Hurt People Hurt People

Chapter Twenty One:

So this is what goodbye feels like.

Not goodbye when someone had died - I knew that feeling well.

Not goodbye after visiting the family.

Not goodbye when you were leaving after having the best time.

Though I suppose it was that, really. I'd spent some of the happiest times of my life with who I valued as a sibling, my ride or die, the only one I could turn to whenever. Now . . . What now?

It scared me how the hatred and disgust reared up inside of me in just moments. I loved her. I really did. But somehow I wanted to scream at her, hit her, say things that would hurt her, make her cry in the way I was crying now.

My mind middled between being completely ingrained in the fact I'd just texted her goodbye and not being able to process it at all.

And I was breaking.

I wondered if there would ever be a time of utter tranquility in my life, one in which there wouldn't be a point that every time I stood, I'd be knocked back to the ground.

It was moments like this that hurt the most, because I knew they would always hurt a little. I knew that when I was older, I would always remember this as the time where that girl I'd known from my childhood tried to kill herself, and in the time surrounding it we were both so desperately unhappy that we let eachother go.

I couldn't do anything other for the rest of the evening than lie in my bed with the lights off and curtains drawn.

My whole life had been built up to perfect, but it was rapidly falling apart.

I tried to find a time that I was most happy, when things were so right. I concluded on one day: The fair was when I was most happy. With a revived friendship, a love interest, hope and prospects, having the most fun I'd ever had. I was joyful, healthy, unburdened. There was so much ahead of me. If only I could have known then the evil that day would ultimately do me. Would I have done the same? Would I have even gone to the fair that day?

My head was spinning. I wanted to cry, yet could not. I heard messages vibrating on my phone, which was lying on the shelf by my head, but I didn't even have the energy to reply to Alex.

****

"Please don't cry," he whispered into my hair.

"I did warn you that if I spoke about it, I'd cry," I sniffed, forcing a laugh.

"It's good to cry, though."

"You just told me not to!"

"Whatever."

I laughed, giving him a shove in the chest. He fell back onto his bed, sniggering. Then he sighed, grabbing my wrist and pulling me down to sit on his lap. He wrapped his arms around me and I felt more secure there than I had in days.

"I am sorry she did that to you. It wasn't just wrong, it was cruel. She was no friend to you, even though all you ever gave her with love. You did the right this to leave."

"Do you think so? Because I know she mistreated me by doing that, but firstly, she was going through a tough time. Secondly . . . I think she's right."

"What?"

His arms unravelled.

"I think she was right, saying if was my fault. I should have been there."

"Yeah, and why weren't you there?"

"Because I was sulking."

"No, you were struggling. And why were you struggling?"

"Because I felt like history was repeating itself."

"Yes, because she had run off and broken her promise. If she had listened to you, if she had taken your advice it wouldn't have happened. It was only once it had happened that she wanted your help, and that's her own issue."

"I know," I said in a voice a few pitches higher than it should have been. "But I still worry."

"You're good at that."

"I know."

"Oi oi!" came a familiar voice, footsteps pounding up the stairs towards Alex's room. "Is the Queen of Stench still here? Fucking hell, I can still smell her."

"You sure you're not catching the scent of seventeen year old unwashed male?" I retorted, standing upright, away from my boyfriend's bed.

"I thought you were supposed to know your partner's age by now?" Jarrett grinned, poking his curly head round the corner. "I'm seventeen."

"Oh, ha ha," Alex and I said, simultaneously.

It felt strange to me, thinking about how imposing a figure Jarrett had been to me when we first met. These days, he felt more like that goofy older friend everyone has.

"So how's life, Queen S?"

"Tainted with my putrid smell, evidently."

"Makes perfect sense. How's the family?" he asked, collapsing heavily on the floor.

"Good, good. Chaotic, as ever."

"Aren't they all? I speak from experience. You meeting with Leah soon?"

I never knew how to react when touchy subjects were brought up. I always found myself half grimacing, half smiling, but I knew that it looked hopelessly false, that my eyes were filled with sadness. I knew I was pulling that face now.

I looked across at Alex like I was looking for an answer, which he graciously gave by glaring at his brother and stepping closer to me, an arm going around my waist.

"She's not. Ever."

Jarrett appeared to be about to ask something, but after a quick glance at Alex his half open mouth closed.

"Oh. Okay. Well, I'm sorry about that." He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "So . . . Wanna go out for a bit before the old hawk gets back?"

"Sure, if Layla wants to. Where is Dad, by the way?"

"Good question," he replied dryly. He turned his eyes to me. "You up for it then, Queen of Stench?"

Nothing appealed to me less then walking through the run down area we all lived in, ignoring the abuse we were sure to receive from strangers, passing the places that Leah and I used to haunt and the memories that swarmed with them, good and bad. I felt Alex watching me carefully. I knew that he knew, and that if I said that I didn't want to they would both understand entirely and not take the slightest offense. But I found myself shrugging, nodding vigorously, saying with a careless smile on my face, "Sure. Why not, King of Teenage Male Grossness?"