The Delivery Boy(boyxboy)

Chapter 11: Car Rides and Blood Types.

With hatred, and anger, and regret, and disappointment. With everything she didn't love, with everything she wanted nothing to do with, with everything she couldn't even bear to touch.

I knew it. I knew it all like the back of my hand, like the birthmark behind my ear, like the color of Abby's eyes.

I knew, and I still hoped.

I still hoped she loved me. After everything, after so many years and so many things and so, so much pain, there was still a part of me that clung onto the fact that whatever I had with her once wasn't just an illusion – that my mother truly loved me, that she made a mistake and now she was trying to find me. That one day, I'd open the door and she'd be standing there with her arms wide open and for a moment, I'd become the four year old she used to pull out of the bathtub and I'd forget the smell of alcohol which still lingered on my skin.

But it never happened.

It never happened.

When my mother left, she took a part of me with her. I didn't know which part it was, but somewhere deep inside me ached with its absence, the insides of my bones throbbed with the emptiness. She was my flesh and she was my blood and she was the warmth I didn't have at night, and she was the uncooked dinner on the table, and she was the one thing in the world I hated so much, I loved.

And I hated myself for it.

I hated myself for loving a monster, who didn't love me back.

I hated it, because I knew what it was like to love it, and have it love me.

-

I flipped through a book as I leaned against my locker, waiting for Brooke and wondering how Abby looked when she woke up, rosy with sleep.

All I had to do was think about Abby, and suddenly I would be overcome with this urge to freeze certain details about her in amber: her munchkin voice, or her iridescent pink fingernails or the xylophone of her laughter, or the way she smiled into my eyes. Every bit of love I had inside of me- it was all centered towards her. She was my entire universe.

Losing my mother and father had been bearable, only because I had had Abby. Abby had been there through it all, through those nights when I couldn't sleep, through those days when I cried all day in bed. She had been there with me through all of my pain, and despite not being able to understand most of it, she had shared it with me. She had carried my burden. She continued to carry it every day, without question.

And that was why Abby was the one thing I couldn't lose, ever. She was the one person in the entire world I was willing to do anything for, even if it meant that I had to sacrifice everything I had left.

Commotion coming from the other side of the hallway interrupted my thoughts, my eyes flitting over to see how people had shrunk into their little groups, whispering. I felt a queasy, crummy feeling collect in my stomach as I looked at the people, words filling the air with murmurs and secrets. It was almost as if a storm was about to come, and I had a feeling I knew its name.

Right on cue.

Xavier Alexander walked in through the doors, his head hung lower than usual, his stance lacking the confidence and sophistication he usually carried with him. He wore a long, brown coat which managed to cover a bit of his violently bruised knuckles and his hair stuck out everywhere, completely disheveled and uncombed.

Everyone fell completely silent as he went over to his locker and opened it, the air tense and heavy with questions and accusations. I found myself holding my own breath as the scene played out in front of me, almost like it had come out of a cliché high school movie.