C H A P T E R 34
WONDERWALL
Puppet
Play – ‘Similar minds – Kilu’
I don’t know what hurts more, my body or my head as my eyes creep open, wanting to hiss at the sun beaming into the bedroom making my temples pulsate, before I dive underneath the duvet like a hermit.
“How's your head treating you, Puppet ?” Irritable mumbles leave my mouth against the duvet, slowly creeping back into the land of the living inch by inch until I can see her outside of my hole by the door.
“Never let me drink againnnnn.” My hands find the bed, slamming them down in regret before smothering my face with my palms, trying to rub some life into my burning pupils.
“But you were having so much fun?” She is loving this.
“I feel like a ninety-year-old woman.” My body is stiff and cranky, rolling around the bed trying to loosen my glued-up joints when I realise, I'm in a pyjama top and pants.
“Did you-?”
“Nothing I've not seen before.” Just because I stripped in front of her, doesn’t give her permission to look at me without my consent. Her cocky grin is so smackable.
“Hayden!”
“You were trying to strip in front of me.” My face blows into a heat rash and I squeeze my eyes shut hoping this is a dream. I really am never drinking again.
“Calm down Love . I kept your underwear on.” A sigh of relief protrudes through my mouth, falling limp back into the bed and I want to go and dig my own damn grave in her back garden.“I told you. I won’t touch you.” I swallow my deceit. Because for some reason, that doesn’t comfort me anymore. I’m craving her touch like a flower craves the sun to grow. My thoughts take on a mind of their own, sickening sin flashes before me, picturing her using my vulnerable body and I close my legs underneath the duvet to try and ease my disturbed discomfort. She could have had me. But she didn’t.
She doesn’t think I see how she looks at me. How she undresses me with her eyes. Peeling away at my purity like a disease.
Her eyes shift to the glass of water on the bed side table, next to some pain killers and my insulin.
“Hurry up. I want to show you something.”
“If you promise not to make me drink again.” My body weight slumps into my hands.
“You’ll be begging for it when I'm done with you Puppet .” Her mysterious nature terrifies me. What the hell is that meant to mean? But I do as I'm told, swallowing my pills and performing my daily ritual before making my way to the living room, trying to focus on my feet but God I feel rough.
A few cardboard boxes scatter the coffee table and a giant leather gig bag lays on the sofa, a thick layer of grey dust has taken up residence on the lid.
“Is that what I think it is?” Where was she hiding that? She didn’t go back up into the loft, surely? She ushers me to open it and I do cautiously, unzipping it, lifting the lid and a beautiful rough auburn acoustic guitar with blistered marking, the same colour as my hair, coated in gloss, pristine, sits in the bag. I line the shapes in the woodwork with the tips of my fingers. This is probably the most prized possession in this prison. It clearly means something to her otherwise it wouldn’t be in mint condition. Like an amethyst in amongst basalt rock.
Her presence consumes me, approaching me from behind slowly, reaching for the neck of the guitar and pulling it out carefully up above my head as she sits down to get comfortable with it.
“You’re only getting this once.” I'm beaming with excitement. She’s actually going to play! I watch her intensely as she tunes it up, fixated on more stories burrowed inside her flesh I've not seen before as the sun lights up the back of her hands. She squints in pain every time she strums a bum tune until she gets it right and it’s like second nature as her fingers begin to fall into a melody I've not heard before.
Wonderwall - Guitar Version
~And backseat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out.
I’m sure you’ve heard it all before but you never really had a doubt.
I don’t believe that anybody. Feels the way I do about you now.
And all the roads we have to walk are winding.
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding.
There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how.
Because maybe,
You're gonna be the one that saves me.
And after all.
You’re my wonderwall. ~
Right now, nothing else in the world matters but this very moment. This normality. This happiness she’s trying to give me through acts of reluctant kindness just to make me smile. To show me she has a soft side that’s buried underneath all the rubble and dirt. The girl who longed for a simple life. A life better than this one.
She has no idea how ethereal she looks right now, tiger light slicing through her olive skin. Her fingers are singing a song I don't know but I don't care because it sounds phenomenal. To still be able to play this well when I know she hasn’t touched that guitar for years is astonishing. Her eyes are closed and I'm glad because water is trickling down my cold cheeks breaking down all my feelings. Happiness, sadness, guilt, contentment , it’s all rolled into one big mess as I sit here, staring at the woman who stole my life from me and gave me a new one. I’ve accepted that my life as it was, a life I'm clinging to, never will be.
This? This is now. This is real. I've come to grow quite fond of this new little world I'm trapped in, where we play stupid little CD’s, dance till the sun goes down and she plays me guitar to brighten up my face.
She is all I have left.
“Did you even know that song?” She laughs with amusement as my focus is completely in my thoughts, staring through her without realising, shaking myself out of it as the room goes quiet again.
“I didn’t. What’s it about?” She rests the guitar in her lap, the curve mounting her leg as she takes out her papers to roll a cigarette.
“The person you constantly find yourself thinking about.” She says she’s not the romantic type but if I’m not mistaken. Did she just play me a Love song?
“It’s beautiful.” She won’t stop staring at me and I'm so flustered I'm about ready to have a cold shower. Everything she does surprises me when it shouldn't. She murders bad men for a living.
I've just never met anyone like her. She's a damaged engine that needs the right parts to bring her back to life.
??
W e've spent the entire day going through some of her old things. Little heirlooms.I think she needed this as much as I did. I found one of her old high-school sweatshirts amongst some things she kept when she played for their soccer team.
CHICAGO
13
MOORE
She gave me it to wear. It smells of nostalgia. She told me lots of funny stories to try and cover up the pain she also endured during school. I know because we have that in common. She doesn’t have to tell me; I can see it in her eyes.
Low music accompanied us as we went through many CDs, giving the house some much needed life. And I've never seen her so,
Normal ?
Lounging around the bungalow with just a white tank top on and black joggers, free from her second face that I'm still trying to get accustomed to and a few thick silver chains she never takes off. She looks like your typical teenager, if you ignore her age . Like a giant in a hobbit house as she walks around and her size still makes me nervous. I didn't even know it was possible for a woman to have such a bulky build. She could literally pass as a man and I don't know who should be more afraid of her.
Me or them.
There is something so humbling about a woman of her strength removing sickness from this world. Sickness that lies in power, cowards hiding behind screens and paper. The government. People like my father. I've had weeks to get my head around her work and the more I think about it, the more I understand. She was let down by a system meant to protect her and as vengeance she's taken it upon herself to become their enemy, it makes perfect sense.
She opens the garage door, making her way outside to do something as I'm snuggled up on the couch and I almost leap out of my skin when a four-legged friend runs inside the garage door, meowing with aggressive neediness but Shep doesn’t seem at all phased, glaring at it from his bed.
“Oh my god! Hey kitty!” Where on earth did it come from? Hayden follows it back in and she doesn't look at all phased either.
“She must have known I had company.” She doesn’t take long to crawl towards me, rubbing herself up against my leg.
“Is she yours?” She never mentioned she had a cat?
“She's a stray. She comes and goes. Sometimes for months at a time.” That explains why I've never seen her before. It also explains the cat food I found under the sink considering she has a dog.
“Does she have a name?” I run my fingers through her tough coat. She's a beautiful grey tabby with the eyes of a Disney princess.
“Whiskas.” Again with the originality .
“Really…Whiskas?” My judgement is oozing out of me.
“What?!... It looked like the box.” She's so simple it pains me. Sometimes I wonder if she was a man born into the wrong body.
“Where did she come from? Where does she go when she’s not here?”
“I haven't got a clue. I'm not usually home a lot so her food bowl and water are usually outside. She rarely comes inside.” She claims she doesn't care about anything. But someone like that wouldn't show acts of kindness towards an animal that's not even hers. She puts up this front but deep down I'm realising her heart is far bigger than I thought.
“She must really like you.” There is envy in her gaze as Whiskas sits beside me on the couch, yearning for attention.