Read Online Shine Your Light on Me by Lee Thompson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lee Thompson
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they’d do with their lives both day-to-day and over decades.
If he could respect his father, or anyone else like him, for anything, it was that they worked the steps it took to get where they wanted to go instead of crying about how unfair the world was, how it was keeping them down, how if they’d had a lucky break like someone else they would have been in just as good of a position socially and financially.
Stupid people who thought that. Very few people had more opportunities. Those who made something of themselves usually weren’t afraid of risking it all to get where they wanted to go. His dad was like that, and in a way, he’d set an example for Bobby that would lead to his father’s death.
Thinking about that made him smile. Fucking ironic, he thought.
He approached the door and tried the handle. It was locked, of course. His father would make him knock, that was in him, to know where everything was, at all times. Bobby himself was like that sometimes. There wasn’t much to fear if you had a tight rein on all the things that mattered to you. But then those things suffered a slow suffocation, if you asked Bobby. Look at his mom. Twenty years of being under someone’s thumb, so trained that death itself couldn’t change her decisions for fear she’d upset the balance his father had set.
This was all almost over though, so fuck’em. His mom would be better off. Maybe a little lost at first without his dad telling her what to do, and how to do it, and correcting her every misstep, but she’d be better off in the long run. She’d find somebody like Cindy would, somebody who wanted the best for both of them.
He swallowed hard, felt the tears burning his eyes.
Bobby hadn’t realized how much he’d miss them: Cindy and his mother.
He didn’t have any illusions. After he eliminated the emergency services, he’d have maybe three or four hours of life left. Someone would call the State Police, and then there would be swat teams, guys who knew where he was perched, and they’d take his last breath as easily as he’d taken others, as easy as Pine could. Men made for such behavior. Yet the women would be better off, no denying that. Cindy would find somebody else, somebody who had something more to offer, some guy who could help her get out of this hell hole and design a life worth living; his mom would find a decent guy who maybe didn’t have the social standing her husband now had, but he’d be a man who held her at night and listened to her and didn’t blow his stack over nothing, like his dad usually did.
It killed Bobby sometimes, watching his dad slap his mom. He’d never hit her with his fist, at least not that Bobby had seen, but it was even more belittling in a way, just smacking her. Everybody thought he was an amazing guy though. He had charm and a smile that made people feel like they mattered. He kept his calm and rarely raised his voice. Sometimes that was all it took to trick people.
Bobby had never gotten the hang of it. He wore his heart on his sleeve too often, and he was too unambitious to pretend for the sake of a certain end. He just wanted people to like him for who he was. He’d tested the hell out of Cindy when she’d first shown interest in him, couldn’t figure out what she wanted from him. Then, after he couldn’t get rid of her, once he realized that he kind of enjoyed her company, he realized she was lonely, and she could sense his loneliness, and it wasn’t so bad having somebody wanting to be with you if only for the sake of making each other smile and having someone to talk to.
It wasn’t like they were using each other. They both had their flaws, and he knew he judged her too harshly sometimes. If he had more time he told himself he’d have taken it easier on her, learned to be the better guy she deserved, but with that longing there was an equally strong desire to leave the world with a bang.
Suddenly.
Explosively.
Tomorrow morning.
He backed away from the
If he could respect his father, or anyone else like him, for anything, it was that they worked the steps it took to get where they wanted to go instead of crying about how unfair the world was, how it was keeping them down, how if they’d had a lucky break like someone else they would have been in just as good of a position socially and financially.
Stupid people who thought that. Very few people had more opportunities. Those who made something of themselves usually weren’t afraid of risking it all to get where they wanted to go. His dad was like that, and in a way, he’d set an example for Bobby that would lead to his father’s death.
Thinking about that made him smile. Fucking ironic, he thought.
He approached the door and tried the handle. It was locked, of course. His father would make him knock, that was in him, to know where everything was, at all times. Bobby himself was like that sometimes. There wasn’t much to fear if you had a tight rein on all the things that mattered to you. But then those things suffered a slow suffocation, if you asked Bobby. Look at his mom. Twenty years of being under someone’s thumb, so trained that death itself couldn’t change her decisions for fear she’d upset the balance his father had set.
This was all almost over though, so fuck’em. His mom would be better off. Maybe a little lost at first without his dad telling her what to do, and how to do it, and correcting her every misstep, but she’d be better off in the long run. She’d find somebody like Cindy would, somebody who wanted the best for both of them.
He swallowed hard, felt the tears burning his eyes.
Bobby hadn’t realized how much he’d miss them: Cindy and his mother.
He didn’t have any illusions. After he eliminated the emergency services, he’d have maybe three or four hours of life left. Someone would call the State Police, and then there would be swat teams, guys who knew where he was perched, and they’d take his last breath as easily as he’d taken others, as easy as Pine could. Men made for such behavior. Yet the women would be better off, no denying that. Cindy would find somebody else, somebody who had something more to offer, some guy who could help her get out of this hell hole and design a life worth living; his mom would find a decent guy who maybe didn’t have the social standing her husband now had, but he’d be a man who held her at night and listened to her and didn’t blow his stack over nothing, like his dad usually did.
It killed Bobby sometimes, watching his dad slap his mom. He’d never hit her with his fist, at least not that Bobby had seen, but it was even more belittling in a way, just smacking her. Everybody thought he was an amazing guy though. He had charm and a smile that made people feel like they mattered. He kept his calm and rarely raised his voice. Sometimes that was all it took to trick people.
Bobby had never gotten the hang of it. He wore his heart on his sleeve too often, and he was too unambitious to pretend for the sake of a certain end. He just wanted people to like him for who he was. He’d tested the hell out of Cindy when she’d first shown interest in him, couldn’t figure out what she wanted from him. Then, after he couldn’t get rid of her, once he realized that he kind of enjoyed her company, he realized she was lonely, and she could sense his loneliness, and it wasn’t so bad having somebody wanting to be with you if only for the sake of making each other smile and having someone to talk to.
It wasn’t like they were using each other. They both had their flaws, and he knew he judged her too harshly sometimes. If he had more time he told himself he’d have taken it easier on her, learned to be the better guy she deserved, but with that longing there was an equally strong desire to leave the world with a bang.
Suddenly.
Explosively.
Tomorrow morning.
He backed away from the
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