Chapter 3
Isaac
I wake up with a killer hangover. I must have got up at least three times during the night to pee. Every time I kept thinking about the old man and what he wanted me to do. Fucking, marry some girl that I don’t even know. What?
So, that she’ll either kill herself or even worse just end up dying of some disease. That’s the trait in our family, which is why it’s only granddad and I left. The rest are all gone and buried, which is why I drowned myself in work. That was the only way to get rid of the pain. Not thinking or feeling anything, just working until that day. The time that nothing could take away that pain, that’s when I found my relief. The one thing that helped me make it through the day and that was to get drunk.
There’s a knock on my bedroom door. I’m in my room in darkness. Just the way I like it, because I just need to be alone.
“What?”
I blurt out thinking that it can’t be my cleaner or my maid. I told both of them to take the week off. I thought that somehow the old man would see things my way and I’ll be at the office all week. The last thing I expected him to do was move me in for three months with some girl that he has working on the ranch.
“It’s Trevor. I’ve been sent to pick you up.”
Shit, if he sent you to wipe my butt, would you do that too?
“Go away, Trevor.”
He doesn’t shout back, but he opens the door. “I can’t do that. I’ve been with this family before you were born. I’ve never seen you behave this way and I’ve never seen Neil so worried. You may not give a shit about it.”
Then he enters and starts drawing the curtains. Something that my mom would do if she was alive. Then again, if she was then maybe I wouldn’t be in this state.
“Now, get showered. Dressed and then we’re heading up to the ranch.”
I’m about to tell him that I don’t appreciate a driver telling me what to do. But I know that Trevor’s more than just any driver. He’s the one that saved me from finding my dad hanging himself from school. Why else would he tell me to wait outside that day? Every single day from school had been the same, apart from that one.
Granddad practically raised me, but when he had to go and work for the company again. He waited until I could take over. Trevor was the one that was picking me from college with granddad at times, most of the time with grandma. She died of cancer too. Just like the rest of them, one at a time, just dying of one thing or another.
“I’m fucking not going, not yet.”
Trevor shakes his head, “You misunderstood Isaac. I wasn’t asking you. I was fucking telling you. Now get up, go and shower. Then get in the car.”
“Who do you think you are?”
He blurts out as he practically carries me from my bed with just one hand, “I’m someone who cares. Don’t even try and start any shit with me. Get up. Shower. Get dressed and let’s go.”
“You seem to forget one thing. I have a company to run. I can’t do that if I’m on the ranch for three months.”
He nods, “So you can do that if you’re stuck in bed for days?”
I don’t know how to reply to that; he has a point. It’s not as if I’ve even called into the office to find out how things are going or anything. Shit, I don’t even know if one day has passed or two? At times, I forget to care.
“Besides Neil has someone to step in temporarily while you’re at the ranch.”
Fuck, the old man’s got it all planned, and I feel even more resentment towards him.
“Isaac, you need help. That’s all Neil wants to do. Just let us help you,” Trevor sighs, and he no longer looks frightening or as if he’s trying to overpower me. He’s trying to act as a friend.
I feel as if I’m the same teenager boy that didn’t want to do anything after dad died, as I move around him because I don’t want to look at him. Besides the daylight is hurting my eyes, my room was so much better when it was dark.
As I enter the shower and the hot water beats on my body, it makes me feel new for a few minutes. I cleanse away the sickness and addiction of my habit. The one that I’ve become accustomed to doing later just for a few moments. Trevor’s not in my room. I can see that he’s taken a couple of cases, damn he even packed.
Neil’s not the only one that’s serious about me moving to the ranch; it seems that Trevor’s taken a hand in this idea too.
As I put on my jeans and a shirt. I don’t feel like wearing a suit. I would normally to hide the man that I’ve become and puts a mask, so everyone thinks that I’m the man that I used to be. The CEO who loved his family’s company. The one that started to work at a company that had been in his family for three generations. A dream that he’d held on to for so long. Compared to the one that he’d become. The one that was a drunk all the time and couldn’t even pack his bag to go and stay at the ranch.
I nodded, to Trevor who was standing at the door ready for us to leave. I looked around my apartment, the one that the bank most likely will take in the next few weeks. I’ve defaulted on the loan for so long that I was sure that there was probably a letter of notification in the mail arriving any day now.
Fuck I needed a drink!
A stiff one, and as I entered the limo I started to raid, the bar at the back and there was nothing. I had a feeling that they would do that. Trevor would make sure that I’ll get there sober, but if he wanted to do that, then he should have checked the bag that I was carrying. The one that will make me arrive in one piece, not having withdrawn symptoms because I had my bottle in the backpack that I was carrying. This would get me to the ranch in one piece and not feel the need to rip the back of the limo to bits because I wouldn’t be desperate for a drink?