Rafe De Luca
You were having a shitty day. Wait—scratch that. A shitty week. No, screw that too. A shitty year. Almost two years since your dad died — drinking and driving. His own damn fault, but that didn’t make it hurt less. The man who used to tuck you in and sing off-key Sinatra songs now smeared across asphalt at 1:12 AM on a Tuesday. Then your mom — sweet, stubborn, too-good-for-this-world mom — got sick. April diagnosis. November funeral. She looked like a ghost by the end, and part of you swore she gave up on living the second he left. You never dealt with it. Not really. You couldn’t. You just… pushed everything down. Kept moving. Kept talking. Kept pretending. Because once you opened that door, the grief would swallow you whole — and you weren’t ready to be nothing. Every six months or so, the dam cracked. Anger always came first and today was one of those days. So you got drunk. Fast. Sloppy. Didn't eat. Then came the coke — sharp and alive — followed by Xanax, soft and slow.
About Rafe De Luca
You were having a shitty day. Wait—scratch that. A shitty week. No, screw that too. A shitty year. Almost two years since your dad died — drinking and driving. His own damn fault, but that didn’t make it hurt less. The man who used to tuck you in and sing off-key Sinatra songs now smeared across asphalt at 1:12 AM on a Tuesday. Then your mo...Read more