The Boy Who Couldn't Love

Chapter Two: Puppet on a String

he promised to burn me with the sun and i believed that he could and when i was on fire, he was right there to dampen the flames; even if he was the one to light the match.

The morning after the night before, I woke to a rainy day. My head was pounding and the light coming through my windows made me feel as if it was about to explode.
I buried my head under my blanket and closed my eyes. For some reason, I was really exhausted and it's as if the universe knew that. Not only did the light seem to get brighter but the rain got heavier and was now purposely smacking against my open window.
I sighed and threw the blankets off me, stomping over to the window and aggressively pulling it shut. I then sat on the window seat and rubbed my eyes.
As I slowly woke up, fragments of the night before began creeping into my mind and brought all of their many feelings with them.
I remembered the argument with Hunter, wondering why I was even bothered at all, or even surprised at all that he'd take my dad's side because he always does. I get why he was that way, he wanted to be like the only man who showed him any kind of empathy and humanity, even if it was the wrong kind, because it definitely was. I sometimes felt guilty about that. If I hadn't become friends with Hunter, that treacherous side of him would never exist. Then again, without my dad, he would have probably murdered his own mother by now.
My thoughts went back to last night and this time it was about me sneaking out to Zack's party; the party where he showed me the true version of himself and I whole heartedly believed in it.
Then I remembered the kiss.
Oh, God. That kiss.
The taste of beer came back to me and it was still lingering on my lips.
Under all the memories of how sweet Zack was last night and how much I actually got to see into his soul, dark thoughts entered my mind.
A dark thought that Hunter already knew I was at that party and was biding time for me to tell him. That was not going to happen.
A dark thought that if I really had fallen for Zack's fictitious charm, would he have told Hunter just to spite him?
A dark thought that Zack told people that something happened between us just because it didn't?
These thoughts raced through my head as I rushed to get out of bed and get dressed. What was I rushing for? I would have absolutely no idea what to say to Hunter if he questioned me on it. Of course, Hunter wasn't my only problem if he did know as he did have a tendency of not keeping his mouth shut around my dad and if he told my dad then I was really done for.
In my bathroom, I stared into the mirror, my make-up still on and slightly smudged from the last night. I quickly threw water on my face and scrubbed until my skin started to turn red.
I carried my clothes from the night before downstairs to the laundry room. Before throwing my jeans into the washer, I felt a small folded up note in the pocket of them.
Then I remembered.
Zack's number.
There was sharp pain on my hand and I looked at the deep slice caused by the glass from the night before.
How could so much of last night be such a blur when it's been less than 13 hours since it happened?
I accidentally threw too much detergent in the wash and quickly pressed start.
I tried to catch my breath and make coffee like normal, my hands slightly shaking from whatever kind of rush I had. My dad came stumbling into the room. He wasn't drunk, he was just extremely hungover. I heard him coming in around 3:30 this morning, waking me up from my much needed slumber. His hair was sticking every which way and he must have stripped off his clothes during the night as he was now down to a white vest, his underwear and one sock. As he passed me to grab a cup, the smell of alcohol followed him.
The one thing I liked about my dad was that after a night of drinking, regardless of how much, he rarely drank the next morning. He was more of an evening and night time drinker. It was his way of patting himself for working himself to the bone. He did after all have a reputation to keep up with. He was just a loved man with good intentions and a sinister, underlying motive.
He made a cup of coffee and headed upstairs, hopefully to take a shower. As I drank my coffee and tried to wake up, I searched through my phone. The first Facebook page I went to was Zack's. As soon as I saw his face, a heavy feeling formed in my stomach. He was just so pretty that he made me feel sick.
I just had to get through this day. Lying to Hunter would be a challenge, he was always able to see right through me like I was made of glass. All these years, I always felt like I knew everything - almost everything about Hunter but these past few days, I felt like I never really knew him at all and it was unsettling to say the least. He was coming over today and I was already exhausted just thinking about all the effort it would take for me to lie to his face and to keep up with the charades about everything I didn't really do last night.