35

8. Adam

   The clock chimed at the short finger to the number 1. The clock looked almost ancient, as if you'd see the same kind of clock at your grandmother's house. They'd heard the repeating ticks of it rotating for the majority of their time that they'd spent there. By now, the rain had long simmered down. The outdoors were now calm, and quiet. The crickets began to rise from their hiding places, and it replaced the sound of what was once deafening rainfall.

It was much later than they both expected to be out by.

   Brandon, feeling comfortable enough on the soft bed that'd felt like it hadn't been used in a decade, lay himself down and stared up at the ceiling fan above him as Cynthia watched from the window. She glanced at him, curiously.

"Your question?" She asked him.

   Brandon didn't bother to glance at the woman, but he responded nonetheless. He'd almost forgotten about it.

   "Honestly, I don't know how to put it into words," he said. "I guess the best way to start is, what's the point of all this? Dwelling on the past all the time? Doesn't it hurt you?"

   Cindy took a few moments to respond. She didn't really think of it that way, not in a very long time, as she'd never truly opened up to anyone to tell them everything.

   "No," her voice broke. "Because the memories will never die until I do, and I am okay with living that way. If I'm being honest, I have kept all of this to myself since I was a little girl. I haven't even told you about Adam, yet."

Brandon cocked his head upwards. "Who?"

~~~~

   "It was a long time, I must've just turned 15 when I met Adam during an economics class. For the first time in my life, I think I felt something for someone, and I never knew how to deal with it at all. To say that I had a crush was an understatement. I felt pain. I felt that weird fuzzy feeling every time I saw him before and after school classes. The twist in my gut that just wouldn't leave."

   "To see him in the hallway, I felt happy for the first time in my life. We talked about many things. About the movies we liked, and the music. He loved Pearl Jam, too." You could see the smile begin to crack just a little on her face, as she sat down on the mattress nearby Brandon. He let her talk her heart away.

   "I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't terrified of this new feeling I had. It was so new and strange to me. We got picked on for talking to each other pretty often in classes so we started doing it more so in secret, back when we still somewhat cared about how we were perceived by highschool idiots. The other students already laughed at me for being skinny, among other things. Adam was the only person in that school who acknowledged my existence. He liked to be around me. I never experienced that before.”

   "There was a point in time where we both knew my father was strict, and going out to enjoy a night would've been impossible to do. At that point, I'd already grown a brain and learned that instead of being fearful of the piece a' shit, I became a skilled liar. My dad taught me how to lie. He taught me how to survive on my own. I'd already mastered that. One thing that I never told Adam though was the extent of what my father did. I became so good at lying that I was able to cover up every single cut, bruise, injury, everything, all of it when I went to school. When Adam asked me about it, I knew how to make up something right on the spot, and he never, ever doubted me. It burned me to lie to him, but I felt like I was doing him a favor."

   "Adam and I started sneaking out at night, long after my parents went to sleep. We didn't stray far from my home, I'd say. We would meet up at a gas station just a block from my house almost every night, around this hour of night, as a matter of fact. The broken window got replaced long after the incident with my old friend, and it was the same window I started using to sneak out of the house. We did it often."