After Life

49

He was screaming at me now, his voice booming. I stayed rooted in place, a cold chill sliding over my skin. I made no motions to reach to him, or to tell him to stop. I was afraid of the anger I saw from him, but I knew we were at a place that he needed to be honest with me. And if getting him this angry, if goading him was what it was going to take, then I was willing to take that chance.

"I've been going on fucking autopilot for five fucking years," he continued. "Just going through the motions. I chose a school as far away from home as I could find, because I didn't want to live with the looks of pity. I didn't want to have to deal with the neighbors coming to check on me, or bringing another God damn casserole." He snorted humorously, his eyes down now. He was picturing everything in his mind, playing along like a film from the recesses of his mind. And I let the film play. "Like a fucking casserole was going to make me forget my fucking parents were dead,"

I felt my breath stop as the words passed his lips. His eyes remained down, as if he had forgotten I was there. I again made no move towards him, letting him release everything he had kept inside. He needed this, maybe even more than we did.

"I came here to get away from it. I couldn't live in that house, look at those walls. I couldn't go to school in London, and be the kid whose parents were gone. I wanted anonymity, and there is no city better suited for disappearing into the crowd than New York. So I did. I hid, and did my classes, and made friends. A year in, some of my mates from home came over. They knew everything, but knew not to talk about it. No one talked about it. I went on dates, but no one special. I slept around, as if it would help. It didn't. I felt like I was just doing what I was supposed to do, but I didn't feel a fucking thing. I hid from everyone and everything. And it suited me fine. I wasn't living a real life. It was a sick, twisted afterlife I had created for myself. Some self imposed purgatory, but one that I welcomed."

He paused, his eyes rising to me with a glare. "Until you happened," he whispered. "You came along, with your intuitive nature and that fucking camera. You seemed to see right through my shit, and we hadn't even spoken yet. You kept showing up, and I just couldn't get you out of my fucking head. You pissed me off so bad, because even though you never asked, you knew. I felt like you knew everything just by fucking looking at me. And I didn't know if I wanted to fuck the shit out of you, or throw your fucking camera off the top of the Rock. You made me think, you made me feel. Mostly anger and frustration, but it was still better than the fucking nothing I had felt in years."

He stopped, his breathing heavy. His eyes were on me, but I wasn't completely sure he saw me. He was still trapped in some part of his mind, letting out things I had a feeling hadn't been released in half a decade.

"They were always so fucking careful," he said. "They never took chances. My mother damn near wrapped me in bubble wrap so I wouldn't get hurt. They were good people, they worked hard, they wore their seat belts. But it didn't fucking matter. Because all it took was one dark night, and one drunken asshole to run us off the road," I could see a sheen of sweat building on his forehead, and I wanted to reach out to him. I wanted to stop him, and tell him it was okay. But I couldn't seem to move. I couldn't bring my hands up, and touch him. "I don't remember it," he continued. "I was in the back, texting on my phone. I remember the sound of the tires screeching, but that was it. I woke up in the hospital, my whole body feeling like it was beaten with a baseball bat. I couldn't really see, my eyes were so swollen. I was in and out of it for a while. But the first real thing I remember was my Nan, sitting at my bedside, crying. She held my hand so tight, I thought she was going to break the only bones in me that hadn't been shattered."

I felt the tears sliding down my cheeks, my heart breaking into a million pieces. I could see, all too clearly, the picture he painted. Like a true master of words, he wrapped you up in his story. Only it wasn't a story. It was his life.