"Fuck, I said pass me the blunt," I ordered furiously at the dark alleyway beside my house to the man beside me. The wind was irritating my body and my hair kept going in my face. The man was still focusing on rolling his weed.
"No, don't beat him, please!" Mom pleaded as she watched me get emotionally destroyed with each whipping.
"Come on!" I huffed as memories tugged at the core of my mind.
He was done and gave me my favorite blunt; cocaine. I smoked it, swaying myself as I inhaled my daily dose of this drug. All life disappeared and I was on a great high, all the way up on cloud nine.
"Get away from her." I rocked myself with my hands on the sides of my ears.
My eyes got bloodied as the high took me in a funny daze. I began to twirl around with tears dripping down my eyes and the heartless man who silently remained doing his blunt.
It was a day of doom-like my daily days of life. I didn't deserve to live if she wasn't here with me. The high began rushing through my head as the sirens were heard coming to our direction. The man got out but I didn't, disloyalty were those in the blood of strangers.
"And I think to myself
What a wonderful world!"
I sang loudly as the police handcuffed me and got me inside their cramped up car, to the Michigan police station, I watched the dreamy trees and the peaceful breezy night as the sun settled down exotically. I saw people-lots of them as they rushed to their homes and kids played.
"Mommy, I want this one." I pointed to the toy.
"Honey, we can't afford it." She said.
My heart had a designed wonderful wall around it. I alluded to the fantasies of all that was dark and violent. I knew what I am already; a melancholy. A bad boy with no mother and certainly, a delinquent.
The car stopped and the police officer dragged me to the station under the starry stormy night. The white walls made me want to throw up, my mind was still in a high.
"Rys, why do you keep coming back to me?" Officer Dalton, the one in chief, said. He was a close friend of my father but treated me like a son more than my own dad.
"I missed seeing your face." I laughed crazily at my comeback, my husky voice coated with the smoky scent of cocaine.
"When are you going to stop from beating yourself like that?" He frustratingly questioned with tired eyes, I felt for him, I was too much on everybody.
"The day I die would be the last." I snorted after these words come out of my mouth. Who knew deep words could come out when people got high.
"Stop playing around, you'll be ordered to go to Michigan school for community service and study there." He decided as he signed papers of transferral, he was in his forties with dried blue eyes and wrinkle filled face, he almost was an old man.
I fixed my leather jacket, "do you think you'll get rid of me that way?" I asked smugly.
"You need help so I will add a therapist." He wrote down and I wanted to claw out the papers from his hand but it was too late when it came in contact with the mayor.
I was sent out to wait in the empty corridor of the station with my head throbbing and my nose close to bleeding, everything reminded me of my mom, she was the opposite of me, she was calm but I was angry, she was caring but I was merciless.
"Go home." With the words out of the executive chief, that was my cue to go but definitely not to home. More like a house where bitches lived with dad. I was to go to school tomorrow, who would've thought a hopeless bad boy like me would have a chance at education.
"Honey, there is no school for you." Mom softly said.
"But mom, I like playing with other kids." I pouted.
"Don't worry, you will." She kissed my forehead.
"Get out of my head!" I screamed into the cursed midnight and the bright stars curtained the sky. A couple passing by gave me weird looks, almost as if I was possessed. That was true, I was possessed by a shit life and nothing to live for.
I strolled and stopped at the middle of the street, the headlights of the car neared me and I chuckled with arms crossed, waiting for it to run over me, the driver had a heart as he stopped and didn't grant my melancholic wish.
"Stay away from the road." He hollered when he swerved and drove away, I sighed, rubbing my eyes tiredly.
•••
"What happened, baby?" The manicured nails trailed down my bare chest. I got home earlier to my drunk dad and another prostitute that slept with him, I slept with her next and here we were, in the small room with only my bed and a dusty rack with a small window, it was more of a jail cell.
"Go away," I ordered and she rolled her hazel eyes as she stood up and wore her panties and went with her stuff. She was only eighteen yet she chose this dark pathway. She had a chance, fuck, she had it yet she wasted it on sleeping with strangers while I didn't have that choice on how to live.
I was glad that my dad was passed out on the couch, I stood up and took out the wet sheets, changing to grey sweats with no shirt.
Tomorrow would be the first day I step to Michigan school after a long time of skipped years when my parents couldn't afford shit.
My eyes closed and opened to the trickling rain on the small window. The light drizzle soothed me as I passed out.
The soothing finger brushes my hand had played on the piano was like an electric stroke to my heart as the emotions came to life and whirled around me. I was here in my second home, Michigan school. They had the music room open from the morning till the evening and it was all for me, the black grand piano was there for me and for my mother, who died promising me that she could watch me play. She was a no-show and dad had to tell me that she died when I was seven years old, playing on the same piano."You're still here." Alexa Jones whined at me. I flushed red as she pestered me about having the social life everyone was in. Aside from my insecurity that differentiated me from the gorgeous brunette that was my best friend, she was there for me when my mom was gone, we were kindergarten best friends and remained to be, even in our senior year. She had a bright big dimple on her left tanned
The memories blended in with the melodies of the piano earlier. When I took a seat lazily at the end of each class, I stared out of the window."Mommy, dad ripped my books and the teacher got angry at me." My lip trembled."All will be well, honey." She sighed as she talked to the teacher over the phone.My eyes sensed the arrival of the girl from earlier entered the room, I could tell she was trying to imagine that I wasn't there with her in the room and I got the message loud and clear. She was a show off when she played the piano and it was like the sounds danced around her. There was something unknown about her that aggravated me, I could tell by her constant head shaking and the way her eyes looked to the side in anxiety.
"Don't you ever get tired?" Mrs. Davidson inquired softly at the empty room that had been a lovely company with my piano play collection for the winter ball."No, I'm fine." I smiled when she walked in front of my piano and smiled back. She was the one who kept encouraging me to keep playing even after my mom died, it was my therapy.I was destined to keep playing as the passionate hunger kept increasing within me when I grew up.It was an escape from the amber-eyed guy I had seen. I had been thinking a lot about him, he gave off the scary face and the haunting past vibes but it only made my curious side appear even more. Every time I stopped now, I would start thinking about him so I instantly focused more on the piano keys, the guy faded into the back of my mind.
"Mommy, why is he beating you all the time?" I said, hands shivering around the thin quilt."Because even love is in the form of darkness." She said back with a smile as we both were locked up in the room."Where were you, kid?" My dad yelled as he shoved me to the couch. I laughed at his surprising question, he never asked unless he wanted me to take another blonde fuck for him."Walking." I hissed as my back ached from the rough push. My dad had good aim. He was always like that around me and my mom, he never loved her.The foul smoke erupted everywhere in the small apartment. We only had one living room where dad slept and my tiny room since dad liked to spend more on prostitutes and drinks.
I was aware that I had been staring at him quite a few times when he would go to his lectures or smoked in the empty hallways. It was the lunch break and I had to go practice but something allured me to enter the cafeteria."Is this real?" Alexa's eyes broadened when she saw me, I blushed as her friends guarded me with their eyes, "no way, it's the first time you come to the cafeteria." She gasped and I gave a smile to everyone before sitting next to Alexa, who was too busy gaping at me."Don't be dramatic," I flatly said as my eyes assessed the red and white stripes on the walls of the cafeteria, "and I will practice more after school," I added just for her info."That means you can always come here during lunch breaks?" Her eyes widely sparkled at me.
I didn't know. Something about the way she played made the deepest of my fears alive. Maybe it was how at ease she was with everyone or the way she closed her eyes as her delicate fingers consumed the piano like it was her own favorite miracle. That scared me because whenever I looked into her soft green eyes, I had to know everything that she did and felt; it was like we were connected by unbreakable strings. I couldn't get enough but something inside of me told me that I shouldn't have let her in because love was like killing yourself slowly. I loved my mom but she left, so I was biased about love.She stopped playing and took a deep breath as if she was afraid to speak to me. It was something about the aura I radiated around her but my colored eyes couldn't leave hers. It was like our eyes were interlocked into an attraction phase that made the whole world around us stop.
I was still feeding my heart on the piano music sheets and trying out the keys for the newest piece I wrote. The pressure was hard since the winter annual ball was on Saturday and I only had two days to go to practice; it was only Wednesday.The thoughts of that guy, Ryson, invaded my mind again. He was so mysterious to the eyes with his stony gazes and strict expressions. It was like he never had any fun or enjoyed anything. But I could tell that the piano interested him when he saw me play before.Closing the piano lid after Mrs. Davidson reminded me it was closing time, I grabbed my bag filled with sheets and a textbook on how to have key control with the steady rhythm that I was studying for the winter annual and Julliard."Have a great evening," I said to Mrs. Davidson politely, s
Evangeline reminded me of what it felt like to lose my mother when she was rolled on a stretcher to the hospital room. It was agonizing; she made me reveal my emotions and I was tired of fighting the sorrow. Waiting outside while the nurses do their job was the torture I had to endure, I couldn't even fucking get comfortable sitting on their hard rock chairs so I kept pacing."Young man, is your girlfriend going to be okay?" the old woman asked with apprehension imprinted on her face. The mere thought of Evangeline irked me because I didn't want to feel that way towards her. I had been trying my best to get away from her yet here I was, waiting for her to get better. I wanted not to care and just go back to the disruptive father and his prostitutes but I couldn't get my feet to go along the path of the hospital entrance. I wanted to make sure she was better.