Page 2

I’m not bragging. It’s a known fact—spend enough time around this house and you’re bound to get laid at some point.
Hell, I’m pretty sure the neighbor’s kid, Camden, has been offered up a chance and he’s eleven.
“Shouldn’t have gotten married.” I notice my cigarettes on the table in front of me. Pulling out one, I smile at him and reach for my lighter next to it. “Then you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“I love her.”
“Bullshit. What’s love, anyway?You’re a fuckin’ idiot, man.” Lighting the cigarette, I take a drag and blow the smoke out with a laugh. “And your dick doesn’t love her enough.”
I know what you’re thinking.Jesus, dude, you’re an asshole.Tell me something I don’t know.
Would you believe me if I told you I was shy?
Didn’t think so. Despite what you think you know, or what you might have read about me, I am in fact shy.
I’m shy out of fear. But let me be very clear here. It’snotbecause I’m embarrassed or fearful of your opinion of me. Far from it. I don’t give a goddamn what you or anyone else thinks of me. I’m fearful of conversations that lead to the demons hidden inside me. You don’t want to know the bizarre shit going on in my head. In actuality, I’m crazy. No bullshit. Certifiable even. Hell, it’s the reason I connected with fucked-up Rhya far more than I ever have with my brothers. I was the last person she spoke to on the phone that last night. Shade doesn’t know this, but he’s also never asked me about it. If he had, I’d tell him. Straight up. No fucking around.
Most people are a little bit crazy, but me? Twenty-three and out of my goddamn mind. When I was eighteen, I locked myself in a basement for a week. For 168 hours, I pretended I couldn’t get out. Do you want to know the bizarre part? I had the key in my hand the entire time. Hell, I had my phone, and my brothers were upstairs. I don’t know why I did it, maybe to protect me from myself. If that makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t, and at this moment in my life, I can’t explain it. That week, I did nothing but watch YouTube videos and eat saltine crackers, and I gotta say, I didn’t mind being alone.
Plagued with a gamut of gnawing unease that never leaves, I have something deep inside of me. A knotted soul. A frightening window to a world I don’t understand. Or is it me being paranoid? Or is it just anxiety? I’m not sure there’s a difference. Is there?
I’ve had what most would call anxiety for as long as I can remember. Twice it’s tipped over into severe depression. The kind that imprisoned me for weeks at a time where I locked myself in a basement or read the dictionary because reading words was better than being inside my own mind. When it happens, the anxiety, the crazy, my thoughts are all over the place. They teeter and control my mind, and I think to myself, will this time make me psychotic? Am I bipolar like my mother? How many of those sleeping pills can I take to sleep for the next three days and not die?
I ask myself these questions all the time when I’m stuck in a tornado of negative thoughts.
For the most part, I never know when it’s going to start, how long it’s going to last or what provokes it. It seems to come out of nowhere.
Actually, I can peg one of the reasons, which is part of why I skipped out on the first round of After Dark in Houston, Texas. The bullshit industry of freestyle motocross. If you’ve never heard of things like Nitro Circus, Red Bull X-Fighters or the Nuclear Cowboyz, it’s the world of professional freestyle motocross. Essentially a sport that began as “free riding” is now commercialized bullshit where you’re scored on your techniques and for things like crowd participation. Whatever the fuck that is. Last time I checked, it was my ass sailing through the air seventy-five feet above the ground while holding up a 250-pound bike. I don’t see that dude in seat 34-A doing shit but drowning his face with beer and screaming “Booo!” when I flip his frat-boy ass off.
I travel all over the world, competing for a living. And while it certainly pays well, the only thing I enjoy about the sport is pissing off the officials, and sometimes other riders just for the sheer fun of it. On more than one occasion I’ve provoked another competitor with a wild, and yet completely ridiculous, confrontation between our respective pit crews. I live for that shit. I’m not happy unless I’m thriving on anger and chaos.
For that reason, the stiff-collared motherfuckers of mainstream motocross (in particular Rod Milan, as the After Dark promotor), hates my guts. Of course, I can’t say I blame them. I’m disrespecting their sport.
I also don’t give a fuck.
I’m not my younger brother/model/freestyle gold medalist golden boy Shade. And I’m certainly not my older Erzberg Rodeo champion brother, Roan, who will do anything to prove he’s the world champion of enduro’s, even if it means handing out rim jobs to the stiff collars.
I haven’t always been this jaded. Before I could walk, there are pictures of me floating around, naked, on my dad’s dirt bike. There I was, straddling a Kawasaki KX500, my bare ass in the wind with the biggest smile on my face I haven’t seen since then. Once I discovered the thrill of the adrenaline when you turned it on, I was hooked. I started out riding motocross with my brothers. I rode every day, without fail, trained mostly by my supercross world champion uncle and his elite group of friends. Over the course of my childhood career, and going pro at eleven years old, I became wildly unpredictable as a rider. I never rode in a manner that reflected my ability. I can’t tell you what was going on inside my head back then, or even now, but the tremendous pressure building every time I got on a bike had something to do with it. I didn’t want to disappoint Ricky; he gave up everything for us, but then again, I didn’t like where my career was heading and, easily distracted, I was bored with the structure of motocross.
Eventually a pattern of self-sabotage emerged and I chose not to do well at certain events. I’d let things like poor track conditions set me off. I didn’t love motocross, so I reached for anything that gave me an excuse to lose, which, this would prove to be a reoccurring problem in my life.
It wasn’t about riding fast, doing well and collecting prize money. It was more about kissing corporate ass and behaving appropriately in order to attract sponsors.
That was a problem for a defiant little fucker like me and eventually, I said fuck that shit, and went into freestyle. Now look at me, dealing with the same shit I did in motocross. There’s no other sport in the world pushing progression and balls-out tricks that will kill you like freestyle does. It’s a game of who can do the best trick and when it’s been done, you have to constantly push to outdo the next guy. It’s a vicious cycle.
My phone rings on the table, vibrating on the wood and then buzzing its way to the floor. Only it’s not my phone that’s ringing. It’s Ledger’s.
Panic drains the color from his face and he looks to me for advice. “Do I answer it?”
I don’t know why he’s looking for advice from me. If I remember correctly, I told him he shouldn’t get married and did he listen to me? Nope. “You’re a pussy. You need to nut up.” If he had any balls, he’d tell that wife of his it’s over. It has been for a while. He just doesn’t want to admit it because her dad scares the shit out of him. “So you fucked another chick. Big fucking deal.”
“It is a big deal. It’s adultery.”
I sigh, standing and realize I’m fucking naked. That’s not surprising when you remember I was Tased last night and probably a little out of it by the time I made it to the living room.
Beside me, Scarlet blushes. “You’re naked.”
“I have socks on,” I point out, lifting my foot and effectively angling my body in her direction just to get a reaction. It’s not surprising, to most, but we’re not clothed around her very often.