Ugly : clifford a.u

Michael

Sitting with my knees pressed firmly together and my hands clasped in my lap, I listened.

I listened to the ticking of a clock somewhere in the room. I listened to Lola’s steady, panted breaths, I listened to Calum, who was sat on the opposite end of the couch, drumming his fingertips on the leather cushion between us, and I listened to Spencer and Luke talking in hushed voices in the next room.

She’d invited me in, but I realized as I sat there, listening that I should have declined.

Because I didn’t want to hear her tell her brother what he’d done. Bringing back memories he undoubtedly tried daily to suppress. I didn’t want to hear the shattering of glass as thinks were thrown, their voices raising to shouts, before falling again. I didn’t want to hear him crying. I didn’t want to hear Calum rising to his feet and leaving the room, snapping at Spencer with a sort of uncharacteristic venom that it was enough.

Never. Not in my seventeen years of existence had I ever been so genuinely grateful that I was unable to see. For once it didn’t feel like a curse bestowed upon me for reasons unbeknown to me, instead it felt like a blessing. Because based on the heartbroken sobs coming from the next room, it was not something I wanted to see.

I thought that I blamed him for the accident. For two years, I’d hated him without even knowing who he was. For two years he’d been ‘the drunk driver.’ That was all. But now, I realized it wasn’t a vicious act. He hadn’t gone out, aiming to ruin and end lives. It was a mistake, a terrible, awful, unforgettable, mistake.