Drawn to You by Cole Jerry

Author:Cole, Jerry [Cole, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Published: 2019-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Max

Max slept very little throughout that night. Sweat poured out of him, creating slick sheets. He coughed, leaping up from his bed and pacing back and forth. The moonlight brought a slice of light before him, a kind of path that led precisely back to where he’d started. Many times, he thought of calling Mario, of demanding more answers. He felt certain that Mario wouldn’t answer, which would reaffirm, again and again and again, that he didn’t want Max’s correspondence. In that sense, Max preferred to live in the not-knowing.

Many times throughout the night, Max pretended that Mario had drowned in some sort of boating accident, or been kidnapped, or had discovered a terrible secret about his father’s will… Anything dramatic that could fill in the blanks, much better than simply, “I didn’t want to be with you anymore.”

When sunlight strained into the bedroom, Max felt it with a burning rage. He tossed himself onto the bed with the drama of a tortured lover, gripping his fists tight and pounding at the pillow. At that moment, his phone began to blare. It was just the alarm clock, telling him that yet another day was awaiting him.

He didn’t bother to shower. Didn’t care for it. He slipped his shaking legs into pants and stabbed the button together, noticing that he was bloated from his binge the previous evening. The first time he buttoned his white dress shirt, he buttoned it wrong and had to redo it, cursing the entire time. Finally, he opened the door, feeling like a man in the midst of a psychotic episode, unsure of what he would do next. “This is how the world ends,” he murmured to himself.

When Max arrived at the construction site, he found a still larger crowd had formed in front of it; spitting Italians, enraged about the horrific building. He pressed through them, lodging his shoulders against their hefty backs, before forcing himself to be vomited out on the other side.

It was strange, as he throttled away from the crowd, wiping off the dirt from his sleeves, that he wasn’t recognized by the crowd that screeched their hatred for him. It was akin to the devil being amongst us all, unrecognizable, perhaps because he looks like the rest of us. Max trudged up the rest of the busted cobblestone, until he reached the site of the building.

He blinked up at it, suddenly recognizing it for what it was.

It was a monstrosity. It was strange iron and brick and concrete, coiled together to create — what? A sort of lackluster calico cat-like building. A sort of lurching form, more pulsing organ than solid construction. Again, his hands found fists. In the distance, in the shadow of the building, he watched his lower-tier architects form together, muttering. He felt they were speaking of him. Wave after wave of paranoia surged through him, assuring him of this fact.

Of course. They’d known all this time that the building was an enormous mistake. They hadn’t wanted to badger him, thinking of him as the single boost to their career they so needed.

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