What Now ⇔ Muke ✓

[9] Calm yourself

THIS IS REALLY SHITTY IM WARNING YOU

MICHAEL

My heart pulses to an unknown soundtrack as I sprint around my room, tugging on my hair until it looks acceptable and shoving clumps of bracelets up my wrists. I let out a sigh as I am finished getting ready, and I slide out of my room like a ghost, praying that my father has already left for his daily voyage to the bar. I step slowly down the stairs, my sneakers making no sound as I make it to the landing, but as I am moving stealthily to the door, my prayers are inexorably ignored.

"Michael. Where the hell do you think you're going?" My dad steps out from the kitchen, an unopened bottle of beer in his hands. He slams it roughly down on the coffee table and I wince.

"I was just going to go for a walk." I stammer out, my heart plummeting in my stomach like a wrecked ship. I pray to all of seraphim's angels that my father will let this go for now, and let me meet the only person who has ever cared enough to talk to me at the stone. My father just narrows his dark eyes at me as he steps closer.

"Really, because that's what you told me yesterday, and you were gone for hours." He stares at me critically for a minute, before slamming a large fist at the wall and raising his voice. "Hours!"

It's only true, of course. I had gone to the stone with Luke, then met his friend and cousin, who were surprisingly very nice. I wasn't used to that- I thought they would interrogate me about why I'm not attending their school, or judge me for my pastel hair and my sickly pale skin. They didn't though, and that made my heart lift a little.

"You're not going anywhere." My father's voice floats back to my ears, and my heart rapidly thumps in my chest, as if it were clawing for a way out. My hand fall from the smooth doorknob, shaking. I have to go the stone for Luke today, I promised him. The eye contact with my father doesn't break as he stares at me a second more, slowly picking up the bottle of beer and cracking it open, lifting the foul-smelling liquid to his dry lips.

He turns away, stumbling back into the kitchen where the supply of alcohol is, and I stand frozen by the door. I know by past mistakes what will happen if I attempt to escape, because when I did, I left with a bruised tongue and a swollen jaw. The dark colors staining my face didn't fade for a month.

My father slumps against the alcohol cabinet, a lonely, dusky figure against cold glass. I slip past him, ignoring the glare his bloodshot eyes give me as I shuffle past him, my feet barely moving from the ground. I walk back up the stairs, the image of Luke sitting at the stone alone replaying like a lost song in my head. I imagine him looking around for me, his feet tucked under him like they always are because he's afraid of falling, although it's not falling you have to worry about. It's when you hit the ground.

Although, nobody would care if that happened to me. Particularly not my father. He would probably buy twelve six-packs of beer in celebration if I finally got out from under his skin.

I reenter my room, sitting down on the plush carpet stained with blood and dirt from past mistakes, and stare blankly at the plain white walls, adorned with a few Green Day posters that are too dusty to admire. I should feel angry, I suppose. I should feel livid at my stoned father for not being as accepting as I have heard other parents are. I should perhaps move away, go walk where the sky and horizon meet until I can't even remember my father's name. But if I did that, I would find myself even more lost than I am right now. Who knew you could feel lost in a room you have lived in for seventeen years.

I reach over to my bedside table and grab my iPod, having gotten rid of my phone a while back when it never rang. I turn it on shuffle and close my eyes as All Time Low flowed through the speakers. I let it play quietly, not wanted to arouse my fuck up of a father and make him yell at his fuck up of a son.