Experiment in Terror 06.5 And With Madness Comes the Light Read Online Free PDF

Before you
had sex with her? How the hell did that come up?”
    Good question. Because I was an idiot and
had to ask, that’s why.
    I told him as much.
    “Okay, man, seriously,” he said, holding up
his hand, palm out. “You mean to tell me that you asked her, point
blank, whether she loved you or not. Before you even had a clue
that you loved her. And you believed her when she said she
didn’t?”
    “Uh, yeah. I trusted her.”
    “You don’t know shit about women, do you?”
Dean actually sounded a bit angry.
    I frowned. “I know how to get them off.”
    “Not good enough, my man. Put yourself in
her fine shoes for a moment. She’s in love with you—that was quite
obvious from what I saw, but I can see you’re a bit of a dumbass
about the whole thing. So she’s in love with you and suddenly you
ask her if she loves you. You don’t say, ‘oh babe I love you’ or
any shit like that to give her an idea of where it’s going. You
just ask her, like you’re being good ol’ fuck-with-you Foray. Of
course she’s going to lie! What would her alternative have been? To
tell the truth and have you laugh at her or act all smug on some
ego trip?”
    “Hey,” I sniped, “I wouldn’t have done any
of that. I would have told her how I felt.”
    He jammed his finger in my face. “Only after
she had to go first. What were you trying to do, test her? That’s
not cool, man, not cool. You would have lied if you were in her
shoes, that’s what I’m saying.”
    “Are you trying to make me feel bad?” I
asked. My lungs and heart couldn’t handle the revelation. I
stopped, leaning against a tree, feeling hotter by the second as
the sweat streamed off me.
    “No, man,” Dean said, stopping beside me.
“I’m trying to tell you you’re an idiot for freaking the fuck out,
that’s what.”
    “Thanks.”
    “So then what happened? You kicked her out
of bed or what?”
    I rubbed my sweaty palms on my face. “Pretty
much. Then I figured out the whole thing that you had no problem
picking up on. And then it was too late.”
    “I got to tell you, that sucks,” he said.
“And you’re an idiot.”
    Majorly. I was overheating now, feeling
trapped in my shirt. So much for turning over a new leaf. The
rollercoaster was heading down again.
    Dean shook his head in mild pity and started
stretching. I took off my shirt, trying to get some cold air on my
skin, vaguely aware that with the way Dean and I were posed, him
bending over and me sweaty and shirtless, we could have been in a
gladiator porn. I suppose that was an option if I wanted to come
back to Shownet.
    It didn’t help that he was staring at my
chest.
    “What? Am I giving you a hard-on?” I
asked.
    He shook his head and gave me a nasty look.
“No, I’m reading your tattoo. And with madness comes the
light.”
    “I got it a long time ago. To remind
me.”
    “Remind you of what?”
    “That madness isn’t all bad.”
    A chilly breeze picked up and I slid my
soaked t-shirt back on, shivering from the contact.
    “Ain’t all bad?” he said. “Madness is not
your friend, Dex. You just treat it like one.”
    “I didn’t say it was my friend,” I said
quietly, feeling a bit weird discussing it with someone. I never
even talked about it with Jenn. “I’m saying I made the most of it.
Sometimes you have to fall pretty fucking far before you can see
the light. Believe me, I’ve been through some shit that I wouldn’t
wish on my worst enemy.”
    Dean’s face grew serious. “I believe you.
So, what’s the light then? What makes the madness worth it?”
    Shit. Dean and I had gone from workout
buddies to acting like a bunch of overanalyzing pussies. Next thing
you knew, we’d start having our periods at the same time.
    Yet, pussy or not, I kept talking. “Perry
was my light. I didn’t know it at the time, but I know it now. And
in her light, I lost that madness. It only came back when she
left.” I paused, looking around at the tall trees and the