Chapter Text
“Thanks for the lovely evening,” I whisper, gently intertwining your fingers with mine. “I had a great time.”
Your bright blue eyes twinkle in the yellow light of the street lamp outside my house. Or rather outside what you believe to be my house.
“No, I have to thank you.” Your soft, smooth voice, like silk on my scratched soul. Your smile, lighting up my thoughts in those moments of darkness.
I hesitate before I slowly stand on tiptoes and breathe a kiss onto your stubbly cheek.
“Goodnight Tom.” Another smile of yours, like a thousand fireflies in the darkness, like this one shooting star that I have been waiting for my entire life.
It was too late for that now. Too late to wish on shooting stars, too late to dream and hope. There was only one way to go for me. And I had to go it alone.
“Will you call me?” You look up at me from the bottom of the stairs with your puppy dog eyes. I nod and smile even though I know I won’t call you. I can’t call you.
You wave one last time before you get in the car and drive away. I watch the red lights of your car getting smaller and smaller in the distance until they vanish amidst the others.
One deep breath, the cold fresh evening air filling my lungs.
Slowly I walk down the steps of the house. I’ve never been inside. I just thought it looks decent enough and you would let me go without asking questions. God knows I couldn’t have brought you to my real home.
I listen to the squishy sound my flats make on the wet and dirty pavement as I walk further down the road. Away from the nice houses with the groomed front yards and lovely, white fences. Away from the big cars lining the street, shiny and new and expensive.
Where I live, there are no shiny cars, no white fences, no happy families. Where I live there’s hatred and pain and danger.
Where I live is hell.
You probably live in one of those Victorian houses, small but comfortable with a small garden and a cat. The only time you see my area is on the telly. Another man killed, another woman raped, another child gone missing. It’s frightening, don’t you think?
“Stay away from there,” is what they say. And they do stay away. All of them. Even the police merely drives around the whole district, too scared to patrol through the dark streets and tiny alleyways. Because they know what it’s like. And they know that they have absolutely no control here, no matter how many cars and weapons and officers they bring.
Because those who live here know every house, every corner. They know every escape route and every hiding place. They build traps and distractions, leaving the police confused and lost and helpless. That’s why they stopped going inside. They just watch from out there, from the safe distance, right where the shiny cars and white fences are.
I pull up the hood of my sweater, raising it over my long, black hair, covering my face as much as I can. A black cat crosses the wet, shimmering street in front of me, startled by screaming from a nearby house. A man, probably drunk. A crash, a scream, a woman this time. What did he use? A chair? A bottle? A baseball bat? I don’t want to know. It’s none of my business, I’ve got enough to deal with on my own.
Quietly I open the front door and walk up the creaking stairs. There are holes in some of the steps and the plaster slowly crumbles from the walls. A puddle at the top of the flight of stairs tells me that the roof is still leaking.
I stumble over a few bottles, sending them flying across the ground. The rattling noise splits the silence and I stop in my movements, listening.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Nothing.
I tiptoe forwards, trying to manoeuvre myself through the litter coated hallway into my bedroom without making any more noise. I can already see my door, slightly ajar. He had been snooping around my room again.
I open it, carefully. My clothes are strewn across the floor, the drawers of my desk emptied out on top of my unmade bed.
Paper, photos, pages of books.
I close my eyes. What else did I expect?
When I open them again, I startle. I hadn’t seen him sitting in the dark before. He looks at me, a half-empty bottle of whisky in his hand, a couple more next to the chair on the wooden floor. He reeks of alcohol and sweat and urine. A disgusting mix.
Deciding it was safer to stay where I am, I simply look at him, waiting for him to say something. But he doesn’t say anything. He never does.
Slowly, he gets up, dropping the bottle, it’s amber liquid content emptying itself on the floor. He walks over to me, one step at a time, swaying a little. His expression is glassy and bland as he comes closer.
Without a warning, he grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me to the ground, making me kneel in front of him. I don’t even try to loosen his grip. That would make matters only worse. I’ve learned over time that it was less bad when I simply gave in.
He slaps me right in the face with the back of his free hand, holding my head in place with the other. I can feel blood dripping from my nose over my lips down my chin. I don’t try to wipe it away. I simply close my eyes, waiting for the next blow...
...and the next
...and the next.
When I wake up, the sun lights up my room, it’s beams pushing through the dirt and cracks on my window with all their might. My head hurts and my left eye is swollen, causing me trouble to see properly.
There’s blood on the pillow, probably from my nose and mouth. Slowly, I sit up and wait for the room to stop spinning. I’m not sure what time it is or which day for that matter.
Looking around, I see the empty bottles, the empty drawers, my empty life.
And far away, where the shiny cars and the white fences are, you are sitting in your comfortable, cosy kitchen, sipping your coffee without a care in the world, staring at your phone, waiting for my call. I’m sorry Tom, but it will never come.