Ugly : clifford a.u

Spencer

A week after mine and Michael’s date I realized what love is. I wish I could tell you that this epiphany came from something beautiful or romantic, but it didn’t. This revelation was made not out of happiness but out of grief.

I realized that love can be good, wonderful and powerful and addictive, but it can also suck.

It was a Saturday night.

Mom was at work, Luke was at homecoming with Calum and I was alone watching an Animal Planet documentary on howler monkeys.

Earlier in the evening I’d spent a stereotypically  teenage amount of time on the phone with Michael, however he’d had to go when Maggie who he and his Mom were watching for the weekend, showed up. I’d then popped popcorn for dinner, started a horror movie however turned it off when limbs started flying which was how I had somehow ended up engrossed in the life of Pippin the howler monkey and his family.

As I watched intently, I was started by the sound of a car door slamming outside. Confused as to who it could be since Mom wouldn’t be home until morning and Luke and Calum had told me they’d be late, I rose hastily to my feet.

Immediately a tsunami of terrifying ideas swirled through my mind, each more horrific then the last until I’d convinced myself that a strange man in a dark van was coming to take me away. Edging along the wall to the kitchen, I hastily removed the largest knife from the wooden block on the counter before creeping slowly, avoiding any windows, towards the front door.

I had no intention of answering it, I wasn’t stupid. I had devised a plan in which the door would open and I would plunge my dagger into the heart of the villain that entered. I’d stab, twist and then run, leaving him to bleed out on the carpet.

My palms sweating I switched the knife from my right hand to my left and then back again. Swallowing nervously, I leaned a tentative ear against the door listening.

I could hear footsteps and quiet voices.  I frowned, there was more than one of them. This was problematic. I was fully prepared to take on one attacker, but two. Looking around, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end I wondered if bolting for the stairs and hiding in a closet was a better idea, however that would involve passing a window but then my cover would be blown and my presence known.

I tried to convince myself it was the mail man, however he’d been by earlier. I knew it wasn’t family, they only came at Christmas, and any high school aged kids would be at prom. Trying to sooth myself into believing it was  a pack of middle school pranksters looking for a random house to egg I was startled horrifically when whoever it was banged on the door.

Immediately my heart sank. This was not the knock of a polite visitor but the harsh pounding of a maniac. A lunatic dressed in an orange jumpsuit, the blood of his inmates staining his skin, his eyes wild, his hair long, his hands armed with knives or a gun or perhaps a simple box of matches. Maybe he had some secret vendetta against my family and planned to burn our home to the ground.

Chewing my lower lip nervously I winced as there was more knocking, louder than before, more demanded, and then there was a voice.

“Spencer!”

As soon as I heard my name leave the familiar pair of lips I threw the door open relief and confusion washing over me, however my relief was short lived.

Infront of me stood Calum, struggling under Luke’s weight as he kept the taller boy upright. A dark purple blob circled Calum’s eye and stained the knuckles of his hand, however compared to Luke, his injuries were easily dismissible.

Luke’s suit was ripped in several placed, his nose was crooked and bleeding, the skin around it and his eyes a horrific mix of greens, purples and blues. One of his eyes was swollen shut, below a large welt on his forehead, and from his top lip, which was nearly triple its usual size blood oozed down into his mouth, staining his teeth, dripped down his chin and stained the once white dress shirt beneath his suit.