The Best Thing He Ever Wrote

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

I look like beetroot.

It's already one in the afternoon and I've only just managed to get out of bed.

I need a shower to clean off all the dried blood.

I know it's going to hurt.

I've been putting it off for at least two hours.

The house is silent as I poke at my face in the mirror, what looks back at me is a monster. I don't mean by the dried blood on my face and bruises. I mean by the fight with Johnny, I'd started it.

He deserved it.

I shouldn't have done it.

We shouldn't have done it.

My walls seem bare without all of my posters; I prefer it this way, although in a way it is a little too void. The only things I have on my walls now are the stains that the blue-tack left and my calendar. My bed is single and is covered in blue sheets that I've had along with the bed for at least ten years. My bedside table is full of tweezers, my notebook and bloodied tissues. My window pokes its way through the wall and faces out onto the lawn. There isn't much there except grass that needs a mow and a few clothes on the line.

I guess there isn't a great deal in the house let alone on the lawn and in my bedroom.

I grab a clean pair of jeans from my chest of draws and a grey t-shirt. I'd actually planned it pretty well; I don't want to get stains all over something white.

I sit on the edge of the bath tub peeling the bandage from my arm. As I get closer to the skin the bandage begins to stick and I have to pull pretty hard to get it off. It's not too bad, I mean it's not too good either, but I guess the best way to put is that it could be far worse. Therefore concluding that it's actually not that bad.

Little cuts leak blood from pulling the bandage off, I cringe because I can see a chunk of glass right underneath my thumb. I use my good thumb and forefinger to remove it, which takes a couple of goes because it's lodged in there pretty well. I scan the rest of my hand and wrist, but it seems to be clear. I wonder how much glass has sunk inside me. I wonder just how bad my Ute is. My poor Ute, out everything it deserved to be hit the least. I never actually thought I'd have the strength to smash a car window, let alone any window with my bare hand.

Pretty stupid.

At least I learned one thing from last night, not to smash windows again. It's not an attractive sight and it doesn't feel so attractive either. I strip off climbing into the shower, its cold again this morning so I stand back as the water heats up. I raise my face to the top of the water, a moan of pain seeps out of my throat and into the air and I don't think I'll ever shower again if it's going to hurt this much. I run my hands over my hair to try and ignore it, but my hand hurts ten times more than my face and I feel downright weak inside. Maybe it's that sick feeling inside me. It keeps growing but I don't know what it is and I don't want to deal with it. My knees begin to feel as though they're going to fail on me, so I sit down, bracing myself against the sides of the tub. I close my eyes and try to ignore the pain by thinking of Olivia; she always makes me feel better.

I can see my father outside by my old Ford Ute. All the doors are open and I try extremely hard to ignore my back passenger side widow. It takes me a while to gather why he is home and then I realize that it's Tuesday and every second Tuesday the box factory isn't open.

It's hard not to miss my back window, there's a gaping hole in the centre off it. I can feel the anger at myself rise inside me for smashing it. There's a bucket on the side walk and beside me an extension cord that leads to the twenty year old blue and orange vacuum cleaner that's beside the bucket. My father spots me standing by the porch.