52. (BoyxBoy)

52. Page 14.

OK, this is a lot more than I usually upload at a time, but you deserve it. ;)

Tell me if you think it's going to fast, because that's the last thing I want. Also, tell me if there are any mistakes. I wrote this all quite fast, and only quickly proof read it.

I know this bit is long, but trust me, it's worth it. ;)

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Chapter 8

When the pillow was released, and thrown onto the floor, Aiden felt a wave of cool air over his face. It was calm and refreshing. Soon after, his breathing returned to normal. He had no idea how people suffocated from that method. He’d tried it a few times before, and it never worked. Why was he so crap at killing himself?

For the next 52 hours, he stayed trapped in his bedroom. He escaped a weekend of plain, mundane nothingness. He left the room about four times for short toilet breaks. He had a close collision with his mother, but all she did was swear at him, and shove him into the wall. And hit him twice. And swear a bit more.

He didn’t have a lock on his door. He wasn’t allowed one. But, thankfully, his mother stayed out of his room. Strangely, she hardly disturbed him at all.

When he finally exited his room, it was 4pm on an idle Sunday. His mother had gone out. God knows where, but she’d gone and that was all that mattered.

Aiden paced the flat a few times, before simply standing still, farcing North. Or West. Or South, or East. To be honest, he had no idea which way he was facing. It didn’t really matter.

He stood in the kitchen, looking out of a broken window. He saw rows of council flats, he saw chavs in the street, but he looked deeper out of the window and eventually, saw the sky.

There’s something about the sky. It’s a different colour every time you look at it. It’s maddeningly beautiful, whatever colour it may be.  

Aiden always found himself looking up. Maybe that was because he was always so down.

He just had some weird fetish for staring blankly upwards. A ceiling, the sky? They were all the same – but the sky was somewhat better. Bigger, better and a whole lot more beautiful.

He always saw the beautiful side of things. Of course, like everyone, he saw the ugly side. First, normally. Council flats were cold, deluded places, but like everything else, they had hidden beauty. It was easily captured. He even saw the beauty in his mother (not that he acknowledged it).

There’s seeing, and then there is believing. He could see beauty in everything, no matter what, but it wasn’t always there. It wasn’t always obvious, or it was, but it was a lie.

Things are different. Things change. Things are beautiful.

Yes, the sky was beautiful, but he didn’t necessarily like it. It was nothing. It was just like everything else.

And so he strolled back to his bedroom, shut the door and lied down on his bed to stare once more at his ceiling. And, and, and.

It all meant nothing.

The next day was the same.
Then again, the next day was always the same.
 
It broke grey and miserable. Rain tapped against Aiden's bedroom window and leaked through the ceiling, dripping onto his head. Waking earlier than usual, Aiden found his bed soaking and his hair and face drenched. It was nothing out of the ordinary. He couldn't count the number of times on his hands.
 
Things were back to normal. Everything was normal. From the bullying insults at school to the pure hatred from his mother, right through to the leak above his bed becoming even larger. OK, maybe one thing was different: there was more time. More and more of it. There was heaps of it. There was stacks of it, piling upon shelves, overflowing from boxes and stores; it couldn't be packed away, because there was so much of it… and it all had to be used up.
 
Aiden did well in school. Better than well. He was well above average, now.
He had so much time to use; he found it easy to put more effort in on homework. He would wake up. He would go to school. He would walk home. He would do homework, revision, extra work he set for himself. Then he would look at his ceiling for his while, before going to sleep, in order to be refreshed for the next spontaneous and exciting day ahead. It was all so easy. It was uncomplicated. It didn't need to be analysed or thought through. School was for education. Nothing else. It wasn't a social playground.