Hurt People Hurt People

Chapter Twenty Seven:

Even as I said these words, we heard the dogs barking downstairs. We both knew instantly who it was. I stumbled to my feet, pulling on the shoes I kept beneath my bed and yanking a hoodie off the door.

"Go, go!" Theo rushed, running ahead of me to open the front door. I paused to look in the mirror before I went. I had on no make up. My eyes looked too big and watery in my sallow, wax-like complexion, and my cheekbones appeared to almost break the skin. But without a second thought, I tore out of my bedroom and towards the waiting Alex.

*****

He looked as shocked as I felt to see that I was coming to speak to him. The instant his eyes landed on me as I hobbled down the stairway, they became red with emotion and his lips pressed into a thin line. Compared to my appearance, he looked wonderful, yet I could see that the last week had taken its toll on him, badly.

Wordlessly, I stepped through the front door and pulled it shut behind me, and we stood without greeting for a minute. Then he said quietly, "Shall we take a walk?"

I nodded mutely, beginning my unsteady walk towards the gate.

"No! Please, hold my arm."

"I'm alright -"

"Please, Layla."

I halted my argument, hooking my arm through his, saying as we started down the road, "I suppose it's the least I owe you."

"What do you mean?"

"For ignoring you."

"For fuck's sake, Layla!" he said, angrily.

"What?"

''You- oh, never mind! Let's get to a bench first."

He followed my directions to the nearest seat - a shabby affair under a willow tree, overlooking a busy road. We sat there, half a foot away from eachother and not looking at the other once. My heart was bleeding; in my desperation to see him I had overlooked the fact that he would be so quiet. I had only pictured him as loving as he always was.

"My god, what am I going to do?" he suddenly burst out, covering his face in his hands. His shoulders began convulsing violently. "What am I going to do?"

"You don't need to do anything, it wasn't your-"

"Don't you dare say it wasn't me fault!" he said, fiercely. "I let you go down alone. I knew what he was like, and I let you go!"

"You could never have guessed he would do something like that."

"But I should have! He's my dad. And he's done that to my girlfriend."

I was quiet a second, distracted by the use of 'girlfriend'. He rarely referred to me as that, unless he was introducing me to someone, because he thought of it as clichéd and underwhelming, 'like a female friend'.

"It's not your fault."

"Jesus Christ," he groaned, his whole body wracked with tears. "I think I'm going to die of guilt."

"Alex, please stop it, you couldn't help it, that he would have done . . . done that . . ."

Then, without warning, tears came cascading down my face, my breath hitching up a notch as I tried to finish the sentence. " . . . It wasn't anything - anything to do with you. I-"

He was watching me with half-crazed eyes. Suddenly, he smashed his hand down on the side of the rotting wooden bench, crying out, "Look at me, look! I'm sitting here talking about me, while you . . . You . . . Oh god, Layla."

I had buried my face into my knees, hiding my despair, but loud sobs erupted from my lips as I shook. He pulled me closer to him, weeping into my hair, "What are we going to do? I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

Until we quietened, we said no more, and then he said gently, "Jarrett, Sophie and I are living with our Aunty at the moment."

I knew immediately what he meant. He didn't want to torture me with his father's name, so he was letting me know that they had moved away from him.

"I didn't mean to divide you all like this," I croaked.

"You did not divide us. You gave us the courage to let our division be known. You helped us get away from that . . . That thing. He's not my father, he never had been. And now he can rot alone."

Perhaps he thought that he had said enough on the subject, or maybe he felt my tense limbs, but he stopped regarding the subject so closely.

"Jarrett wants to see you at some point. He's been worried about you," he said hesitantly,
making sure that the ground he trod on wasn't too rocky. Feeling my wordless consent to continue, he went on. "He really likes you, you know. He doesn't usually have time for people, especially not teenage girls, but he things you're just great. And Soph misses you, too. They say that - and this is a quote - "eight days is enough, we need a healthy dose of Layla"."

I giggled, weakly. "A very unhealthy dose of Layla."

"No, really. They love you like a sister."

"I hope you don't love me like a sister."

"No, that would be weird."

"You think," I smiled.

"I do. But yeah. They miss you. And so did I."

"I know," I said, swallowing back the lump in my throat. "I don't know what happened. I didn't pick up my phone until earlier."

"Please stop trying to excuse yourself. I would do the same thing. You . . . You're back up so quickly, you're dressed and ready and clean, and you look as beautiful as ever."

"Now that's a lie."

"It's not. You're really run down, but I'm going to make you better, I promise. I love you still, and I hope you still love me, but-"

"Of course I do," I sniffed, wiping my eyes.

"But either way, I don't care. I'm always going to be here. You're going to be you again, it'll only take a minute."

"One, two, three," I tried to joke, but I broke down in a fresh bout of grief.

He put his hand underneath my chin and tenderly tilted my head up so that our eyes would meet, softly wiping away my tears as his own streaked from beneath his glasses. I tried to smile in gratitude and love, but another sob escaped me. This seemed to overwhelm his senses, and he kissed me, with such desperation and love and pleading that I clung to him tighter then than I ever had or could. He kissed me, his hand holding my waist - but he didn't notice that I was rigid beneath his grasp. Didn't know that my thoughts were whirring, that my future wasn't as stable anymore as it used to be. That every touch he gave brought a new wave of memories his father had scarred me with, and that, when his eyes opened again, they were too familiar to me in all the wrong ways. I knew my thoughts were only forged from fear, but I shrank from him in a that way I'd never thought possible.

My heart sank.