Skinny Love

Chapter 6

Where was he? I'd been scavenging around for thirty-five minutes looking for my dad. The text he'd sent me was vague, but I knew exactly what it meant. Too dunk to make it home by himself again. What a surprise.

Rolling my eyes I circled around the bar into the alley. It was empty aside from the pile of trash bags next to a dumpster. I'd checked this alley already and found nothing, but looking again I spotted something odd about that pile of black trash bags. I squinted as I stepped further into the alley. Sure enough those were my father's feet sticking out from somewhere in the pile of trash. I'd recognize his beat up work boots anywhere. 

I had the right mind to just leave him there. He was always drunk and never knew what to do with himself. He never called me, more or less talked tome unless he needed help, and he was always picking fights. He deserved to sleeping in that pile or trash. He deserved everything he got. 

But I couldn't just leave him there. 

"Dad," I said shaking his shoulder trying to get him up. "Time to go home. Get up buddy." 

Stepping back a couple of steps I crossed my arms and waited for him to get up. It took him a couple of tries but after a while he steadied himself and rose to his feet. Staggering a bit he turned toward me and grasped my shoulder for support. I let him only because it would take twice as long to get home trying to get him to walk on his own. But I still didn't appreciate the nasty brown blood marks it left on my new favorite shirt. 

Looking around his shoulder I could see that he'd gotten into some kind of fight. He was completely trashed. His brow was bleeding and so was his lip. His cheek was swollen and in the dim street light I could see that it was already bruising. I was surprised his nose wasn't broken to be honest.

"Still picking fights you can't handle, huh?" I asked as I heaved his weight onto my shoulders and started walking. He staggered slowly by my side. He opened his mouth to speak and I shook my head. "Don't answer that." 

There was a thumb on my head, I knew it was my dad. I bit my lip and tried to ignore it but he did it again and again. Finally fed up I stopped walking and glared at him. "What?" 

"You don't talk to me like that boy," He said while attempting to point an authoritative finger my way. It was kind funny because he couldn't keep it straight. I didn't laugh though. "Or I have to straighten your ass out." 

"You can't straighten anyone's ass out," I said through my teeth. I abruptly heaved him upward on my shoulder and he let out a painful groan. I ignored it. "Unless you want to go for mom again." 

I shouldn't have said that. My mind was racing already. My dad was used to my snide comments about my mother's "accidental" death, but every time the topic came up for me, darkness seemed to flood my mind. 

I couldn't do this, not now. Pressing my free hand to my forehead I tried to push the memories backward. Focusing on the street in front of me I told myself I had to make it home. I couldn't think about mom anymore. She was gone and this is all I had left. This was all I had left. 

Wrong move. 

Was this really all I had to live for? My dead beat father, my double life at school, and my collection of razors. I had no one. I had nothing. My life wasn't exactly spiraling out of control like say Francesca thought hers was, but it wasn't exactly ideal. 

Sighing frustratedly I started walking faster. I heard my dad groan again but I didn't care. I needed to get home. I needed to be alone. So we had to walk faster.

"Hey boy," My dad said, coming out of his comatose state for a second. "You look all red boy. Having another one of those panicky attacks again. You gonna pull those sissy cuts again? Huh?"