Elyar and I

Chapter 12 - Tears

I had been holding back my emotions all day. When I got back to the tent, I was alone. I ran towards my cot, and buried my head in my hands. That dream had hit me hard. I know you're probably thinking 'how can a dream make you cry?' but it wasn't just the dream. It was the fact that everyone in B tent now knew about my life and that they were probably going to use that against me. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to cope with the fact that they knew. I just sat there, crying. ThLump was right. I did miss my mom. I missed how happy she made me when she looked at me. I missed her smile, her voice, her laugh, her. I missed the way she and my father used to come into my room and tell me that everything was going to be alright when I had had a nightmare.

The tears started running down my cheeks like a waterfall again. My eyes went bloodshot red and leaked with sadness. I slowly slipped down from the cot and sat on the floor, hugging my knees as if they were a teddy bear. I tried thinking about Ziggy to try and get my mind off of my mom and how our family used to be. It didn't work. It just reminded me of how happy he would probably be at the moment and how sad and distraught I was. My knees were now soaked with tears.

I looked to my side and wiped my eyes in the hope that I would stop crying. It didn't work. I felt a hole open up in my stomach and a lump form in my throat again. I tried to stop myself from crying but it felt like years worth of tears were being forced to fall down my cheeks. I couldn't take it. Then I saw the cut on my hand and concentrated on the fact of when cut, the pain of the knife tearing through my flesh overpowered whatever pain I was feeling inside. I must have cried for another 10 minutes before I reached for my Guns n' Roses backpack and got my pocket knife out. I looked into it, my imperfect reflection looking back as tears hit the blade.

Then I remembered what Squid had said, 'your brother's in B tent? He's a dead man now!' And I got the blade and forced it to tear through my skin like a miniature chainsaw. Blood ran down my forearm as if it were a tap. I thought of the fact that if I hadn't went to B tent looking for El, he would have been okay. And hopefully nothing had happened to him. I cut again, letting even more blood pour out of me. Thoughts of my mom and El getting hurt kept on rushing through my head and for every thought, I slit my wrist once. Then I thought what would happen if Zigzag got hurt or anyone from D tent. I cut some more. By this time I had about 10 or 12 cuts on my arm; blood was now dripping from my arm and onto the tent floor.

'It's all your fault!' I recalled my father shouting at El and I. I threw the pocket knife in anger and It landed next to Zero's cot - which was basically right next to mine. And I hugged my knees again, and wept. Zigzag came into the tent and saw me next to my cot.

"You alright?" He asked walking over to me.

"I-I-I'm f-f-fine" I replied between sobs. Ziggy came and sat next to me and put his arm around me. I layed my head on his chest and hugged him like I'd never hugged anyone before. He must have seen the knife next to Zero's cot and he leant over to get it. Turning around, only to see the pool of blood on the floor. I wen't to pull my sleeves down as he looked at my forearm; he stopped me and hugged me even tighter.

"You wanna know why I'm like this? You wanna know what this morning was all about?" I asked as soon as I had stopped crying.

"It's completely up to you, but I won't tell" He put the knife in his pocket "But I'm keeping this until tonight." I nodded as if to say it was okay.

"I used to have a happy family that consisted of my Mom, my Dad, Elyar and I." I began. "When El and I were three, my mom gave me this necklace." I showed him the necklace I refused to take off. "And on that same day day Mom was driving us to school with dad in the passenger seat and Elyar and I in the back. El and I were playing a game of mercy and My mom turned around to tell us to stop. She said that someone would get hurt. Just that moment, my father screamed 'WATCH OUT!' and we crashed into an oak tree. Later in the hospital, El, my dad and I woke up, only to find out that our mom didn't make it. A few weeks later, my father got into drinking and he started abusing Elyar and I. Using us as his own personal punching bags." Zigzag was listening intently and I could see him get tears in his eyes. "I can remember one night, Elyar was 5 and I was 6, and my father started beating up Elyar - I was too scared to say anything incase he did the same to me - kicking and punching him as if he were a fighting dummie. At the end of that night Elyar couldn't stand up. So my father phoned the hospital saying that he fell down the stairs and it turns out my father had broken Elyar's leg. And that night El and I swore that we would always protect each other so that nothing like that happened ever again." By this point Zigzag was crying and I was crying along with him, fitting each word carefully between the tears. "The abuse went on for years and El and I got into stealing. Then people started bullying us at school. There was this one girl, Jessica Black, that came up to me and starting mouthing off about how her lifes all perfect and how I will never achieve what her life was like. So I punched her. And the school kicked me out. The same thing happened to El, but he got into a full on fight between this boy in his class because the guy just walked up to Elyar and punched him. So El started beating the shit out of him and he got kicked out too. The abuse still carried on though. Two weeks before we got here, El and I ran away because we couldn't take it any more. We began to steal from corner shops for food. We had to sleep in the park so that nobody saw us. Two weeks went by and we heard police sirens, so we ran. We ran behind a supermarket but we saw two people in the storage room, they dropped the keys to their van on the pavement so I grabbed them and we drove back home to get some food and to have a shower. But when we got back home, my father saw us and he took us into the living room. He threw me across the floor, he said 'what do you think you were doing you bastard?!' to El and got ready to punch him. Then I said 'we were running from you!' So he let go of Elyar and started punching and kicking me. Before I knew it El was stood behind him with a knife to his neck. The next day, we got done for attempted murder, joyriding and stealing. And now I'm here." Zigzag pulled me into a hug, the tears had stopped. But the pain hadn't.

"You wanna go get something to eat?" Ziggy asked. I guessed he was hungry because when I had my head on his chest, I could hear his stomach growling. I nodded. He took my hand and pulled me up. I rolled my sleeves down even though how itchy they were was the most irratating thing in the world. He held my hand, our fingers intertwining as the boiling desert sun beamed down on us.