Worlds Apart

Chapter Thirty

Please read the end bit.

Carl tried to talk to me, tried even harder to stop me, but it was no use.

Once I'd swallowed my tears - having let the rest stain his suit jacket - I'd pushed away from him and walked out. He really had tried his best to get to me. For once, though, it wasn't my friends that I needed. Or at least I wasn't willing to put that on them, not on their wedding day. I had no place to be crying at their reception. Hadn't I promised I wasn't going to be selfish today?

They'd already done all they could for me, and I had them in my head, laughing, like a photograph.

So I'd been monotone and tough, getting out of his grip in order to leave the wedding early. I'd slipped off when Lizzy and Brandon had been handed Donavon again, and were kissing over top of the baby to the delight of the photographer. Carl had glumly watched me take the elevator up to my room.

What he didn't know was that I walked into my room just long enough to grab a pack of smokes I had tucked in my bag and throw my leather jacket on. It was quite the look; mascara and eyeliner having stained down my cheeks, bright red dress and a black leather jacket. However I didn't even pause long enough to wipe the black blotches from underneath my eyes, and headed straight back out of the hotel room.

I didn't take the elevator back down; worried that Carl might still be there, fretting over me. Instead I took the back staircase, and even managed to sneak out into the night without any of our security catching me.

Since I'd gone out the back way, I had to sneak out about the garden, and could hear even hear the wedding. It was all squeals of laughter and thumping music, Fell In Love With A Girl to be exact. Yet I didn't care to glance back over my shoulder, just tucked my hands into the pockets of the leather jacket against the chill and picked my way carefully back to the cracked sidewalks.

I hadn't taken into consideration just how sobering the chilly spring air would be. Although it might have been the sudden isolation.

Even as I breathed in deeply like it was some kind of cure for what ailed me, I was already pulling out the pack of smokes I'd stashed away in my pocket. It felt like centuries since I'd had a smoke at this point. And I could feel the need gnawing at my stomach.

The need didn't fade completely when I sucked in that first acrid breath, but it was at least sated for the time being.

Where last night my band and I had wandered down the streets, chasing good memories that were full of smiles and youthful grins, I did the opposite.

Last night I'd been happy that we hadn't tread deeper into the rundown streets, preferring to stay on the main roads of the town. Now I trudged deeper, watching the buildings that seemed to droop with age, the paint peeling and fences become broken down chain link. I was dredging up old memories that had no right to be brought to the forefront of my mind again, but I couldn't stop myself.

Like when I passed an old gas station, the lights flickering drunkenly as I passed and the place had the air of a horror movie. My father had forgotten me there once, before my mother and he had even separated. Mom hadn't noticed I was gone, either. And at five years old, I trudged down these same splintered streets to get home. It was a memory that had gone grey with age, but I could still remember how the tears froze on my cheeks in the wintery air and the gasping breaths I'd taken. It was amazing just how deeply betrayed a child could feel by their parents, even at that age.

I'd snuck into the house where my dad was passed out on the couch, not bothering to say a word. There had been cigarettes butts piled in the ashtray on that ruined coffee table, and cans of beer strewn around the couch where he lay with his mouth open. Mom had been tucked up neatly in bed.