Ten & Levan

3. Three

(Alt J - Bloodflood)

LEVAN

It is a warning; my thoughts are overpowering as I watch the nocturnal dark transform into day, without a blink.

The sun lifts its ugly face up into the horizon. The sky is shot with bullets of yellow, and now it's bleeding, screaming for a tourniquet. I watch my room flood with light as the sun rays attack my eyes, like bright yellow rattle snakes; hissing, biting, stinging, burning.

I make a move for the first time in five hours and pace around my room like a zombie, until I start feeling the least bit lively. My back is hurting, my arms are sore, my jaw still aches, but all I do is ignore. A simple lesson that I've learnt; there isn't any pain if you just ignore it. So I walk out into the hallway to find the house buzzing with silence. I make a beeline for the bathroom and stand under the hot shower for a while, but I remain just as cold as I was before; inside and out. By the time I get dressed, I've accepted the chill as my own, it follows me around, like a dog. Right when I'm starting to believe it can't get any worse, I hear a knock on my door.

I stop dead in my tracks; my body ceases all its functions, my nerves are suddenly awake and energized, as if they just took a dip in strong coffee, but my head is a blank canvas. He can't be up this early, I tell myself. In my head, I am already planning jumping out of the window but the more rational part of me is trying to reason. Even if he is awake, he won't ever come knocking on my door, not without a hell of a reason; not unless the world was ending, not unless he was dying, not unless this house was on fire. Oh wait, he wouldn't even knock then.

I gulp. It has to be Ava, I deduce. But what does she want? She never knocks on my door either. And how can I face her after what I did the day before? How can I face her after I left her alone, with our grotesque, ghastly, gory mess of a father?

There's another knock on the door. It's small and meek, it is her.

"Shit," I close my eyes and inhale sharply. I need to be outside. I need out, now. I want to flee this situation. If only I had the guts to jump out of the window. Oh, how ironic. I square my shoulders and open the door slightly, leaving a narrow opening so I can see whoever is on the other side.

Her shining pale blonde hair, pulled up messily into a ponytail, tells me that we are definitely related. Ava's nose is bright red and so is her mouth. I open the door wider and meet her icy blue eyes, definitely, definitely related. It twists a knife in my gut, I wince.

She's hesitant, so am I. But we've always been like this; no matter how familiar she looks, looking at her makes me want to throw myself into a wood-chipper and soak my heart in bleach. That's how she makes me feel, damned and bleak.

"Um, Levan?" she murmurs, biting her lip and trying to look past me into my room. It annoys me how invasive she is. I walk out of the room and close the door behind me. Everything she does annoys me. I turn my attention back to her. She's wrapped up in an old, grey sweater; one that mom used to wear. It makes me itch and burn.

"Yeah?" I say, tugging at the straps of my bag, getting ready to leave, trying not to look at her, trying not to think how much she already looks like mom.

"I can't come to school," she says, making me frown. "I think I have a cold," she says, cinching the sweater tighter against her tiny frame. Even though she's quite tall for her age, I feel like a skyscraper next to her, like a giant; big body, little heart. And she's the little body, big heart. That's what mom called her when we got the first picture of her, when she was inside mom, the time I used to love the thought of a sister.