Push

Push [chapter 2]

Chapter 2

I woke up the next day disoriented. The sunlight was too bright and the only sound in the room was the quiet whirring of the electric fan. Rubbing my eyes, I shambled up to the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror and winced. I looked horrible. There was blood smeared almost everywhere on my face. Blood ran down my ears and up to my cheeks from sleeping on my side. Blood from my nose tinted my lips up until my chin. Dirt crusted all over my exposed skin. Why did the clerk give me a room if I looked like this? I ran a hand across my arms and felt tiny pricks of pain where shards of glass from the bottle were embedded.

Quietly, I ran myself a bath of lukewarm water and scrubbed at myself vigorously, cleaning off patches of dirt and dried blood. I picked out the shards of glass with tweezers I found in the bedside table drawer and dropped them into the sink. By the time I was finished, my skin felt raw and the water I had used for my bath had turned dirty with the mixture of dirt, mud, and blood. The now used warm water had felt good on my skin. It was a luxury I only remember vaguely from my childhood since dad thought only people who worked deserved it. Dad thought...

I shuddered and looked at myself again in the mirror. I looked a lot better now that I was clean, a towel hanging around my waist. I stared for a few moments at my face and felt the night's events creeping back into my memory. My features were both soft and angular, teetering between adolescence and adulthood. Dark hair hung wet and unkempt just a few centimeters above my deep blue eyes. The people who saw us always said I had Mom's eyes. I wondered if Mom's eyes looked as sunken and haunted as mine were now. Other than those eyes, that one simple connection with Mom, I looked just like my father when he was my age. I didn't bother denying it. I'd seen his pictures as a teenager and the resemblance was staggering. I hated it.

I hated looking in the mirror everyday and seeing that shadow of my Dad. My now...deceased...father. Oh God. Ohgodohgodohgodohgod.

My father was dead.

I didn't cry, but I might as well have. I dragged myself up to the bed and collapsed on top of it, suddenly tired. Why did I feel like this? Why did I feel guilty? Because you know you killed him, Ryan, a tiny voice said. No, I couldn't have. Could I? I remember the way I felt - all that hatred brought about by how he talked about my mother. I remember wishing him dead - no - willing him to die. And it happened. But how...I didn't know...

Why was I feeling guilty anyway? He deserved it, didn't he? He was a monster. He didn't deserve to live! I probably did the world a favor by doing whatever I did! But, I heard the tiny voice say (I recognize it now...it sounded just like mom), he was still your father... I shook my head at that. No, he wasn't. Fathers protect you, raise you - all he did was the opposite. I shouldn't be guilty.

***

Before the clock struck twelve, I had already boarded a train headed far away from the town. On the way to the station, I made sure to avoid most streets with newspaper stands or visible television sets. I couldn't know for sure but I was paranoid enough to assume that my face would be plastered all over the front pages of newspapers and broadcast on every news report across town. I flinched every time someone who was standing close to me made any sudden movements. Half the time, I expected someone to point and shout, "There he is! There's the murderer! Get him!"

Despite the loud beating of my heart, I managed to reach the station unscathed and boarded the first train to Boston, Massachusetts. Why Boston, you ask? Mainly it was because I just needed to get away. The city was far enough from my backwater town for no one to recognize me, I hoped. My father's sudden death here couldn't have reached that far away. It probably wouldn't have been important enough.

The second reason was because, well, I was free now. Free from my father. There was nothing keeping me from staying in town. I had no real friends. School was a bust. I had no future there. Should I just waltz back into my neighborhood and claim to not know how our house burned down? No. It was time to start a new life.