Leave tonight or live and die this way...
by Waltzmatildah
He had a girlfriend one, or a friend who was a girl, someone to fuck, no strings attached. Looking back now it can be a little hard to tell the difference. She remembers blonde hair and straight white teeth and thinking she could be a model if she wanted. If she wasn't from Iowa.
Because models don't come from Iowa.
She always knew that.
He'd play their dad's guitar for her, the girl who was his friend. Stretched out across his bed, sun breaking through mismatched curtains to illuminate the blonde hair and the white teeth and her brother's fingers as they lazily strummed tunes she recognised, tunes she didn't.
She remembers sitting out in the hall, his bedroom door pushed to mostly closed, only sweet sound and dancing dust motes escaping through the crack. She'd close her eyes and imagine a boy, him, any boy, any body, singing to her...
... she's seen her share of devils in this angel town.
But everything's gonna be alright...
Rockabye, rockabye...
She could fall asleep to the sound of his voice.
When she's bored in class, and even, sometimes, when she's not, she types his name, one letter at at time, slow and deliberate, into google.
Hits enter and closes her eyes. Imagines what she'll see when she opens them again.
He saved a pregnant girl once. Pulled a hunk of concrete off her face. CNN told her that.
She doesn't think about why he didn't tell them himself.
He doesn't have a facebook page. But she supposes hot shot doctors don't have time for things like 'social networking' not when they have real networks to weave. And he chose to be gone years ago. She figures facebook's only going to bring him back so if she were him she'd steer clear too.
She'd stay gone from this shit hole.
Just give her half a chance.
A L E X space K A R E V
(delete)
D O C T O R space A L E X A N D E R space K A R E V
(enter)
Closed eyes, held breath.
She stands. Sends her chair flying back a few metres to crash into Jack or Theo or Elizabeth, who even cares?
Mr. Lamont stops speaking. He looks to be mid-sentence but she wasn't listening anyway so it makes no real difference in the end.
She reaches for her phone, grabs her wallet with the other hand and shoves it deep into the back pocket of her jeans.
He's looking at her now. It's not the first time she's caused a scene and it probably won't be the last, so he's not as surprised as he might have been.
She stares back. Opens her mouth to speak.
Closes it again without a word.
She runs then. Leaves her textbook flipped open to the incorrect page and her backpack where she'd discarded it under her chair almost an hour ago.
The classroom door sticks. She's seconds from kicking the fucking thing down when the handle finally gives, spitting her out into the vast hallway.
Empty save for rows and rows of lockers.
Standing sentry.
He sends them an envelope every month. Special delivery.
Meds for their mother. Sometimes a cheque. Or cash. She remembers, years ago now, or maybe not that long, she'd sit on the porch and wait for the mailman. See him round the corner at the end of their street and painstakingly make the journey to their letterbox, a wooden rectangle in desperate need of paint, a wobbly, hand drawn 37 scrawled in thick black ink announcing their place in this world.
She'd hold her breath and leap thirteen steps along the concrete, smile forcefully at the mailman while he shuffled through envelopes and postcards and packages and bills and just hurry the fuck up already, mister...
This time, she'd think, this time he'll mention me. Or send me a letter. Or a birthday card for next week, next month, next year.
And she'd pretend she didn't give a flying fuck when nothing ever came.
There is cash under her mother's bed. She's shocked at how much.
She grabs fistfulls of it, stuffs in deep in her overnight bag. Thinks twice.
Pulls some of it back out.
Clothes, apples, a can of coke, her toothbrush.
She's missing things, forgetting them.
But she can't think straight enough to care.
She takes the I35 north before taking a left on the I90 and heading west.
West, west, west.
She's never even been across the state line and her heart skips a beat when the signs say Welcome to Minnesota... South Dakota... Wyoming...
The roads are straight and wide. Radio reception splutters in and out. The CD player died months ago and she never bothered to get it fixed.
Her iPod keeps her company until that dies too.
The symbolism is blinding. She slides the car to a stop on a side road and scrambles into the gutter. Dry heaves in the dust.
Fear, regret, uncertainty, rage.
Her cell phone bleats miserably on the passenger seat. Her inbox quickly fills.
She didn't tell anyone where she was going.
Or why.
They'd only have talked her out of it.
Aaron talks shit about him all the time. Her mother thinks he's down the shops getting milk and potatoes. Or busking in the mall. Or still in juvie. Depends on the day, the week, the month.
It's all she can do not to launch herself at them, scratch their eyes out with her fingernails.
She goes cold instead. Clamps it down with a quiet 'shut the fuck up' that works. Most of the time.
She runs out of money in Bozeman. As in, literally runs out of money.
Their dad's guitar is slung across the backseat. She pawns it for gas money and has to stop at the side of the road because she can't see shit and her mascara is a fucking mess.
Everything's gonna be alright,
Rockabye, rockbye...
She could fall asleep to the sound of his voice, once upon a time.
In the heady hours between midnight and four am, with the black of the highway meeting the black of the night, she thinks that maybe he's already dead. That she will be too late.
She contemplates swinging the car into a u-turn, slows the wheels to barely a crawl.
She thinks her dad might be dead too, but she's not allowed to talk about him and she's not allowed to say his name so she doesn't know for sure.
She doesn't know for sure.
And so she keeps on driving. Eyes on the stars.
She used to buy magazines in the absence of family photos. Cut out the pictures of brothers and sisters and moms and dads and slide them into the plastic pockets she had hidden between the mattress and the box spring of her bed.
She set them all on fire with a zippo lighter last spring. Watched as thick smoke curled lazily between her fingers.
Lit a joint from the embers and stopped pretending.
She pulls over to sleep. It's the middle of the day but she figures it's safer than a truckstop in the dead black of night.
She buys fries from the McDonalds on the corner. It's all she can afford and she eats them one at a time. Resists the urge to shove them all in her mouth together. Ketchup and salt and grease and potato.
She dreams. Blood and screaming and running around barefoot in her backyard.
It wasn't all bad, she doesn't think.
Home.
She doesn't remember him leaving.
Just knows that he left.
Never came back.
Seattle is wet.
Wet and grey. She steals a wallet at a bus station. Scruffs the notes and an Amex card and hands the rest in to a passing cop.
She's trying harder these days.
At least there's that.
She zips her coat and tucks her chin in. Shivers violently.
She knows it's not just the weather.
The lobby is huge. Intimidating as fuck. Polished floors and famous artwork on the walls.
She learned, years ago, that if you need to get in somewhere you probably shouldn't be, just act like you know what you're doing and where you're going and people are unlikely to question you.
It works, for the most part.
The lady at the reception desk looks her up and down pointedly.
Bitch.
But she thanks her for the information nonetheless, rides the elevator to the seventh floor. Weaves her way to room 109 with one hand pressed to the wall and her eyes on the toes of her faded converse all stars.
The article was over a week old. The article about the shooter. About the fucking psycho that lost his shit and put bullets in anything that moved.
Put bullets in her brother.
The article was over a week old and she has no idea what to expect now that she's here.
She remembers.
He was always angry at something. Someone. Teachers, social workers, people in the street.
Her.
Mostly though, she thinks he was angry at himself.
When they fight Aaron says she's just like him. He thinks it's an insult. Means it to be one. She screams when he says it, rages that he doesn't know shit, takes her shoes off, one by one, to throw at his retreating back.
But it's only because she knows it's a lie. She could never be like him, no matter how hard she tried. She's not smart enough or strong enough.
She's no where near brave enough.
His room is empty. There are flowers, which seems weird. She wonders if she should have bought grapes. She read that once.
You're supposed to bring grapes.
She forgot to bring grapes.
A door to the side swings open.
And there he is. Older. Not as big as she remembers.
Alex.
His face creases into a frown. Confusion splashed like neon. He doesn't recognise her and she can't for the life of her think why she ever imagined that he would.
Fuck this shit.
She backs up a step. Her head connects with a crack, skull on door frame. He's attached to something. Literally attached to it. Tubes and machines and oh God, I'm gonna be sick.
Bandages wrap his chest, mummy-like and surreal. He's stopped moving. Is just standing there, staring at her. His mouth open in this way that tells her he's finally figured his shit out.
Just as she's losing hers.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
She finds her voice. Stammers out a string of apologies that she's not entirely sure she means and turns to run.
Run.
She bounces off something soft, something hard, she's not quite sure. A human chest. Her head snaps back and her hands leap to her nose and a scream builds, hot and tight in her throat.
Run, run, run...
But arms fold around her from behind. Insistent and sure, and she clamps down on an overwhelming desire to struggle because a fucking psycho nut job put a bullet in his chest and she refuses to be one more thing that hurts him.
No matter how bad he hurts her.
"Amber."
And she always could fall asleep to the sound of his voice.
Once upon a time.