Daddy issues || h.s

1.6

The headlights of the car hit the shining red paint of the telephone box, and he rolled to a stop. It took his eyes a couple of seconds to adjust to the dark night, but when they did, he could make out two small frames outlined by the light of the stars.

In the matter of seconds, he took off his belt and got out of the car. The smaller of the two people got up and walked towards him, her hair shone in the light of the stars, and he could see the moon in her shiny eyes. She had a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and he wanted to reach over and rub it away, but before he got the chance, he saw the wet lines on her face, and the dead look in her eyes.

"Thank you so much for coming," she said, and slung her arms around him. For a moment, his heart stopped beating. They had never been this close. He had never felt her small frame pressed up against him before, and he had never felt her heart beat against his chest. "Thank you so much," she whispered in his ear, and he felt shivers run down his spine.

"What happened?" he asked when she withdrew her arms from him. "We have to get him home," she said, gesturing towards Kieran. She was avoiding his question.

Kieran sat on the ground, staring blankly out into the night. There was dirt on his face, and it looked as though he had been crying too. Harry and Adelaide walked over to him, and Adelaide whispered something in his ear. Harry couldn't hear what she was saying, but it made the boy snap out of whatever trance he was in, and look up at her. He nodded slowly, and she pulled him up, leading him towards the car. That was when Harry saw the pool of puke on the ground, and he wondered whether it came from the boy or the girl, and why they both had tear-stained faces. 

Trees flew by as they drove towards the city. They car was filled with a suffocating silence; the three people in it having too much to talk about for any of them to dare start a conversation. The chauffeur had dark curly hair, and the girl sitting beside him had dirt on her face and dried blood on her knees. Behind them sat a boy who used to smile, but now had tears on his face, and traces of puke on his shoes. Their names were Harry, Adelaide and Kieran, and if you think their story has been interesting this far, you are not ready for what is to come.

"What happened?" it was Harry who first broke the silence. The question was directed towards the girl beside him, and he could not seem to take his eyes away from her. Despite the tears and the dirt and the blood, she managed to look beautiful, her otherworldly glow shining in the dark. "It is not my place to tell," Adelaide answered. She didn't dare look at him, so she looked out the window in stead, watching as the trees passed by, and houses took their place.

Once again, the car fell silent, and it remained so, until Harry made an unfortunate turn, and he could hear Adelaide curse under her breath. "Bloody hell," she whispered as they passed a house with a beautiful rose garden outside, and all hell broke loose.

"No, no, NO!" the boy in the back said, his voice starting as a whisper and ending in a scream.  "Stop the car!" He shouted, and Harry looked at Adelaide. "No, no, don't stop. Drive, Drive. GO!" She was screaming, looking at him desperately while the boy in the back stared pounding on the window, crying for him to stop the car. "The child lock!" Adelaide said, and Harry frantically hit the button while he hit the pedal with all his force and sped past the house while Kieran screamed bloody murder in the back.

"I need to say sorry," Kieran sobbed when they stopped the car. He kept repeating it over and over again. "I need to say sorry". "I need to say sorry". He was in a state of shock, screaming and crying until he gagged.

Adelaide was out of the car the second they stopped, ripping up Kieran's car door, trying to help him out. But he wasn't himself, he couldn't comprehend what was happening around him, all he could focus on was how he had to say he was sorry. So when she reached out towards him, he could not see through his tears, and so he struck her. His clenched fist hit her temple with a force that knocked her to the ground. She cried out, clutching her head. Harry was at her side in a second, grabbing her head in his hands and seeing blood run down her face, but she screamed: "I'm fine. I'm fine. Just get him inside." So he grabbed Kieran, pulling him towards the house.

It all happened like in a dream. Kieran going limp the second he realised he had hit Adelaide. Harry supporting Kieran, while at the same time pulling out a bag of peas and handing it to Adelaide, telling her to keep ice on it. And then laughing, because in the midst of all this chaos, they still remembered the day of the savage cookies and the burned hand.

When they finally got Kieran up the stairs and into Adelaide's room, his screams had been reduced so small sobs. "I need to say I'm sorry, I need to tell him," he kept repeating over and over. Harry ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, he had no idea what he was supposed to do, because he had no idea what had happened. 

"You need to take me to him," Kieran said, grabbing Harrys hand in his, his fingernails digging into Harrys skin. "You need to help me."  Kieran's brown eyes were red and puffy from all the crying, but they were completely clear as they bored into Harrys green ones. "I want to help, I do," Harry said, kneeling down in front of the hysterical boy. "But before I can help you, you have to tell me what happened."

He could feel, rather than see Adelaide standing behind him. She was clutching the bag of peas in her hand, pressing it against the bruise on her cheek. But she could feel no pain, because her eyes were trained of the boys in front of her, and even though she knew what had happened that night, she did not know what had happened almost a thousand nights ago.   

"Leith happened." The words left Kieran's mouth, and a storm of emotions came with it. "I....I...I kissed him, and he...he told me he loved me." His grip on Harry's hands tightened, and he could feel small sores forming on his arms where his fingernails pieced his skin, but he couldn't feel the pain either. Because the story that was being pained in front of him, was painted in colours he had used before.

"And then I ran away, and just kept running until I could run no more, because the terrible thing is that I think I love him too." Violent sobs shook through his body as he painted with blue and grey colours, and the boy and the girl in front of him fell silent. Until Harry broke the silence with brush stokes the others could never have predicted.

"Kieran, listen to me please." He tore himself away from the boy's death grip, and cupped his face in his hands. Their eyes met on a canvas covered in wet paint, and the older boy spoke words he never thought he would say.

"I know it's scary, but if you love him, you have to put all the fear away. Because I can promise you that there is nothing more wonderful and amazing than loving a boy."

"How do you know?" Kieran said. The tears had stopped running down his face, as if he had no more tears to spill, and now all there was left was a subtle tremor in his voice.

Harry took a deep breath, taking in the sight of the boy in front of him and the sight of the girl behind him before he said the words that completed the artwork.

"I know," he said. "I know, because I did."