Brooks had hit it on the nose; there was no way for Silas to feel completely at ease in a conversation or situation like the one they were in. Yes, it was for his own good, but even his favorite brand of beer wasn’t going to erase the tension crackling just underneath his skin.
“I tried to fix it because I got cornered,” Silas mumbled, because he couldn’t really say that he would have fixed it as soon if Rae hadn’t found him that afternoon. Just another reason why she was too good for him, but that was a whole other thought, or series of thoughts, and they were already on a roll with the one he’d blurted out, so might as well talk the shit out of that one first. “Because someone that wasn’t me was lucky enough to walk in and connect the dots.” Did it even really matter that it was still his decision? If he were a better person, a less broken person, he wouldn’t have even had that decision to make.
Delusion. That was what Brooks was saying, right? That the people he loved had deluded themselves into think that Dr. Samson was the big fucking bad because they couldn’t handle thinking that Silas was. “But I am at fault,” he argued quietly, down the rest of his beer to calm his nerves down. “I don’t fucking want them to experience any of the shit I have, you’re right, but it’s just as frustrating to know that they’ve made up their own facts to protect their precious image of me.”
Brooks had good points, and what he said made sense, but it didn’t mean that Silas had to just accept it, not right off. Maybe he couldn’t fix their delusions, maybe they were a good thing, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t rant about it a little, at least once.
He tensed his jaw at Brooks calling him out for wanting people to understand him, that maybe he should understand them too. “I’m not trying to fucking control how they live their lives or how they love me or whatever. But I just want to hear once that they accept the fact that I’m as much to blame for all this shit as Dr. Samson.” He thought he was more to blame, but he’d settle for a 50/50 split. “I don’t like cover ups, and that’s what it feels like, a fucking cover up so they can protect their untarnished version of me. Except they’re not seeing that that version can’t be me because I’ve been marred up for fucking years.”
He didn’t care if he was coming off as self-loathing, or whatever shrink-y term Brooks would use. Hell, he’d drop the whole thing once and for all if he could just hear one of the people he loved tell him that he seriously fucked up. Maybe that was messed up for him to think, but it’s what he felt like would help.
“Everyone keeps forgetting that it’s the third fucking go ‘round at this shit though,” he pointed out, his tone losing some of the edge that it had held prior. “If I were stronger it would’ve stuck the first time. Or hell, even the second. We wouldn’t even be sitting here if I was half as strong as they want to think I am. I’m not half as brave as they think I am. I’m a fucking coward.”
Keep pushing forward. That was a phrase he’d heard more than a handful of times. “I’m always going to be pushing forward and falling backwards and doing it all over again. I want to be better, but I’m the one that has to live with the fact that a fucking wrong step puts me back as square one in a blink.” Him, and no one else. No one carried that fact the way he had to. “I don’t deserve their delusions and their blind faith.”