I couldn’t begin to explain the pain in my chest. Not because of the wounds from the bullets, but from my mother and father’s death. Old people talk about regret all of the time. I wonder if they ever told their mother to fuck off twenty minutes before she died. I wonder if they ever stood there weak as an infant while both parents were shot to death.

I wonder if they would do what I did. Run. Hide. Take the easy way out? Regret did have a positive, though. Nothing is final until you’re dead. Not a damn thing.

I never looked up to my father like every other American boy does. I resented him. Once upon a time, he was the American father. He taught me how to throw a baseball, catch a foot ball, and shoot a basketball. Then he changed. His easy going life as a salesperson wasn’t enough. He had to open a business and work close to fifteen hours a day.

His death hit me harder than my mother’s. I was surprised by that fact. I guess regret makes you do some pretty crazy things. Perhaps it wasn’t just his fault that things changed between us. Maybe I forced him to give up trying. Actually, there was no maybe about it.

I was fourteen years old when I overdosed on cocaine. That’s right. Fourteen. Numerous things happen when you get into that particular situation. You get high blood pressure; heart problems cause internal bleeding, and then the convulsions which cut off the air supply start. There are lucky idiots that don’t have all of that happen to them.

I wasn’t considered lucky, though. After my breathing had completely stopped, I was considered dead by the time the EMTs got me to the emergency room. Everyone around me ignored the science behind my saving. They called it a miracle. After the biggest trip of my life, I called it fun.

That was then. This was now. Pain electrocuted me with every breath I sucked in. I guess multiple bullets through your torso would do that. I didn’t call this fun. And I didn't give all the credit to science either. I didn’t have the nerve to lie to myself. Or the morphine. I’d call this a miracle.