Chapter 1
The earliest waking moments of the morning are the most dangerous.
It’s when you’re half awake and half asleep that a smell you wanted to forget returns. A familiar voice whispers it’s way back into your ear once more. And a touch you should never know again creeps through your skin, with no intention of stopping until it hits bone.
I feel warm sun on my face. It urges me to fight falling back into the purgatory of my mind by opening my eyes, however, my body has other plans. Unconsciously I turn quickly, facing away from the light to dive back into the waters I know I shouldn’t be in.
My mind manifests him.
I feel his existence press onto the bottom of my mattress and into my heart. In one swift movement, he crawls up and over me. He presses himself into my backside and encases my figure into his with ease. His fingers play with my hair and he leans in closer, resting his chin into the curve of my neck. I wish to drown myself into this moment. Explore this moment and even though I know I shouldn’t, my entire being demands more from this moment-so he responds.
A large hand drapes over my upper body and cups my breast tenderly. Kisses follow like a snake, starting from my neck and descending to my waist. A stifled moan escapes my mouth as I feel his hand travel from my breast to stomach, stomach to hips, hips to the inner thigh. He is gentle but is fierce, he is calculated but unpredictable, he is my love but also my pain. And he is here but he is not.
A high pitched series of beeps unapologetically wakes me and reality forces my eyes open.
Sounds. Too many fucking sounds. My head is piercing and my mouth is like sand.
“Bzzt..bzzt….” Static follows the alarm. My clock searches desperately for a radio signal as I sit up slowly grumbling under my breath and clutching my head. “Ugh, fuck.”
Traffic is blaring viciously through the closed windows of my room. “Bzzt… bzzt. -That was…Bzzt- The newest release by Calling Dahlia. Are you obsessing over their new album like our whole station? Man, their so-”
“Jesus, shut up!” Annoyed I slam my hand onto my clock rendering the room only to be filed with the noises of the city outside the walls.
“Long night?” A new voice enters, not from a clock, not from my dreams, but the meek devil who wears custom Valentino: Carson Walker.
“What is it.” I hiss, fingers massaging my temples. I look at him standing at my doorless room entrance and wished for a second I was able to shoot lasers out of my eye and kill him. A grin fights with my face to appear at the thought of him melted, Valentino and all.
“Who drinks on a Wednesday night?” Carson asks as he strides into my room. His suit is a sleek navy blue suit with a salmon pocket square. Extra, as always.
“A teenager,” I reply dryly.
“Ok re-phrase. What kind of teenager drinks on a Wednesday night by themselves?” He asked planting himself parallel from the end of my bed.“-And also drinks all my $700 dollar 1940 Noir?” He attempts a stern face but falls short on nothing less than an expression of undiluted pity.
“One who decided to get drunk and read Faulkner from a more… informed perspective.” I couldn’t contain myself and had to slip a chuckle at my own words. I’m hilarious.
Carson raised an eyebrow, his look of pity unwavering. “Was there a joke in that? Am I supposed to understand your book worm jokes?” He stares at me with intensity and I stare back weakly. “You know, because he was infamously a drunk? A genius poet, but a drunk?” I grunt. Carson returns the explanation with an equally as blank stare as the former. I sigh. Can he just leave me alone or at least get me some water? “Carson, why are you here? Just because I don’t have a door doesn’t mean you can just pop in here whenever you like, $700 bottle-of-whatever or not.” I say, aggravated.
“I just wanted to ask,” He starts back equally as aggravated, “Are you going to class?”
“Today yes. I need to hand in an English assignment.” I run my fingers through my hair only to stop at a really knotted part. Carson looks around the room, his eyes stop at a hairbrush on my dresser hidden between two cardboard boxes.
“I don’t appreciate how optional school is to you. I don’t pay thousands of dollars a month to have you treat it like a community centre.” He goes to retrieve the brush. “And it’s been five months, can you unpack all your shit?” Carson gestures a hand to all the boxes around his feet atop and near the dresser where he stood.
“You pay that school thousands of dollars to have their mouths shut and for me to enter a school year mid-semester, in my last year.” I turn around on my bed having my back face Carson. I feel the bed surface fold inwards behind me as Carson sits and gathers my long tangled mess of hair into one hand. “-And I refuse to treat a space as my room when it doesn’t have a fucking door. So to answer your early question, no I will not unpack because I don’t give a shit.”
Carson combs my hair and there is silence. The sound of brush scraping through bed head and the honks of Manhattan traffic are deafening in the absence of Carson’s voice.
Time passes and the brush glides through my hair with ease. Carson stops combing my hair and stands up. I turn around to face him.
He stands so tall over me, as he has my whole entire life. My big brother Carson so cool, so successful, so handsome, so put together. My admiration for him has never wavered. A man who’s had nothing ever handed to him, who works hard and has only ever put out love into this world does not deserve a sister like me. He does not deserve this babysitting job, and he does not deserve to put his life on hold because I can’t live my own.
Carson looks at my eyes full of loss. “Start giving a shit.” He says gravely.
“Or what?” I challenge. My defence is on high. Why am I so stubborn? Why am I doing this?
“Or we’ve all failed you, and I’m sorry.” The pain in his eyes makes my body prickle with pangs of unbearable sadness.
Please. Don’t give up on me.
