Chapter 5
Haden
While I pretend to focus on my drink, I don’t miss the moment his friend arrives, and how they connect with a few exchanges. They laugh but there’s a sadness in them that’s impossible to miss.
I envy that closeness they have, as I’ve just lost the only one I was close to.
I look for any sign that there’s more than friendship between them, but I don’t find any. Nothing suggests that they’re lovers. There is a strange energy passing between them, though, as if they share a secret that no one else is privy to.
I train my eyes back on my drink. There’s nothing there for me. It’s not a good time now, and maybe it never was. I’m happy with one night stands, even if it’s been a while since I had one.
I’m not good at caring for people, I don’t know how. I didn’t have good examples in my life, and people don’t stick to me.
I don’t have time to lust after a kid who looks at least twenty years younger than me.
With Arianna coming into my life, I have plenty to learn.
The thought spreads another wave of pain inside my body.
My life will be taken over by my sister’s little treasure and my job at the tattoo shop.
From tomorrow I’ll have to focus on her.
I need books on how to raise babies, and maybe a crash course on how to care for them.
Maybe find someone who can be there when I’m not.
Fuck, what am I going to do?
Sweat pours out of me at the thought of it just being me and Arianna. Of having to do everything for her—feeding her, changing her, and teaching her about life.
What do I know about life?
Mine has been one mistake after another.
With no support group it was easy to cling to the wrong people, just so I wasn’t alone.
But loneliness is a beast that rears its head constantly, and I have a list of wrong relationships, people I held onto when I was in need of someone to call mine… but they never were.
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 sexual favours.
I take a step back because I don’t want to interfere, until something catches my attention.
A car turning illuminates the alley, and I recognise that too-light jeans jacket and the curly hair that sticks out from under the grey hoodie.
That hand that was on mine earlier is now trying to push away the other body without success.
The act makes me sick, and sparks a fire stronger than the one already boiling inside me.
The rage, coming from my poor childhood, is nothing compared to what’s burning inside me right now.
I lose myself in the fury rising like a tide from deep inside me, and charge forward while I watch as the massive guy forces himself on that boy who’s unable to fight back.
More gagging sounds fill the air while he tries to free himself.
I watch as the assailant pulls on the boy’s hair so he can push even deeper and probably cut off his air flow.
My throat constricts, as if a boa is wrapping around it, while I remember what it means not to be able to breathe.
I watch his hands fly around before gripping the other man’s thighs, but like broken wings they can’t help him to get free.
The closer I get, the clearer the vision becomes. The tears fill his eyes and run down his cheeks, igniting my need to inflict pain on his tormentor. Igniting the need to pull him away and then beat the shit out of him.
I’m on them even before I process the danger I’m placing myself in.
Everything goes red when the smaller guy hits his head on the wall behind him at the powerful thrust of the other man.
The cracking sound is both sickening and enraging.
I witness the brutal motion behind those movements, the pursuit of his own pleasure, and the lack of interest for the suffering of the other person.
My past and his present mingle, and the repressed emotions come with a need for revenge. I don’t care that he’s someone I don’t know. Right now, he’s the enemy, an enemy I want to destroy.
Muffled cries come from the abused man, and something I thought I’d grown out of overpowers me. I become my younger version, that boy needing to make others suffer like he’s suffering, only this time my need to annihilate has a target. I rush forward, because I despise his behaviour.
I’m tired of this world where people look the other way and injustice prevails.
When I’m close enough I punch the man on the side of his face, powerful and uncontrolled, aiming to make it count.
I force him to let go and then I rip him away with all my strength.
Satisfaction fills me when his head bangs against the opposite wall.
I don’t care what happens to this fucker, he’s just having his fill of karma. I’m not satisfied, though, so I punch him in the face another couple of times, happy only when bones crack under my fists.
Whimpers of pain attract my attention, and my need to inflict pain dissolves like snow under the sun. I turn to the injured man and crouch down so that our faces are nearly at the same level.