ANGEL BLUE [1]

LEAD 16: drops of lead

Me:
I still have your tie, damn it.  

      It was almost one in the morning and Blake had been in bed for about half an hour, but Sam seemed to be almost as awake as me because he replied straight away.

PRAT:
I told you to keep it.

Me:
But it’s your dad’s…I don’t want to taint the sentimentality of it.

PRAT:
So? I gave it to you because I want you to have it.

Me:
It has personal value to you. I’ll just buy my own tie or staunch one of dad’s.

PRAT:
And? I’m giving it to you as a present. Think about it, when was the last time someone gave you something that wasn’t a punch or a threatening word?

      I stared at my phone screen, two months ago, Sam said that we were the same. From what Nikita revealed, Sam came from a home just as broken as mine. He sat on top of a mountain of barriers and walls of his own, expecting nobody to climb them, but I was up for the challenge. His father had given him the tie three years ago, around the same time when my Mum actually said she loved me, that was the best gift I could ever be given―but it was gone, it was ruined, I broke it.

Me:
But it’s YOUR tie.

PRAT:
That’s the point.

Me:
Please don’t speak to me like a riddle.

      The tears still fell but they were softer accompanied by silent sniffles and whimpers. It was funny, Sam had been ignoring his Diablo gene for years but could see what my family couldn’t―what my friends never knew. Sam could see me breaking, and he knew I would fall. He wanted his tie to catch me.

PRAT:
Just accept it. 

Me:
A coffee would’ve been better.

PRAT:
Goodnight Blue, loosen that tie of yours.

      I didn’t respond, mainly because I didn’t know how to. Nobody had really been so generous to me before, meaning-wise that is. I’ve had cool presents before like my Desert Eagle .50, a promotion and a boxset of crime shows but I never knew that a tie would mean more than all of that.

      It was almost too good to be true; something inside me urged that I would break something so gentle, like I always do.

      • • •

      I’m on my stomach and pain engulfs me. My forehead is pressed against the soft carpet of Blake’s floor and I can hear his muffled footsteps, I think he’s wearing socks and there’s distant banging on the door. I feel like I’m suspended underwater, my limbs are like liquid. My cheeks are still damp and I try to open my eyes but all I see is Blake’s carpet up close.

      I then get the metallic taste of blood from my mouth and I inwardly groan, please tell me I didn’t seizure in my sleep. I don’t find out because the door is flung open and there’s yelling, to my ears everything’s distorted but from the whiff of vanilla latte, Sam is here.

      How does Sam know that I stayed at Blake’s? How does he ever remember Blake’s address? How. Before Sam can lift me up, I jolt back as if someone used a defibrillator on me. My shoulders collide with the glass windows. I wince as the sting passes through my spine, rattling my bones. Embarrassed, I scrub at my nose and mouth to find fresh blood―when I see Nikita; I’m going to stab a syringe in him.