Here Comes the Sun | ✓

Chapter Seven - Liam

Chapter Seven. Liam

I blink open my eyes.

A blank wall stares back at me. I click the radio alarm off with the slam of my hand on its top, blinking my eyes shut for a few seconds to get them clear and the will to sleep out of my thoughts. When I open my eyes again, I find that it's 7:45 and I have fifteen minutes to drop Jeremiah off at school and get to work.

"Shit!" I throw the blankets off my body and walk to my dresser, hurriedly throwing on the first things my hands find, and throw my toothbrush and toothpaste into my backpack along with my new pack of cigarettes I bought at the corner store on my way home yesterday. I slip my arms through the straps and run downstairs, yelling Jere's name as I hit the last step.

"Debby picked him up." I turn my head to find Jimmy sprawled out on the couch, a bowl of cereal clutched close to his chest and another spoonful entering his mouth. He's in his jeans and t-shirt already, his eyes transfixed on the television's screen, his hair wet from a recent shower.

He doesn't spare me a glance.

"Shit," I announce one last time and then slam the front door behind me.

I take the taxi to work today, considering how little time I have to get to it. Morning traffic's clear and I end up walking through the front door three minutes early. I bid a good morning to Bentley and then head to the restroom, shutting the door behind me and twisting the lock on the knob. I turn around and lean my back against the door, brushing my hand back in my hair and letting out a breath I've been holding in for so long.

I glance up at the mirror that hangs on the wall across from me over the sink, watching my reflection as it stares back at me. I inch closer to it, slowly twisting my arms out of my backpack straps and dropping it on the floor, and then stop when I'm only an inch away from the penetrating glass.

This is what stares back at me: blue eyes the color of ice with the faintest brown flecks surrounding the pupil; a jaw that's hardened over years of clenching my teeth while trying to keep tears from falling; shitty brown hair that's too damaged for me to do anything good to but mess up even more; a thin, bony body from losing my appetite one too many times because of smoking.

I'm a piece of shit, and I'm too damaged for anything good to happen to me. My life is shit; my appearance is shit; my reputation is shit.... The only thing I've got that's stable is my son, and his education. He's starting first grade this upcoming September.

I unzip my backpack and pull out my toothbrush and toothpaste, running the brush under the water and washing my teeth since I didn't have the time to at home.

Rinsing my mouth, I look around the tiled bathroom. It's as clean as it can be, and it's still pretty dirty looking.

I stuff my things back into my backpack and walk out of the bathroom, finding Bentley gone from his position behind the counter, and the instruments and rows of CD's standing as my only company. I walk behind the counter and stuff my backpack into its cubby, bending down to the lower shelf and pulling out my guitar. Bentley had given it to me for my seventeenth birthday, it being the guitar I'd discovered how the strum of its chords made my heart react.

I sit back on the stool and curl myself over the wooden structure, resting the body on my lap and my fingers hovering over the five chords. I pluck out a guitar pick out of the bowl on the front countertop that we give out for free and then sit my arm on the top of the guitar, hovering the pick over the strings.

And then I play the first song I learned - the one Bentley taught me.

It's a soft melody, and you have to play real light or else the song will come out a completely different way. I play my fingers across the stem and pluck the guitar's strings with practiced hand movements. The melody lulls memories back into my head and I daze off as I remember them, the scenes flashing before my eyes as if they're being displayed on a movie screen.