Page 88 of The Truths We Burn

They wanted this, right? They wanted to tear down what was left of a hopeless boy and make him into a monster they could hate.

They wanted evil, so I became the king of it.

The ruler of it all.

I’d become Lucifer himself.

I rained hellfire down and lived in sin.

“Change the fucking music, bro. This is worse than Alistair’s screamo,” I complain, squeezing the front of the wooden chair I’m straddling. My short nails dig into the material.

Thatcher increases the pressure on my back. He strokes with harsh slashes. The fierce pain makes my teeth throb. It’s keen, and I can feel my skin opening, the blood streaking down. It’s weird how warm it feels.

“My basement. My rules. My music,” he states.

I breathe through my nose, closing my eyes. The rush of ecstasy from the torture inflicted makes me shake with satisfaction, finally reaching the terminal high of punishment.

Every single new cut is a payment. Restitution pours out of the torn skin in the form of blood. All the pent-up regret and blame falls out of me. The stress of my life, the guilt, my failures, Sage. It cascades down my spine and leaves my body.

I’d thought about doing this to myself for years.

Cutting. Self-harm. Whatever the fuck a therapist would call it.

I could have done it myself, taken a razor blade to my thighs or my wrists. But I knew that Thatcher needed to cut. It would have been selfish of me to keep this to myself. The impulse that feeds my soul to burn things is the same one that flows inside of him. Instead of needing fire, he needs to see crimson.

He needs to put on his classical music bullshit down in hisAmerican Psychobasement that smells like a hospital and slice. So why would I do it myself when I could give this to Thatch?

We all have different motivations for why we need these things to cope with our lives.

It’s not about knowing the reason or even understanding it. It’s not about any of that. It’s about being there for each other. Being what each other requires to get by. We made an unspoken oath when we were young. That it didn’t matter how far or how dark we had to go, if one of the guys needed something, we would always be there. We would be that for them, whatever the cost.

The rest of the world had shit on us. Thrown us away like trash. Forgotten us. Left us to decay and rot.

All we have is one another, and that will always be enough.

“Alright, that’s ten,” he says, lifting the blade from my body. I can hear him push his rolling chair away from me.

“Two more.”

“I’m going to have to go lower. The ones at the top still haven’t healed from our last session.”

“Then go lower. Just give me more.”

I’d been doing this on a smaller scale ever since I started sparring with Alistair. Exposing myself to agony and anguish, I still do that. But last year, it was vital I had more.

I came to Thatcher that day, after Sage, after I’d stupidly put myself in a position I never should’ve been in, looking to discipline myself so that I would never, ever trust someone like that ever again.

Alistair’s punches wouldn’t have given me what I required. They were only surface-level, just like my father’s. They only bruised the exterior. I didn’t release anything, and I need to make sure that I releasedeverything.

My body was desperate. I needed to purge my bloodstream entirely of Sage Donahue, and he was the man for the job. I know Thatcher, and I know what he is capable of.

He’s able to bore into my body and extract her. He’s a skilled surgeon using scalpels to remove a virus that had taken over my entire system, and every session, he pulls her out more and more.

But she’s a goddamn tumor. Every time he tears a piece of her out of me, she grows back ten times more.

“I had always been curious about why you showed up at my door that day, Van Doren,” he says suddenly, starting another wide line from one side of my back. “And I believe I have a solid theory now. Do you want me to share? Or do you want to tell me yourself?”

I turn my head just a bit, looking over my shoulder. “I don’t come here to talk, Thatcher. Not about this. That’s the rule—no questions.”