Until I met Henry. He gave me a place to stay and a job I love, but I was already too damaged, too closed up to let anyone in.
I thread my hand through my hair as if that will give me the answer to the problems I have waiting for me. I tremble under the weight of the responsibilities that have landed in my lap.
You could always leave Arianna with your parents.
My stomach revolts at the thought of leaving her with them. They don’t deserve to be parents, and I could never disregard my sister’s last wish.
My phone rings, surprising me. I glance at the screen and a mix of rage and fear fills me up.
Am I ever going to forget what was done to me?
They’re trouble with a capital T. I pick up the phone, but before answering I walk outside, because I can’t have this conversation in here. They’ll accuse me of not caring for my sister and of being out enjoying myself while committing inexplicable sins. My mind fills with the words they’re going to throw at me.
I’m hoping by the time I’m outside they’ll have hung up.
I’m not that lucky, though, because the phone is still ringing when I finally make it outside. All previous thoughts leave my mind as I concentrate on listening to what the person on the other end of the line is saying.
“Haden.” My mother’s voice fills my head and makes my body as rigid as a statue carved in stone. “Where are you? You need to come over and pick her up.”
Of course she can’t understand that right now I can’t face anything. I need to think, I need to pretend she’s here with me for a little bit longer, and then I need to mourn her devastating loss.
The silence spreads between us, and her annoyed sigh fills my ears, but I can’t force myself to say anything.
I can’t face them and their judgmental attitudes, and I can’t care for Arianna. Not right now, not when I’m so lost, and not when my brain is clouded by alcohol. I don’t say all this, instead I ask for a favour, hoping that for once they’re different. Hoping that for once she’s not playing games.
“Can you keep her for a few days?” I say in a scruffy tone, while I hold my breath waiting for her to refuse. I’m counting on the fact that they’d prefer dying than giving her to me.
A heavy sigh and then a scoff, as if she wasn’t expecting anything different from me, but she doesn’t reply.
I wait, because my mother has always been good at subtly making people know how inconvenient it is for her to do favours without being too obvious about it.
I keep silent even if I want to scream the world down. I want to tell her off so much, but you can’t scream at a wall and expect answers.
“Can you keep her or not?” I ask, and I drench my tone with “you owe me” vibes, as we both know there’s nothing they can do to take back what they did.
“Don’t talk to me like that, boy,” she says, using the same commanding tone as when I was younger, the one I hate most.
“I’m not a boy.” I bite my lips to keep everything boiling inside me from overflowing. I stop only when blood fills my mouth and the copper taste takes over.
Another long silence. A reminder of how many times she stared down at me trying to control me with only a look.
“You shouldn’t be allowed to come anywhere near her. We’re already making an effort to go along with your sister’s last wish, so don’t push it.”
There she is, the real monster behind that sheep demeanour she loves to wear in the open. Only I know what really lies behind her meek and sickeningly sweet attitude.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
She breathes like a dragon ready to burn the enemy in front of her, and I wait while she raises her imaginary blade to strike the blow to kill the enemy. Me.
“Be here on Saturday.” She’s giving me three days. It’s more than I was expecting, and longer than I like her having Arianna, but she’s too young to be influenced by my mother’s bigoted mind. “I’m sure she’ll be back with us soon. You’ll fail her. Just like you failed us by not being a man and a good son.”
I hang up, push the phone inside my pocket, and grip my jacket… or try to, because I come up empty handed. My jacket is still hanging on the back of the chair where I left it when I walked out to take the call.
I close my hands into fists, trying to subdue the need to punch something, to take my anger out against it.
There’ll be plenty she’ll have to say when we meet again after years of no contact. Once the door closed behind my back I became nothing.
I move back toward the entrance, passing in front of an alley I didn’t see before. A gagging sound attracts my attention, and I move towards it worried someone’s feeling sick. But I stop short. What’s happening there is something totally different, and for a second I’m taken aback. Two men, one on his knees and the other pushing and pulling in the usual dance of sexualfavours. I take a step back because I don’t want to interfere, until something catches my attention.
