The Delinquent's Haven

Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

 

          As Haven ran out the front door, she could feel the tears that threatened her eyes just moments ago beginning to fall.  They ran slowly down her face, almost as if they were taunting her and warning her of the pain that would soon follow them.  

          Charlie called after her, demanding she return to the house at once.  Without much hesitation, Haven threw up the middle finger as she walked away and didn't even look back.  It was growing closer and closer to the town's curfew, but it didn't make much of a difference to Haven . . . and it probably never would. 

          She needed to get out of there and fast.  

          She was done being betrayed and lied to by the people she thought she could trust.  She had grown close to Darin and told him things that not even her own family knew about her; yet, that didn't seem to matter to him because he hadn't told her about something that would've made a difference.  No, she wouldn't have left him if she had known about his relationship with Yolanda sooner . . . but things she couldn't understand before would've started making sense then. 

          He yanked her heart out of her chest, threw it on the ground and shoved a stake through it.  

          This was the last time Haven was letting herself get hurt.  She was done being everyone's puppet.  Last time she checked, she wasn't attached to any strings and no one owned her.  She wans't a thing; she wouldn't be played with, anymore. 

          With a sigh, Haven began to run toward an alley way.  She knew the dangers of being out in the dark night alone, but she didn't care about them.  She didn't care if she was killed or raped or kidnapped or mugged.  

          She just didn't care about anything, anymore. 

          As she headed down the alley, a familiar voice called out to her.  She kept walked toward the voice and noticed a kid from her advanced art class.  He smiled sweetly at her as she neared him, and she nodded back a hello. 

          "I haven't seen you out of class very often," he said.  Haven could hear his voice was slightly slurred, causing his words to run together but she didn't care.  She's heard and done worse than drinking late at night.

          Besides, she didn't even care about this kid.  

          "Sorry, I'm a little drunk," he murmured before lighting up a cigarette and sticking it between his swollen lips.  

          "What do I care if you kill your liver?  It isn't my body," she said bitterly. 

          "Well, someone seems pissed off," he said with a chuckle, offering her a cigarette.  Even though Haven vowed to her father a year ago that she would stop smoking and harming herself, she grabbed the stick and popped the filtered end into her mouth. 

          Then, she gently grabbed the lighter from him and lit it. 

          "It's been two years since I've last smoked," she admitted, causing the boy to nod.  

          "You still pissed off?"  He asked with a humorless chuckle.  He wasn't slurring his words as badly as he was before, but maybe that's because he was sobering up slightly with the cigarette in his mouth . . . or he cared enough to have a conversation with someone that he was paying attention to moving his lips more.

          Whatever the case was, Haven didn't care.  

          "I wasn't pissed off," she said after a while before sighing.