I released Teardrop Road on June 23, 2021. I think it was a Thursday. It was pretty devastating to put it out in the world on the big stage. Having your secrets on a blog is one thing. The worldwide stage opens up doubts and fears that I expected but could never prepare myself for. However, this release is a win. It’s a win for me. It’s a win for my family. For mental health in general. And I hope if you’re in pain and you’re going through anything, any kind of abuse, any kind of loss, I hope this book can help you and that you can see it as a win. I’m celebrating the release of Teardrop with another blog blast. These are chapters of the second volume of Reality of the Unreal Mind, called Normal Street. I’m releasing a chapter from that book every two hours and fifteen minutes. This is the story of Hollow Man. This is the story of how I figured out love through a series of heartaches and confusing episodes. Because love is not easy to navigate for anyone, and it’s almost impossible for a shattered mind to prepare for their soulmate. Here is Hollow Man 22: Precious Part 4.
We had one more moment with Precious before the end. Finally, after this one, she said she had had enough. We would always be friends, but she would never let me touch her or talk to her tender ever again. It was not the pain, I don’t think. It was the humiliation. The sheer humiliation of it.
See, Shadow had gotten free of Mary. He was done. Had her broken off. He embraced Precious and they were happy. For about two weeks. At this point, I was living at Heart’s house. Think Degenerates. Think, up all night. Think, addicts to the crew. Think, the worst parts of addiction. Then throw in a beautiful ray of pure light. That was Precious. She was that light. She kept Artist sane. She kept Shadow from going around the bend. She kept us all in check.
Then, one day Harvard comes home from college and he brings Mary. Evidently, Guardian and Mary are back together. Evidently Guardian had gotten in touch with her, made up with her, and begged her to come see him the next weekend. Mary comes.
She marches into the house and goes straight to Shadow’s room. She drops down on the bed and starts to smell it. She lays in his bed and pulls the covers over her head so she can soak in as much of him as she can get. She does this right in front of Precious.
Precious asks in front of everyone what the fuck she is doing. She is told they are back together again. Told that Jesse is hers once more and everything is right with the world.
I am at work. I won’t be getting off for another two hours. When I do get off, I am warned about what happened and everyone who comes to get me laughs at me. Guardian never knew he and Precious were a thing. He had not been out since the last time he and Mary broke up.
Guardian has to deal with Mary when he gets home, and it is fine. See, by this time she expects to be hurt. She expects that someone will lie to her. That she will be baited into a painful situation and left hurting.
She almost instantly forgives us, and Artist and Mary go into his bedroom and they make love. They do not fuck. What they do is tender and real.
Guardian is still in love with the girl who loved him first. He is still overthrown by her.
But that relationship will never heal. It is a malformed mess of tangled limbs and harsh truths. They are dead, so dead already, but both of them want to suck the last of the life out of the thing. They are feeding on a corpse of love. Devouring the rotting flesh of what they had. They will sick it up soon.
First, she fails out of college. What was a bright girl is now a horrid scar. She could not do college and deal with the warring of Shadow and Guardian. She could never deal with them and rise.
She will move out to Virginia. Her father is going home. Her family is moving back to where they came from. Angry grandparents and a life where they all tell her to hate me.
Guardian is going to fuck her up one more time. Grief and pain will have him reach out for the only person who ever loved him, and he will see her one more time. That will end horribly with a vendetta that lasts for two decades. It is not her fault. We don’t hate her. In the end, she lost the respect of every friend she ever had, her parents, her extended family. She did lasting damage to any relationship she would have with her brother, and she walked away with a ball of hate for a man who loved her completely and a man who hated her family.
Thank God. For her and for us. Let her run off and be happy with another person. Let her find joy in the arms of another man.
And curse the day she ever met Guardian. Curse To Kill A Mocking Bird and memorized phone numbers. If I could, I would take almost all of it away from her.
But not all of it. Because she taught Guardian that he could be loved and not used. She taught him that he was worth love.
She got him ready for Bekah.
Reality of the Unreal Mind, Vol. 1: Teardrop Road available on Amazon now.
Jesse Teller 