The Delivery Boy(boyxboy)

Chapter 20: Monsters and Lucky Numbers.

I've known it for a long time
Daddy wakes up to a drink at nine
Disappearing all night
I don't wanna know where he's been lying
I know what I wanna do
Wanna run away, run away with you
Gonna grab clothes, six in the morning go

How long are you leaving?
Well, dad, just don't expect me back this evening
Oh, it could take a bit of time to heal this
It's been a long day, thumb on side of the roadway, but

I love him from my skin to my bones
But I don't wanna live in his home
There's nothing to say 'cause he knows
I'll just run away and be on my own

-

Xavier

I didn't want to do it.

The bottles were lined up on the shelf - it was too dark to read their names, but I didn't need to. I knew which one was which well enough.

I didn't know what was wrong with me. I wanted to turn back so badly, I was clawing at my own skin just so that I wouldn't make this mistake. There was a sharp stinging where my nails dug in - I was sure that the wetness on my finger was my blood - but it wasn't enough. Need had muscled reason and logic out of the way, and it would make me do something I would end up hating myself for.

Something flashed inside my head - it was a quick image of wrinkled green eyes and the kind of belly laughter I could recognise anywhere - it was the one monster always running after me in my nightmares and the one thing whose love I could never stop chasing. My entire life was just a flashback of trying to remember how to make myself feel okay knowing that my father loved a drink over me. That no matter what I did, or who I became - I would come home to someone who didn't feel like he was my father until he had a drink. To someone who didn't know how to love me unless he had poured himself a glass or two.

And every time he did it - every time I smelt it on him - I would swear to myself that I would not forgive him the next time. That no matter how many times he apologised or no matter how many promises he made, I would stop loving him so that it wouldn't hurt so bad.

But I never did.

Every time he would be sober - and he would call me to sit with him and he would talk to me about the games and the weather and the movies, I would think to myself : I've got him back, this time, I've got my father back. And then when the whirlwind would come back and he would go back to coming home late and making excuses, I'd tell myself that he wouldn't. He wouldn't do that to me again.

He always did.

I'd thought that I would be okay with that the fact that he hadn't come to my game. I thought I'd be okay with the fact that he wasn't up there with all those proud fathers cheering for their boys without a single care in the world. I'd thought that, by now, things would've been different. That by now, it would hurt less.

It didn't.

I wasn't sure there were any tears left in me - the ache in my chest was far worse than the stinging of my eyes. I felt stupid. I felt childish. I felt desperate. I felt cheated.

I felt like I wanted to forget.

I picked a bottle up, wishing that something would happen - anything to distract me from the overwhelming urge to feel the burning liquid flow down my throat. I could feel the coolness of it calm down the tremors in my fingers, could feel the mere thought of pressing it to my lips completely cloud my thoughts - the screams in my head were shunned to whispers when I had it in my hand.