the girl at the bottom of the glass

chapter 14: the fallen hero

2000s

Soundtrack of the chapter  - hometown - Halsey

It was the summer after high school.
I was waiting for my acceptance letters from college.

I woke up to the sound of sirens.
They were coming from the house nextdoor. I struggled out of bed and checked through the window.
There was an ambulance and a group of people gathering at the house next to us.

I rushed down downstairs. My mother was outside, looking at the scene, with a coffee mug in her hand.

"What's going on, mom?", I asked trying to cover myself up from the cold morning wind.

"It's Josh", she replied, "they found him, in the garage"

"What do you mean found him?"

As I finished the question, my heart sank to my stomach.
They found him. Oh my god.

"Did he? Is he gonna be okay?"

"No, Vicky, they found him with a needle in his arm", my mom sighed, slowly shaking her head, but without any surprise in her voice.

As if to confirm what she had said, I saw a trolley being pulled from the side of the house.  The white cloth covered the whole body.

I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like time stopped for a couple minutes.

Long after my mother returned to the  warm embrace of home, I stood there. I didn't notice the harsh winter air anymore.

Josh was dead. He overdosed.

After my first time with him, I went to his place on and off. We were never dating. And there was never a stop to the incoming groups of various types of girls in his place.

We were friends, who occasionally did things more than friends. He always made me feel comfortable and accepted.
After my hospital visit due to alcohol poisoning, he just said "you outdone me" as a joke and it did away a lot of embarassement in me, and his presence somewhat lessened how much I missed my dad being around.

I could feel his arms around me, as if we were smoking and drinking on his couch right now. He had been getting off the rails for the last couple of months.

He got unbelievably thin. Dark circles were pinned under his eyes, like no sleep would take them away. His skin was paper white. And I wasn't sure if he was still working at the hardware store anymore. He almost always wore the long sleeves sweatshirts lately, to hide the track marks.
They didn't cancel out his vampire like attractiveness though. And I didn't stop chilling with him.

Sometimes I could see the trace of white powder and apparatuses lying around. I never inquired. He never introduced me to the hard stuff. Though we were sleeping together, I knew he still somewhat saw me as a younger neighbour girl from childhood.
I still remembered how I used to look up to him when we were kids, I didn't have any sibling so he was the closest to a brother I never had.

I couldn't sleep for two days following his untimely departure.
I lied awake in bed, remembering what we used to talk about.

In the smokes completely taking up his room, he used to lie back on the couch, my feet on his lap, he stared into the space and said how he would like to leave this town someday. How he wanted to travel the world. He had dreams of saving up and backpacking Europe. To avoid being seen needy, I didn't share my thoughts. But I always imagined to go with him.

I dated some guys from school, but I never felt anything real with anyone.
At least with him, I felt the familiar solace. And he knew how my parents used to fight all the time, I felt like I could be real with him.
He was one of the very few people who saw me without very thick makeup and black eyeliners.

Sometimes we talked about the music band we would start though none of us could actually sing nor play any instruments. After listening and singing along the rock bands of our taste, we fantasized ourselves in a band, where I was the manager and also the one of the lead singers, and he was the bass guitarist because he thought that was the hottest.

All of our teenage dreams came undone.
Just like that, he left the living world.
Just like that, a person vanished from my life again.

The thoughts became unbearable on my 3rd sleepless night. I got restless, I went up and gazed at his house. The light was on in his garage. His parents must have kept it on. I would never see him, hurrying out of it and mounting on his bike the next morning. He sometimes waved at me when he saw me looking from my window.

I didn't wanna stay here anymore. I couldn't stay here anymore.
Shelly moved to the city already, trying to get a summer job before the college. We didn't apply to the same college so we would be apart anyway. I never saw Robin anymore. Though I thought about him time to time, how I wished I could have gotten together with him when I had chance, but those thoughts faded with time.

There was nothing for me here. It was just a home I spent my childhood on.
It was never a happy place for me. It was filled with shouts and screams. And after my dad left, it was filled with silence and soul crushing silence.

Some nights, I woke up suddenly at night thinking I heard my parents quarreled, but it was the deafening silence that welcomed me. I didnt know which was worse to wake up to. I barely had any contact with my father, but according to occasional phone calls I received, he was doing much better in another town.

I had to leave. I had to go to the city and start all over again. I did not exactly know where I would go. I just wanted to leave this home and the lingering death around me.

I packed right away. Next 15 minutes, I was ready to leave.
I tiptoed down the stairs. I didn't want to tell my mother. I wouldn't have any answer for her for my leaving so abruptly.

I wrote a short note and pressed it down with a bottle on the kitchen counter.
I turned on my heel and then my gaze fell upon my mother. She was sleeping in the living room. She must have fallen asleep watching tv or looking at her phone on the couch.

She looked sad even sleeping. He dusty blonde hair were half covering her face. She looked vulnerable, and lonely.
I sneaked up, grabbed the blanket and covered her. It was the winter and all she had on was an old cardigan.
At that moment, I wanted to cry. She was living her life as a prisoner too.
She was not going out much, she was not dating again. She was simply working, providing me, and floating through life.

I removed the hair on her face and tucked it behind her ear. Her hair were mixed with greys. She wasn't that old yet. I took in her fair features. Her troubled emotional life had taken a toll on her appearance, I thought as I spotted the fine wrinkles across the face.

I felt empathy right there, standing next to her. I knew I couldn't leave now.

She must have been feeling the emptiness too. In her attempts to attach herself more to my father, she successfully pushed him away.  I didnt want her to feel that she pushed me away too.
And I didtn want anyone to feel the loss like I constantly felt.

I brought the bag up to my room. I did not know what to do. I restrained myself from going and checking Josh's room again.

Finally I led myself to the wardrobe, and took out the bottle I hid there.
It was the whiskey Josh bought me. He was finally the age able to buy alcohol. A golden age, we once thought before.

I tried not to let my thoughts spiral, I swigged the alcohol.

As the heating fluid passed through my throat, I knew it would be the answer. Right now to sleep, and many more times, to escape.