Chapter 27, Tears Flow Like Rivers

“Dude! What the f...”

“Don’t even look at me.” I sat on the pavement in front of the Ford with my eyes red, swollen from the little tears I cried. My mind was tired of all the thinking, of being sorry. “Can we just get going? I’ll drive cause you’re clearly drunk as hell!”

“I can drive dick face! I don’t even slur yet. You missed the best orgies of your life man. This one...”

“Shut up! I want to go home, or I’ll walk.” I stood up from where I sat and started walking passed the car.

“Get in the car, I’ll drop you off, but then you have to tell me what the f**k is wrong with you.”

The moon was shining bright now with a couple of stars around it, but mostly clouds covered the night sky. 01:09 flashed on the dashboard of the car and the speedo meter reaching 90 km/h.

“Amy was one of the nude girls man,” I said after a long time. The silence over took the car, my voice unwelcome. “Amy man, our Amy.”

“F**k.” I could hear the unease in his voice.

“I know man; this is so just �" s**t.”

“I didn’t see her, if that is comforting in any ways.”

I felt that same hand releasing my heart again when he said it. She must have been scared off by my sudden appearance in her ‘den’. It kind-of felt good that she wasn’t there. Tomorrow I’m going to go to her house and try again, to get her away from this ‘drug-sex-lies’ life. I could let the one I loved so much ruin her life like that.

“Don’t think so hard, you look just wrong.”

“What do you think? Should I try and get her back?”

“Are you asking me?” he asked in a sarcastic voice over the steering wheel.

“Yeah, I asked you, God help us for that,” I laughed for the first time that night. But it was something more like a chuckle rather than a laugh.

“Go for her man, she made you happy; from one s**t head to another.”

We drove into the driveway quietly, or that was what we thought. The light in my mother’s room flickered on and the outside door opened up with haste. In the frame of the door was the figure of a slim body; only the silhouette. Her shoulders hung like life was on them, but I couldn’t see her face. I already knew how it would look like anyways.

“Is this the time to come home?” she stood just outside my door. I climbed out, sober. “And you must be drunk! Just like your father used to be, the old s**t.”

“You leave Dad out of this. He didn’t nothing wrong! You made him drink. You made him kill himself. And for your info, I didn’t touch any alcohol.” I forgot about the beer that I had before I saw Amy but that didn’t even matter. I was almost eighteen.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Mam, he didn’t drink anything,” John said in a very ‘up class’ voice, one I had never heard come out of the dirty mouth of his. She just looked at him with a stare that made him start the car. He closed the window and said with haste “Bye man, do what you have to!” and went off.

I walked past her into the light coming out of the house. The light was sharp and hurt my eyes before they could become used to the light. My stomach made a loud noise and I felt the nausea settling back into my body. The door behind me slammed close and my pants literally flew off my body. My bed was cold, but that was just what I needed. My body was stiff and warm with pain. The instant my head hit the cushion I felt the heaviness of my eyelids. The fell close on top of each other and I didn’t even dream that night. I slept like a rock for the first time in months. I was in heaven.

“What do you want?”

Her voice was soft and non-violent.

“Please can we talk, I need to talk.” My voice was a hoarse whisper in the blowing wind.

“Come in,” Amy said confident without any emotion on her face. The door closed behind us closing the gushing winds out. Her room was on the second floor of the huge house. The second door on the left had three colourful letters stuck to it. A.M.Y. The door opened slowly with a creak and closed again. Her windows were open ajar with the wind blowing the curtains up into things that looked like ballet dancers. Her hair hung over her shoulders covering the straps of her top while she sat on the bed with her legs crossed. I looked over at her to see what she wanted to do when our eyes met.

“How are you doing?” I asked out of the blue.

“I don’t know, is that why you came? To ask me how I was doing?” she said with force.

My hands started to dampen as she spoke with the same tone as always when she gets annoyed. I saddled up the horse now I must ride it, like my dad always said. I almost smiled when I thought about him, but remembered just in time that if I smile, she won’t ever take me serious again.

“Look, I know what I did was wrong, and you know that I am sorry. But doing drugs and selling your body? Do you think that would make things better? I helped you out of it and now you’re back into it,” I looked through the window while talking to her. Did she even listen or care that I cared for her?

“Jason, you won’t understand. You don’t know anything.” She looked away as she talked in a voice that I could hear was near to crying. I still felt the same about her even after what I did. But I knew, on the bottom of my stomach, that she didn’t feel the same. She hated me.

“I still care Amy, don’t you believe me? Or do you just give a damn about it?” I dropped the bomb and waited in angst to hear what she said back. Time felt as if someone slowed it down, and I felt the tension rising in the room.

After what felt like five minutes she answered in a whisper, “I loved you. You were my life, and you know that you saved me from that hell. But I thought I could trust you, with my life. But I was wrong.”

I didn’t answer right after she me to proses that. She never told me in the relationship that I was her life. She never said it, but I was too selfish to have realised it. I was and idiot.

“Sorry. S**t.” My heart was wrenched from where it laid beating. I felt my breath being taken away as my phone rang in my pocket. Loud screams from the ringtone evaporated the tense feeling in the room, but I also felt the connection between us faded away. God why, why now? I walked out of her room into the corridor and picked up the phone.

“Jason! It’s Michelle. I wanted to hear if you want to have a drink or two with me over at the beach? Lauren and I were going to go, but the she said I should bring you. Oh crap, I’m talking too much. Sorry,” she said with a lot of giggle including with her high pitched voice. I couldn’t help but smile when she talked. My voice was suddenly swept away and all that I could produce from my throat was ‘uh-ah-yeah’. After a few seconds of the awkward words searching moment in my head, I told them to meet me at Al’s place on the beach. I put the phone down with a smile and realised I was still with Amy.

God you’re a saviour!

I ran into the room with the smile still on my face when I had the idea to ask Amy to the beach with me. But I kind of knew what she would have said even without asking her. The answer hung in the thick air in her room.

“Would you like to go to the beach with me? For an ice-cream or something?”

“Are you serious? Are you really asking me this?”

I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I wasn’t prepared for this situation; the internet never told me what to do when this happened. “Sorry, it was stupid and selfish of me asking...”

“I would love to,” a smile like I used to see on her face emerged. I felt the tension escape my body when I saw it. I tried to attempt to smile but it was futile.

“Do you know a Michelle?” I asked her when she climbed off her bed. “She asked me to come, she had a friend as well, and I thought we can go.”

“Nope,” she said in a friendly voice.

I forgot about the beat-up when we talked again. I forgot totally about everything she did to me, because what I did was much worse. I forgave her with her not even asking. I was in love all over again on the girl that stole my heart.

We walked down in beach road where the two girls stood on the pavement. When they turned around I saw it was Michelle and my heart gave away. I felt it jump in my body, not from excitement but guilt for some reason. I knew that she liked me; or rather I thought that I knew that she liked me. While I thought about that Michelle, Amy and the other girl, Lauren, hugged each other. Was I dreaming or was it real.

“Do you guys know each other?” I asked in a confused voice. “I thought you said you don’t know her Amy?”

“We were in the same kinder garden and I think until grade three, then she went to another school, right?” she looked at Michelle with a confirming tilt of her head. They both smiled brightly and I felt the guilt ease of whilst they talked and giggled. I sat on the roads edge with my head in my knees.

I felt an arm spread around my back. The touch was soft and I knew it was Amy.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in her calm voice. I couldn’t help but smile.

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