Quick Fix
by Arella
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I guess it runs in the family.
The need, that ultimate, stomach-cramping need, that makes you want to just rush for that one quick fix so that you'll be okay. Okay until it wears off, that is.
My father and I both suffer from it. Is suffer the right word? It is in this sense, for even if we ourselves don't suffer, those around us do. They become affected by us, by the way we act and think, and find themselves responding differently to us.
I suppose that's what life is like around an addict.
Yes, an addict. It's still hard to picture myself as an addict, really – I still see myself as being in control, not needing any support, not needing anything. It's even harder to see my father as one – his appearance so polished, his manner so confident, his brain sharp as a thousand tacks.
But that's just another skeleton in our far-too-full closet, the doors straining against the heavy metal bar that's been placed through the handles. Much like my thoughts, really… my thoughts, which have been caged in for so long that sometimes I just want to shout them from the rooftops like a character in a cheesy eighties movie-musical.
That's what I'm doing now, I guess. Removing that metal bar that sits in front of my brain, causing all the thoughts to come tumbling out in one long, disjointed sentence. If only my mother could see me now – letting loose, spilling it all out, not caring where I cut the slow, perfect lines over the smooth, flawless mirror. She would tuck me away for all eternity, putting on that half-smile that she'd gotten right down to the small sparkle in the eye over the past few years of damage control.
But not before the damage would be done. I would have already let the rest out – not just how I wasn't Daddy's Little Girl any longer, but also how Daddy wasn't who he seemed to be, either. How he, too, craved the quick fix, whether it be the black-and-white 'cancer' that stopped in its tracks when it ran into the chemotherapy of the red-and-yellow, the ear-piercing siren that continued regardless of its performance, or even the long, slow chanting of Goooooldberg that can just as easily be confused with boooooooring.
Because I won't stop until Daddy admits that I'm not the only one with the problem. He, too, craves a quick fix – only for him, the craving never stops.
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