Infinity

Chapter four

I got home a few hours after my encounter with the boy who's name I still didn't know. I had spent some time discovering that coffee from that cafe tasted disgusting and I ended up at my cafe ordering my usual. Maybe I wasn't as spontaneous as I gave myself credit for.
All my way to my home I couldn't stop thinking about the boy. How within a few short minutes we had gone from strangers to-
Well, strangers.
I didn't know his name. I didn't know who he was, but I had a feeling he could turn into a friend. Which made me think of Charlie. He was most likely asleep, or doing other Charlie things. But all the time I thought about Charlie, the boy was in the back of my mind. He lingered there, right up until I reached my front door.
I opened the door and the sound of paint cracking gave off my entrance. I was greeted by an empty house, silent save for the clinking of glasses coming from the kitchen. There were hushed, mumbling voices, and they reminded me of secrets.
And it made me remember something I had locked away in the back of my mind, thinking that secret was forever gone. But it wasn't.

-In my mind, a million years ago-

My boots fell flat against the ground, through puddles as deep as my ankles. And every sound was blocked out by the rain. I knew my keys would be clanging together, ringing out if there was any sound. It was, I must say, a hideous day. And I wasn't even supposed to be here.
I had become trouble a few months back. That's what my mother said, and my father, and a psychiatrist they had taken me to. I was borderline depressed, annoyed at the world, just not caring. My parents had therefore decided, without my consideration, that I would be sent to boarding school.
And that had lasted exactly 23 hours.
Because as I left, I said one thing to my father. I said I refuse to spend even a day there.

As I tried my keys in the door, too dark to see which one was the right one, I thought back to the troublesome times. The things I had done that I'd never admit to, never speak of. And as the rain seemed to get more aggressive, like it was angry at me, I gave up on the keys. My mother always kept the house open, so I figured I would find a window that was relatively open. Or at the very least, cracked.
And as I circled the house, sticking to the walls like glue to hide from the rain, I on,y found one. Partially open, just enough to fit my body through.
Too dark to see, too wet to see. It was a window. That was good enough for me.
I jumped to reach the window frame, I was small back then.
I fell through the window, making a loud thump on the floor of what I realised was my living room. It was dark, or at least dim as my eyes adjusted. I heard breathing behind me and turned around.
The memory was painful. Like a knife to my back.
The glasses of red wine sitting on the table, one with my mothers red lipstick just visible printed on the side.
The room was filled with candles, of different shades of reds and oranges, beautiful if not for their purpose.
Because sitting on the couch, with her hair done nicely the way she rarely did it, was my mother.
With another man.