Strangers in the Storm ✔

Chapter 32: Order

DAMIEN 

As the sun came up completely and the town came alive once again, Damien walked through the streets. He thought he would go back to his apartment or to scream at his father, but instead, he found himself going to his mother's place.

After the funeral, he didn't call Maya to come clean up because he was busy getting mind-numbingly drunk, and no one as cleaned the house since.

Now, still partially drunk, at 8AM, Damien staggered to the kitchen and began washing the dishes. One by one, forks, spoons and plates found themselves clean. Damien scrubbed the food remains in silence, replaying his entire life in his head.

He thought about where everything went wrong, but he couldn't find the exact moment. Somewhere, somehow, he got screwed up. Maybe he truly was an entitled, spoiled brat who threw a tantrum every time he didn't get what he wanted.

After the dishes, he mopped the floors, starting with the kitchen and ending in the upstairs bathroom where someone left a half-drunk bottle of vodka. He thought he'd drink it, but he changed his mind and threw it out in the last moment.

He started drinking when he was fifteen years old, for fun. People he spent his youth hanging out with indulged in way harder stuff, though. Damien stayed away from it, he was always the booze kind of guy. He thought psychedelics would screw with his brain too much. He had too many demons to battle.

After he's cleaned the floors, he threw out the trash and proceeded to clean the dust, even though no one asked for it. He was also pretty sure he was supposed to have done it the other way around. First the dust, then the floors?

Somewhere between his fifteenth and his twenty-ninth, he developed a drinking problem. It snuck up on him quietly and before he realised, he reached for the bottle every time he couldn't deal with something. Which was often.

By the time Damien finished cleaning the entire house, it was noon, and he collapsed on the couch. He was just about to close his eyes when his phone rang.

Futile hope sparked inside him, but it was just Mona.

"Hey." Damien sat upright.

"Where. The. Fuck. Have you been?" Mona asked. "I've been calling for days!"

"Can you drop by?" Damien rubbed his temples. "With Andre?"

"God, Damien, I'm so tired of this-"

"Mona." Damien cut in. "I'm sorry."

Silence.

"I'll be at my mother's." Damien continued. "I just have to pick her stuff from the hospital first. You can drop by if you want to."

Silence

Then, Mona sighed, "Is that functional Damien on the phone?"

Damien chuckled, "Not really, the self-destructive asshole just fell asleep for a while."

"Okay." Mona said. "Call me after you get home."

"Okay." Damien nodded, his phone remaining pressed against his ear even when Mona hung up.

Eventually, he stood up and got in the car. He's found it, the one thing that made him clean the house, wash the dishes, drive to the hospital and pick his mother's stuff up. It was the need for order. Order was relieving, like water to a dry throat, ice to a burn. The burn was still there, but it turned easier to handle.

So, Damien picked his mother's stuff up, trying to think of it as a regular chore, and drove back to her house. Then, he phoned Mona again, knowing she thought he wouldn't. She probably thought he would stop in a bar along the way and he didn't blame her.