Fire Starter ♔ Bellamy Blake [1]

01| FIGHT

F I R E S T A R T E R|

W H E N  I  W A S  Y O U N G,

I had play dates every weekend. My parents showed me what true love really looked like. I didn't have to worry about running out of rations. I was top of my classes. Showered happiness and kindness everywhere I went like my life depended on it.

I was surrounded by the love of my parents and the innocent nature of my friends.

So someone-for God's sake-tell me how I got so screwed over in the end?

Sweat built up in pools at the start of my hairline. They raced along my strands and dripped to the floor amongst the others. With every painful breath I took in, becoming shorter and shallower than the last, I felt the strain of muscles in the base of my neck down to my lower back.

Despite it all, I closed one eye and aligned the make-shift dart fiddled between my dirtied fingers to the eroding target messily drawn on my metal wall. The soles of my shoes planted themselves firmly, my head ducted down, my arm reeled back. But before I released, the cell's door echoed a screech.

On instinct, my torso swiveled to the sound and the dart left my hand.

It's nose nestled into the wall less than an inch away from my mother's face. I knew she heard the whistle as it pierced through the still, dead air.

Her back was pressed to the metal panel, her hands fisted around a stack of papers-turning her knuckles a sickly white, her eyes widened a fraction, and It seemed like the holy spirit left her body.

The both of us gave our regards to the tuff of hair from her bangs sliced and slowly swaying side to side on it's journey to the floor. Her fingers slowly raised to the lobe of her ear then came back out exposed in the flourescent lights dampened with blood. 

"Why do you have this?" She sneered. Her nostrils flared as she saw me make no attempt to respond.

I kept my expression hardened even when she looked at me with those eyes.

The same eyes that watched as the guards took me away to solitary confinement. The same eyes that watched me get treated like less than nothing when I wasn't trusted to do simple tasks like feed myself, wash myself, hell-even wipe my godamn ass. The same eyes that had no problem stuffing my breakfast porridge with pills to treat my conditions.

In all my years, she claims she tried. But sending a complete stranger in three times a week to talk about my problems, isn't helping. It's an excuse to stop seeing me and continue limiting my time out of my cell.

After one year of therapy, my psychiatrist said to me, "...maybe life isn't for everyone." And from that moment on she saw me as
the one who fell too far from the tree.
The one who disgraced the family name.