Find Her, Fix Him

18 | Broken people break people

18 | Broken people break people

~KHAN~

She isn't wearing any shoes. I notice that, as she walks away from me.

She must have lost them at some point in Matt's house, and forgotten to go back for them. Maybe she didn't realise. A voice in my numbed mind tells me that I should go and find them for her. To call after her, and tell her...

What? Tell her what?

I watch her disappear into Matt's house, and I tell myself that I should go after her. Even if I can't think of anything to say, I can't just let the girl who is living in my house make her way back there alone, especially barefoot. And in that dress she's wearing- it's thin, short. She'll be absolutely freezing. Does she even know her way back to Emeh's from here? I can't be sure.

She's been to Matt's house before, stupid. Probably a hundred times, back when they were dating.

Thinking of this just throws up a mental image of Matt kissing Lilo barely ten minutes ago, and that just makes my chest pang for a reason that I can't place. Instead, I will my feet to move, to step forward. To head back into the house, out of this freezing cold. A guy with any ounce of decency in him would head after Lilo, apologise for upsetting her and make sure she got home safely. Something tells me that she wouldn't be happy to see me, but that shouldn't be an excuse. I brought her here, and everything that happened tonight was down to me doing that. I bring shit upon myself.

My mind is as numb as my body is, but not from cold. My mouth is still tingling with the sensation of Lilo's lips against mine. I remember how warm they were, and how they felt- they felt innocent. They felt like something fragile, something that was so precious and so breakable. And as she pressed herself to me, I was aware- so aware- of how broken the girl who was kissing me truly was. I thought of what her life had been like for two years- a life of caring for someone who was meant to care for her, and never putting herself first. I thought of how easily she had snapped inside earlier in my bedroom, when she was just crying and crying.

It took everything in me to keep her together, to hold her tight enough to stop her from falling apart.

It makes me wince to think of how much I wanted to kiss her back just now. It took everything inside me not to let myself.

I've learned the hard way that you can't expect broken people to fix themselves for you.

I don't see how anyone could ever understand, because I don't understand myself. It isn't fair. It isn't fucking fair that whenever I love something, it gets taken away from me. My parents and even though my sister is with me in person, it seems like I lost her on the journey to England too. And now a girl who is more complicated inside than anything else I've ever come across in my life wants to kiss me, and all I can think about is how easy it would be for her to be taken from me too.

Life is a bitch.

I want to talk to my father.

Obviously, I can't do that. Instead, I pull myself together- sort of- and head back into my friend's house, the wave of music and heat hitting me in the face like a slap to the senses. I've stood in the doorway for a good half-minute before my brain kick-starts into action and reminds me what I'm here to do. It takes me about thirty seconds to locate the familiar pair of silver shoes, kicked behind a large plant pot and stained with beer. I hold them limply in my hands, blinking down at them almost without seeing them.

Go after her, Khan.

I weave in and out of hot, sweating bodies, the base thumping in my ears and vibrating through the floor, and cover my eyes to avoid witnessing a makeout session that is extremely impassioned and pretty fucking disgusting at the bottom of the stairs. I'm pretty sure that that guy is eating this girl alive- or is she doing the eating? Either way, it's vomit-inducing. I've reached the front door, having been only foot-trampled twice, and am about to push it open and head out into the cold night again when a voice stops me from behind.