the world according to Hunter Stilton, forget who my best friend was and forget the fact that the love of my life was happily married to someone else, that she had given birth to my baby girl and that our baby girl was refusing to have a relationship with me.
I was nothing but gutter trash - was always meant to be gutter trash. It was time to return to my roots - difference between my Mom and me was I had money now, at least I could sink to rock bottom in style. No dilapidated houses or fucking people for drugs - shit I was holed up in a 5 star hotel which delivered twelve hundred dollar bottles of Odyssey Scotch directly to my room, where even the dealers I had some how managed to find were too intimidated to enter, instead insisting I meet them in the loading dock at the rear of the hotel.

The decision was made, I had always fought so hard to get to where I was, I had pushed myself to be a man that Hunter Stilton would be proud of. I know I'd fucked up over and over again with his daughter but I'd still managed to make something of myself - for him, because of him, thanks to this life he had given me.
But guess what, Hunter fucking Stilton wasn't here anymore - he'd checked out. There was no one left for me to impress, no one who had loved me in the same way he had loved his blood children, there was no one left to call me son.
For the first time in a really, really long time I felt alone and for the first time in my whole life that I could remember - I think I was really fucking ok with that.