Pocket Person

1: The Sink ~ CALLIE

[A/N: Please know that I do not have a divorced family, nor do I self-harm. Even though this story is based off my life it is based off of my friend helping me through my depression.]

I trudge home from school, tugging my woolen hat down farther over my cold ears. My gray coat, which used to fit me like a glove, now hangs loosely around my skinny frame. The only splash of color on this slushy, dreary, cold November day is the bright pink-and-blue-and-purple plaid backpack that I barely have the strength to carry.

Normally, Luke would be in my pocket, and he'd be telling stories or complaining about things he really doesn't mind, to keep me distracted. But since it's almost negative, I made him stay home. His tiny body gets cold and sick very easily, and I want him healthy.

Since he isn't here, there's no one to keep me from my thoughts. And they aren't good thoughts at all.

Every single day at school, they push me around, tease me, hurt me. Usually it's just verbal torment, but today one of them punched me in the side. Hard. I'm already coughing nonstop, but now it hurts. There's a massive bruise spreading from the middle of my right hipbone along my side and well up my rib cage, but if Mum asks I fell and hit my side on the table.

Luke won't buy it, though. He knows about the bullying - Mum doesn't - and even if he didn't, I can't lie to him. He knows me too well.

I found Luke half-frozen on my windowsill when I was six years old. I brought him inside, warmed him up, gave him some food and a bath and a home. And he never left. Mum knows about him, and he likes to try and help any way he can as payment for letting him stay with us. Mostly by retrieving small objects that fall behind furniture or into cracks.

Luke has soft, thin brown hair and blue eyes. My eyes are also blue, but my hair is a deep, rich chocolatey-amber color. It's curly and wavy and wild and has a mind of its own sometimes, and it comes a few centimeters past my shoulders.

After ten more minutes of walking through slush and driving rain, I make it to my house. It's painted a sunshine yellow, with a white roof and porch, but inside it's dilapidated. A cheerful veneer masking an interior that's falling to pieces - just like me.

There's a strange black van in the driveway - must be Dad's visiting day.

Dad walked out on me and Mum when I was five, about a year before I found Luke. He visits once every four months or so, and on my birthday and Christmas. That's about it.

I manage to slip into the house and up the stairs before Mum and Dad notice I'm even home. I run up the rickety wooden stairs and pull down the stairs to the attic. They clatter down with a bang.

"Calypso? Callie, honey, is that you?" Mum calls.

"Come on, Callie," my father says. I can hear the taunt in his voice when he says my name. "I want to see my favorite girl."

Yeah, I think. Favorite girl to beat when you're drunk.

I sigh, sliding my backpack off and leaving it by the attic steps.

My father gives me a hug, and even though he's sober I can smell the whiskey and the cigarette smoke.

"So how have you been?" he asks, ruffling my hair.

"Fine," I mumble.

"Been good to your mother, girl?" he demands.

"Course, dad."

"How's school been?"

"Fantastic."

After a few more pointless questions, I leave the living room, pick up my backpack, and climb up to the attic.

"Callie!" A small voice sounds the minute my curly head pops into the hatch. Luke is sitting on the sill of the window seat. Rain spatters against the windowpane, each raindrop at least as big as Luke from the waist down.

I carefully place my backpack into it's assigned spot, place my heavy textbooks on the dresser, and hang my coat on one of the pegs nailed to the wall.

My room is sparse, with a small bed, a dresser, and several shelves. The shelves are filled with books, notebooks, small figurines, DVDs, and boxes, and there are drawing and paintings on the walls. A small television and DVD player sit in the dresser.

Luke climbs down onto the fraying red seat cover from the sill and stands there as I approach the window seat. I climb onto the worn-out cushion and tug the sleeves of my ratty green jumper over my wrists.

"Callie, not again," he whispers. I don't say anything, but I cradle his tiny body in my palms and hum a Disney song quietly.

"Cals, look," Luke says, pointing to my arms. Red spots have begun to dot the sleeves of my jumper.

"You need to wash your arms, Callie. And you need to stop."

"I'm - I'm sorry, Luke," I whisper, dropping my gaze. Luke climbs into my shoulder and clings to the fabric as I travel to the small bathroom attached to my attic room.

Luke sits on the edge of the sink while I wash my arms. After I dry them and put on fresh bandages, I turn off the tap and turn around. But I turn so fast that I knock Luke into the sink.

Luke slides down the slippery porcelain and lodges himself firmly in the drain. From the waist down, he's completely obscured. He's very firmly stuck.

Luke presses his palms into the sink, grunting and trying to push himself out. A steady metallic pinging sounds as he kicks his legs.

I bring my hands up to cover my mouth as I smile, then giggle, then burst out laughing.

"It's not funny!" he huffs, trying to push himself out of the drain.

"It is, though, cause you're stuck in a drain!" I laugh.

I reach into the sink to pull him out but he smacks my hands with his tiny ones.

"No! I'll do it myself," he grumbles.

"Whatever you say..."

Fifteen minutes later, I'm sitting cross-legged on the window seat reading a thick book of fairy tales from China when I hear Luke's voice.

"Alright! I give up! Help me out of here!"

Laughing, I bookmark the page and cross to there bathroom. I easily pull Luke's tiny, wet figure out of the drain and wipe him off with a towel. Luke looks slightly pissed off that I left him in the sink.

"You left me in the sink," he grumbles.

"You were so certain you could get out of it yourself, though," I smile.

"Well, at least my predicament has cheered you up, eh?" he says, smiling at me through his floppy bangs.

"Yeah, it has. Thanks for being tiny and stuck in a drain," I laugh.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Luke grumbles. "Haven't you got homework or something?"

But before I do my homework, I sketch a picture of Luke struggling in the drain and tack it to the wall.