Empire of Desire by Rina Kent

Anyway, back to my empath problem. It’s especially hard with words. I guess that’s because that’s what started it for me. Simple negative words.

They trigger me. As in, they really put me in a funk and I have to step away and hide and wish for whatever those words did to end.

So I had to come up with a coping mechanism. You know, something that doesn’t make me want to lose my mind the moment I read murder or insane.

I had this genius idea that practice makes perfect. I mean, if I’m exposed to those words a lot, surely I’ll be desensitized. There will be a day when I’ll see them and be like, “Meh,” then ride my white unicorn toward the rainbows.

So I made a list of them, in alphabetical order. The notebook is called “The No Words.”

Each letter has negative words underneath it, sorted by color. The yellow ones are easier, the orange words are a bit harder, and the red ones? Jeez, the red ones took me on a trip to hell when even writing them.

It didn’t work at first. I would look at the closed notebook with all the negative words in it, shudder, then jam it back into my drawer.

Which defied the whole purpose of making myself desensitized.

So, during my teenage years, I’d get that list out and read it aloud, throw up a little, feel more nauseous, hide in my closet for an hour, and then take a cold shower and eat vanilla ice cream.

It was a process. A long one that nearly drove me to want to kill myself and ask Dad for help.

But I didn’t. I needed to do that shit myself because it was around that time I decided to be a lawyer like my dad, and there’s no way in hell it’s normal for a lawyer to flinch at the words crime scene, stab, or killer. That would be embarrassing to my study of empathetic lawyers.

So, anyway, after a battle against words, I came out as a winner.

Well, almost. I started reading my notebook without feeling the immediate need to hide, throw up, or drive my car into a tree.

Almost, because even to this day, I still have problems with one letter of the alphabet. D. Fun fact: that damn letter has most of the negative words underneath it, and many of them are in red.

Damage.

Decay.

Dirt.

Distress.

Disgust.

Depression.

Disease.

And my most dreaded of all. Deadly. Dead. Death.

I couldn’t really cope with it, no matter how much I tried. It gets stuck every time I say it, pushing against my vocal cords and slashing my voice down. So I made that letter D my bitch. I wrote each word a thousand times. I wrote death, a few thousand.

My wrists screamed, my heart jackhammered in my throat, and I nearly stabbed myself and bled out on the floor.

When Grandpa died five years ago, I didn’t collapse or cry. I just got all my shit together and was there for Dad as he and Susan slashed each other down.

So I was over it, right?

Wrong.

My eyes open as the true reality of death slowly forms in my awareness.

The possibility that my father could die.

As in, my only family member. The only person that kept me together and flipped the world the middle finger while he raised me on his own.

A salty taste explodes in my mouth and I realize it’s because I’m drinking my own tears.

Ever since I desensitized the letter C and its words—cry included—I don’t do that anymore. Well, I don’t do it much.

But it’s like these tears have a mind of their own. They’re not due to the word itself. This isn’t my irrational reaction to a random word. This is pulled from a place so deep within me, I have no clue where it’s located.

It doesn’t matter that my neck hurts and my body is all stiff from the uncomfortable position I slept in. All my psyche is able to process is that Dad could be gone.

I’ll be all alone without my father.

The man who painted the world in bright colors and then laid it at my feet.

The man who scowled at the world but only smiled at me.

Now, I won’t have anyone to sing me Happy Birthday off tune. No one will hug me goodbye every morning or have dinners with me every night.

There won’t be anyone who’ll slowly open my door late at night to make sure I didn’t fall asleep at my desk again because I got so consumed with whatever project I was working on. No one will bring me my favorite green tea infused with vanilla when I can’t sleep.

He won’t be there to pull me inside when I dance in the rain because I could catch a cold.

He’ll just disappear like he never existed. And unlike when Grandpa died, I don’t think I can survive this.

I can’t go back to the house we called ours and pick up nonexistent pieces of myself.

How can I when everything in there bears witness to how well and hard he raised me and how much he sacrificed himself for me?

I didn’t even consider moving out after high school. People my age want to get away from their parents, but I didn’t. It’s where home is.

A sudden shiver jolts me upright when the jacket that’s been covering me falls down my arms and to my lap.

My fingers trace the material and I’m surprised they don’t catch fire. It doesn’t matter that I don’t remember him putting it on me, or how I even ended up lying in the chair. The smell gives it away. A little bit spicy and woodsy with an undertone of musk, but it’s still strong and manly and so much like him.

The man I hugged and whose chest I cried into.