We Watched the City Burn

Chapter 26

Aurora stares at me, her eyes wide, and pain clear in them. So clear that I have to look away; this was why I never told anyone anything, they always treated me like I was made of glass, some poor kid whose mother ditched him with his abusive father. Granted, that was my reality, but that’s exactly it. It was mine. No one else’s, mine. I didn’t want someone to spoon-feed me clichés about how things would get better, or god knows what else they might come up with.

The last thing I wanted to hear from Aurora was anything of these things; I didn’t want her to feel worse about my shitty life than she already did. But, I knew there was no blocking the floodgates once I broke them open, so I braced myself for the impact of emotion, outrage and the female urge to nurture.

“Matt…I’m so sorry, why didn’t you say anything?”  Aurora’s voice cracked, soft and sweet like splintered stained glass. I could feel it dug under my skin, cutting deeper into my soft, damaged core.

“I haven’t told anyone, not until now; never saw a reason to. It’s my life, I have a right to keep some parts of it to myself. Now, stop looking at me like that, let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.” My own voice was far stronger than I ever hoped it could be, like it was really know big deal that my mother had left me here. Like I had come to terms with it, with her abandonment; like it didn’t still kill me every second of every fucking day. 

I should get an Oscar.

I pulled the bag over my shoulder and headed down the hallway, relieved that her mother had taken my pile of text books out to the car before I dropped the bomb; Aurora would drop a subject if she knew I was done talking about it, but moms got wild when they caught wind of another mother leaving behind her baby. They turned into monsters and set out on a warpath for the negligent woman, ready to tear her limb from limb.

I didn’t need a mom on a war path; I just needed to create some semblance of normalcy in my topsy-turvy life.

Aurora silently followed me out of the house, waiting next to me while I locked and put the spare key back in its hiding place. I’d like to say that leaving my home was hard, that packing up my things made me scared. I’d like to feel sad about the fact that my father was in jail, and that I’d have to testify against him at some point. All of those were things I’d been thinking about for years; things I knew were technicalities and cold, stone requirements.

I didn’t bother me at all, climbing into the car and driving away from the howling, seething ghosts of my past, away from the memories I had and the secrets I was clinging to so recently. My horizons were broader now; I was heading in a different direction. The teeth of that past had no grip on me now.