quixotic. ↣ d.h.

xxvii: lights

dan returned home late that night with a dopey smile dimpling his frostbitten cheeks. he stumbled through the front door without taking his usual care to be quiet, mind wrapped up in thoughts of cold kisses and eyes the color of the snow-dipped pine tree that he had been sitting under with zoe just that afternoon. for a short eternity, dan had completely forgotten about adrian and his father and the entire concept of sadness.
but it all came crashing back to him at the voice that boomed from the top of the stairs.
"where have you been?" his father demanded, an alcohol-stenched blur as he surged down the steps and fisted dan's shirt in his calloused hands.
"i-i..." dan's words were lost somewhere between his mind and his mouth, melted on the tongue that still tasted of the warm chocolate chip cookies he'd been eating at zoe's house mere minutes ago.
"answer me when i ask you something!" his father shouted and shook dan, who nodded limply. "your brother has been throwing up all evening, and you didn't even bother to show up," the burly man sneered.
"i didn't know," dan tried to defend. "i would have been here right away if i just-"
"your excuses have no place here," his father growled. he looked at dan with an inexplicable disgust in his mud-colored eyes, chapped lips pursing as he shoved his son.
dan stumbled, back hitting a nearby side table with an unnerving crack, but he sprang up quickly and took off in the direction of the front door. his father tried to beat him there once he realized what was happening, but the blood in his veins was heavy with liquor, and his feet moved like dead weights. dan swung the door open wide and raced down the cracked concrete steps, his father right behind him.
"keep this behavior up and you'll get what's coming to you!" his father howled out into the unforgiving wind of the midnight hour. the ghostly apparition of a full moon floated in the clouds above his head, casting his face in a sinister glow.
dan squinted his eyes against the onslaught of cold wind and the salty tears that were beginning to flood his eyes. he couldn't think straight, couldn't see straight. his back was throbbing in pain.
but his feet carried him far away from that haunting house, chest heaving and head spinning, towards the one thing that could possibly help him to escape.
he didn't slow until the twinkling lights of zoe's house came into view.