Bad Boy: Daniel Hart

three

*unedited*

              Three am.

              It was three am and sleep had still not arrived. The dull sound of Rick and Morty played in the background as I look up to my ceiling hoping and praying that sleep would take over but I knew what reality was. I sigh and run my hands over my face thinking it might clear some of my thoughts but alas, it did not.

              I threw the duvet off of my body as I made my way to my bathroom. Once I was in, I studied my reflection in the mirror, I didn't recognise myself anymore. The girl with golden brown eyes and voluminous dark hair had faded and replaced with deep sunken eye sockets and pasty skin. You don't know how much you should treasure sleep before it gets taken away from you and all you see when you close your eyes are never ending nightmares that are impossible to hide away from.

              I tore my gaze away from my face and jumped into the shower rinsing my body down and thoroughly washing my hair. As I finished cleaning myself up, I hear the slam of the front door shutting indicating my father had just come home from the bar. I wrap a towel that was in the bathroom around my body and walk into my bedroom. I take the towel off and replace it with my cream fluffy dressing gown wrapping the towel around my head before making my way down stairs to see the aftermath of the bar.

               "I can't take it anymore." I heard my father sob, I sat at the bottom of the stairs out of his eye line but also so I was still within hearing range.

               "You always knew what to do, you always knew how to get me out of these spirals I sink myself into and now you're gone and I'm alone." I peeked around the corner and watched as he cried into his hands whilst kneeling down in front of the picture of my mother. I felt my eyes sting as the tears fell freely from my face as I saw my father pour his emotions onto the lounge room floor. The pain he felt travelled through the air penetrating my heart making it ache as I couldn't help but feel what he felt, the pain he felt.

              I wiped my face and retreated back upstairs being careful not to make a sound so he doesn't find out that I was eavesdropping on his vulnerable state. My mind hurting as I tried to block out the words he had just said, 'you're gone and I'm alone'. What does that make me? I'm clearly just nothing to him, I felt the loneliness creep in again, the empty void taking over my chest making me hollow again. Slowly but surely every piece of me is being chiselled away and I can't do anything to stop it.

              I felt tears threaten to spill again but I just sniffled my nose and ignored them as I proceeded to go to my room. I sat myself down on my bed and brushed through my still damp hair before throwing it up into a messy bun. I picked up a pair of black leggings and my oversized burgundy hoodie putting them on as I patiently waited for the click of my dad's bedroom door closing so I knew it was safe to go.

              A few minutes passed before the sound of my father's lazy footsteps we heard as he dragged himself upstairs and down the hallway to his bedroom. I left my lamp and T.V on low to make it look as though I was still here before I quietly snuck downstairs and into the kitchen grabbing my key off of the small kitchen island. Once the key was safely in my grasp, I unlocked the door and made my way to the only place open at this time in the morning. 

              Automatically I was greeted by the chilling fall wind instantly regretting my decision of not taking my black denim jacket with me but I was not going back and risking waking my father up. The day I do that is the day Hell will welcome me in, being woken up from his sleep is a sight you do not want to see. I continued as usual down to the Twenty-Four Hour Convivence Store a couple blocks over just before Teresa's Diner.