Chim - Sleeping With A Broken Heart

CHAPTER 9

Chapter 9

The car, this time a spotless grey Mercedes drew up outside my house with the kind of purr that only a top of the line engine can make. Cheryl herself drove, carefully, slowly, concentrating hard on every movement.

“This is it” I told her, and she turned off the engine, looking at my house.

It was a tall, Victorian, red brick townhouse, sprawling over three stories. At one point it was probably quite impressive, but now it looked like an empty shell and was falling steadily into a bad state of disrepair. The bay window had several broken panes, two of which were boarded up with soggy cardboard, the paint on the door was peeling and a panel at the bottom had been kicked in, leaving splinters. The garden was so overgrown it could have been a jungle and had an abandoned Tescos trolley with only three wheels dumped in a corner. But if Cheryl was shocked, she didn’t say anything.

“Will your parents be in?” she asked, eyes still fixed on the broken window.

“My dad will, yeah. Sacha won’t, she’s at school. Hopefully.”

“Can I come in?”

“Do you want to?” I was surprised. I’d expected clean-freak Cheryl to run a mile when she saw my house.

“I don’t want to meet your dad. No offence pet, but I don’t think I could be polite.”

“Why?” 

“He lets you sell yourself” I couldn’t argue with that, so I let it go.

“Wait here, once I’m home he’ll leave for work. I’ll be one minute.”

I open the door and start to get out when Cheryl says “Kimberley-”

“What?” 

“You’ll come back?” she looks so serious and so cute I don’t even have the heart to laugh at her. I reach over and hug her, the handbrake digging into my ribs.

“I’ll always come back” I whisper into her hair, and she squeezes me tighter for a moment, before letting me go. I step out of the car and cross the road, carefully dodging a taxi, and run up my garden path. I open the rusty gate and skipped up the few steps that led to the front door. I pause for a moment and turn to glance at Cheryl. She’s still there, waiting for me. I don’t know why, but that makes me smile, and I feel butterflies in my stomach. I put my key into the lock and push open the front door. 

“Hey dad, I’m home” I call out, putting my keys on the table by the door and stepping into the living room. My smile falls off my face quicker than water through fingers. The TV is still on, blaring a quiz show, and the curtains are still drawn even though it’s nearly 10. I flick on the light and look around the room. My dad is slumped on the sofa, head nodding onto his chest. The wallpaper is peeling and going yellow, the carpet was once blue and is now a dirty grey. On the walls there are Sacha’s certificates for swimming and dancing and spelling tests. A on the floor there are empty bottles of cheap vodka and a can of beer has spilt, creating a black patch on the carpet. And then I see it. 

On the coffee table there are three used needles, one of them broken, and some foil. There are traces of powder like little smudges on the dark polished table, and looking closer I see two colours, grey and white. Cocaine, tinged yellow and smoky heroin, or maybe it’s morphine. I can’t really remember the difference and it doesn’t matter anyway.  I can feel anger, worry, disappointment bubbling up inside my chest, but I keep calm. I just mutter “sh!t” under my breath before crossing the room and opening the curtains. Through the panes that aren’t broken I can see that Cheryl is still in her car, waiting for me. I sigh. I don’t deserve her, and I know it. But I look round at my dad. I shove him awake, leaving him blinking