So many problems affecting past, present, cover, future, and no matter how much he tried to sound like he knew how to fix things, Travis was self-aware enough to know that he had his own scars that he carried with him. Taking the time to compose himself, he got up and sat at the foot of the bed, ignoring the headache that should have let to sex or even rest. "Let's try this once again. I don't flip; I tell you what's going on and I let you come to conclusions or I offer compromises. We arrived here with money that belong to all of us. I know he gave it to me, but that's because he knows I can budget. You're helping me, coming with me, and that's why you aren't working. None of us have to make exactly the same amount of money. We each contribute the way we know how. I told you before, friendship isn't a quid pro quo. Unless you're telling me that you don't want to do shit, which I know you aren't, then you have a say in what we do."
He was staying calm thinking that he should have some kind of recording to show Wes if he ever got home. He'd be shocked by how calm he could be, but his delivery was done in the same calm tone, showing no trace of his own doubts and anger. "I said that I understand how easy it can be and I don't know how you suddenly find new ways to cope, other than to take it day by day. I also don't believe for a moment that your parents don't love you. They might not understand you, might not support you, but they love you, and that comes from someone who's spent a lot of time learning to gauge peopel's reactions. Your brother adores you and I don't think I need to add anything else there."
He nodded. "I still there there's a good person, one that deserves honesty, so you do get the good, but you get my doubts as well. I'm not sugarcoating things to make you feel better. I love my foster families; I do, but they can never be what your parents are for you. Too many to ever feel like I had a place, too often to ever get comfortable in any home. I've done everything I could for them, but part of me is always getting ready for the day that they will leave. A part of me is always preparing for when things and people will be taken away. With women it's very easy. I break it off, before they leave. You and your brother are something else. I'll be there for as much as I can, but shit happens, TJ. I promised that I'd be ther for my foster families and my partner, but I couldn't even do that because I arrive here. So you know something? You need to protect yourself, but I've spent my life protecting myself from the pain of being torn away from yet another family, from siblings and friends. I always said that that would be the last one, that I wouldn't get close, but I cared, I still got closed no matter how many times I moved, but I also learned to deal with the pain by working, by shooting, by running, by training, by doing something repeticious until I was too tired to think. Not too different from your drugs, but a lot less destructive."
Travis sighed. "Do you want me to feel sorry that you come after Robert Patterson? Seriously, TJ, do you hear yourself? Just think about what you have said and to whom. Your parents are unable to tell you they love you. Gee, I can't imagine any other child with that problem. You've never found the love of your life. Newsflash, you don't make it easy to get close to you, let alone love you. Your life sucks." He hit hi chest. "So very sorry for you. I can't imagine having such a hard life." He got up and shook his head, but his voice never changed. "Grow up, TJ. Life sucks, not just yours. No one wanted you? My parents dropped me off in front of a fire house. Eighteen homes and n one wanted to adopt me. You don't have the market on fucked up childhood cornered, but that stops being a justifications for your decision well before you're thirty. I can stand here, telling you all that I see, but in the end, if you see yourself as the strung out whore, nothing I say and do will make a difference. You're an adult. Stop judging yourself based on what people think and judge yourself based on what you think it's right and wrong. Then you might find some peace."