There's The Cat and Then There's Me [boyxboy]

Chapter Nineteen: If I Just Close My Eyes

Shadows chased away my dreams, darkness smothered my fears, and hurt destroyed my sanity, the hole in my chest ripped through every shred of reason. It was all I could do to keep placing one foot in front of the other, to drag myself away. Everything was numb, void and blank. I had nothing to live for, nothing worth trying for. It was all gone. Stars that had once appeared like brilliant white diamonds scattered across the sky, hung low and burned a dull grey. The moon, once a glowing roundness of beauty was smothered by thick smog like clouds, slowly choking the night sky. Ink black shadows crept towards me, devouring the ground in front of them like hungry ants, swarming and writhing.

It was almost as if the eerie tentacles had sunk into my heart, rotting and festering inside my body, spreading its blackness deep inside my blood, my lungs, my veins… my mind.

Impossible to escape.

Slowly deadening my arm the gym bag felt like the entire world. Weighing me down, numbing my core. Streetlights stretched ahead of me, an endless tunnel of darkness, spotted with the faded yellow glows. A bus stop was illuminated by one of the old posts, rusting and abandoned; a desolate lonely island in the suffocating night.

With a heart broken sniff I shuffled coldly towards it, hurriedly wiping away tears I hadn’t even realised I’d shed. The light seemed harsh against my eyes, and it glittered in the water wiped from my cheeks now smudged on my palm. Staring at it I helplessly let out another sob, feeling the pain well in my chest once more.

Why is this happening? It’s not fair…

It’s not fair.

On a sudden impulse I let the bag fall heavily from my shoulder to the rough, worn sidewalk. Every ounce of hatred, pain and hurt I had in me bubbled slowly to the surface. I could feel it pulling at my muscles, raising me to my tiptoes, clenching my teeth, forcing my eyes closed. My hands balled to fists, my toes curled in their converse. Tightness clawed its talon around my heart and lungs squeezing until I couldn’t breath, settling an unnerving ache deep in my gut. It drew faster and faster, so much that I couldn’t bear it anymore!

I screamed.

I screamed it into the night so loud it echoed down the empty street. I screamed it so everyone would know. I screamed it for the love that had been torn away from me. I screamed it so those bastards would know that this was going to end. I screamed for love, for hate, for grief, for pain. I screamed for everyone who had ever felt the way I had. I screamed for Accel. I screamed his name to the stars and the moon and hoped they would come crashing down to earth and shatter into millions of pieces. I screamed to the darkness, wishing it would swallow me whole and take deep into the depths of the earth. I screamed so that God would know that I hated him. I screamed until my body was weak and my will was broken.

I screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore.

Until my body fell, crumpled and broken to the cracked and hard cement, writhing in invisible agony.

I cried through the tears, cried through the side splitting pain, gasping air helplessly into my strained lungs. Sobs wracked my body, my cries hoarsely ripping into the night air. It was all so pointless. No one can hear me. No one is going to come and save me. They can’t. Even if they did I’d simply run away again. Because you’re a loser.

I don’t know how long I lay there for, wallowing in grief and despair, the minutes trickling away like sadn through spread fingers. But however long it was, it felt like an eternity. An eternity where all I could think about was death and wishing it would claim me right in this moment. How easy it would be to simply float away with the wind.

I waited on the desolate corner, huddled and broken, numb and cold. I waited until I heard the loud trundling of the bus as it turned the corner at the far end of the street, my fingers scraping against the gravely pavement. I forced myself upright, muscles silently screaming as loud as my voice had. Every part of me burned with need to turn around and run away. Back to his arms.

But I’m not running anymore.

The bus pulled to a stop, the brakes squealing impossibly loudly in the silent night. But my ears were filled with silence. My feet carried me up the stairs, pressing the cold coins into the old mans hand, carried me to the furthest emptiest seat. But I was numb and didn’t feel anything. White neon light burned like fire through the empty rows, shedding its rays through the bus, illuminating the brightly coloured posters on the roof. But there was no colour left in my world.

Only hate.

Twisting into a cruel snarl my mouth pulled crookedly at the corner, transforming my face into something volatile and hurtful in the reflection of the window. What’s the point of being ‘happy’ anymore? What is there to love in this world? There’s no such thing. It’s all fake; all the smiles, and laughs. They just want you to believe them so they can tear you down again.

The bus pulled away, it’s trundling slowly beginning again as the world started to drag sluggishly by, blackness interrupted slowly by the street lights. Purposefully I glanced in the opposite direction as we approached his home.

Don’t look.

But I did anyway.

As I watched with mournful eyes, the front door flew open, a distressed figure flying onto the driveway. Green eyes landed on the bus as it rolled by, panic and anger clashing furiously with my apologetic and tear filled greys. I simply watched as he began to frantically run, trying to keep pace with the huge vehicle as it picked up speed, letting the last tears weep down my cheeks. I ignored it when I heard my name called from those perfect lips, ignored the desperation and love in those words, instead letting the noise of the bus’ engine roll in waves around me. The traffic light ahead of us switched to green and the bus swerved easily around the corner.

Teeth gnawed at my lip, fingers twisting my shirt around the slender limbs. My breathing grew faster as I tried to resist the urge to look back. I didn’t want to see him; broken hearted and alone on the corner, standing only in his boxer shorts. I didn’t want to gaze back into those perfect jade eyes. I didn’t want to see the love that smouldered there.

But I looked anyway.

It was just as I thought. Every inch of me shrieked with the need to crawl back to him, to let him take me in his arms and hear his voice telling me everything was going to be fine. But I can’t do that. Not now. Not ever again. Hitching in my throat, my breathing became unsteady, this was for the best, and it was going to be worth it in the end… you’ll see Andrew. But as I looked back once more even I began to doubt myself.

How could I? My mind cried as I observed his fading silhouette under a glowing streetlight. The confusion and loss was obvious even from here. How could I…

My whisper broke the silence like the crack of a whip.

“I’m sorry Accel.”