It was a long walk from school to his house. Two hours and twelve minutes, if he was counting. He tried not to count. That took too long. There were too many seconds and they hadn't gotten that far in maths yet, he wasn't quite sure if he could handle it.
But sometimes he tried.
He was always mad at himself when he tried. He just couldn't get the numbers right. They swam in front of his eyes and he wanted to stomp and storm off, but that never would do.
So he shut his eyes tight and willed the numbers away, and away they went to be replaced with shapes and obscure colours.
That was almost worst.
And finally, when he was nine hundred and forty seven seconds away from his house, he'd quit the counting and he'd quit the colours and shapes and find that his mind went utterly blank. He liked those times the best.
It was the calm before the storm that he needed.
Once he entered that door that was two hours and twelve minutes away from Ridgeville Elementary, things would be very much not calm.
He may find her lying on the couch, passed out with a man slobbering all over her. Or he may find her sitting at the kitchen table, cigarette in hand, staring with blurred eyes out the window to the surrounding mobile homes and crying.
He wasn't sure which was worse.
But when he was nine hundred and forty seven seconds away exactly he didn't have to think about that. It was just clear, liquid black all around him. And that was possibly the most important thing on days like these where he didn't receive a goodbye kiss in the morning, where he didn't have someone to pick him up from swimming lessons, where he didn't have someone to check under his bed at night for the monsters.
Just clear, liquid black.
The safest place to be.
