SO COLD (18+) currently editing

Chapter 37.5

SO COLD
25.01.16

Pop songs played on the radio, inaudibly in the background. The volume had been repeatedly fiddled with by twitchy fingers. My hands held the steering wheel and then fell to my lap. The hours seeped through my hands like grains of sand. My skull felt like it had taken a violent beating, smacked and cracked against the ground, struck with heavy fists. My skin was stretched tight over my bones, clammy and damp. My chin was stiff. Mouth in a grim line. Why was I doing this to myself? I should've left town a whole sixty minutes ago. I don't know what I was thinking.

The window rolled down. I was stuck on the highway, in traffic. The temperature was climbing rapidly and the humidity was making people restless. My gaze roamed around without thought and rested on a bus stop bench, away and then snapped back with surprise. My hand forced down on the horn, and it honked loudly. He jumped, looking up and around, and I waved him over and leaned to open the passenger door of the Shogun. "Daniel. What's going on?"

He looked rugged, eyes sunken into his face, clothes slept in and crumpled, and a single backpack on his back. "I've been trying to hitchhike. No one will stop and I don't have any money for a bus."

"You want out of town? It's where I'm going."

"Wherever you go, I'm going. Whatever it is. I'm tired of being bundled and shushed and told where to go and what to do. Every move of mine has been monitored for weeks. I've been trapped in a fucking room with Cebriàn as company. That old man is a goddamn nightmare."

"Like father, like son. What did you do?"

"Knocked him over the head, and ran. It's not about the heroin anymore. Not about Ebony. I don't care about her. She's an ex, forgotten in the past. I wanted my freedom. I wanted to live. To..." he sighed tiredly and his head hit the headrest. "I had nothing to do but think. For weeks. I missed two appointments to see my sister. I tried calling but the social worker said 'it's a lack of trust, of commitment' and now it'll be months before I'll even get to hear her voice. I don't know where she is. She's six and her whole life has been misery. It was silent days and missed meals and an uncaring mother. And then ...him."

"You don't have to..."

"I could take it happening to me, it was...but my sister?" he held his breath, and glanced away as if ashamed. "I couldn't take it. He came to live with us when he lost his job and couldn't afford to pay his rent. He would sit on the sofa with a bottle of hooch and his armpits stinking up the room with sweat. Mum would enable him, make him his food, clean up the room around him, act like he was a child and all the while ignore her actual children. And then at night he would climb up the stairs and he wouldn't be silent. He was loud and unashamed and his hot breath would hit the back of my neck. And his hands would gripped my skin so hard there would be bruises in the morning. It would go on for years and any time he would address me, it would be 'boy' with this knowing leer. And the worst part? I would rush out to shower and scrub my skin until it was red and bleeding and one night Mum met me in the hallway and we looked at each other and she knew. She fucking knew about it and she didn't do a damn thing. That bitch. I hate her more than him because I loved her and trusted her but she let her brother do that to us. When I went to court she screamed across the courtroom about how I was a liar. I was attention-seeking."

"We're going away. Away from this godforsaken hellhole of a place and you will get better and it won't be from someone forcing you to keep your limbs together and your mouth stitched close. It'll hurt every day and you'll flinch away from people's touch. But there'll come a day when you'll realise you shouldn't be ashamed, and it's not your fault. You shouldn't have been forced to be a parent. Your childhood has been taken from you, and while it's ruined there's still the future. You're sixteen, you don't need a much older girlfriend and drugs to feel better. You need help, therapy, support and nights with sleep. You have a future, Daniel. This is your life. Take control and find a moment of tranquillity that'll stretch into a day and then a week and then a month and then finally into a life."