I'm so stupid. I'm so fucking stupid.
Why did I ever think that when I got out of rehab everything would be okay and all of my past mistakes would be erased and forgotten? Why did I think that Phil would take me back with open arms and the starry smile that captivated me seven years ago?
Rehab wasn't fun, but it did give me some headspace to think about where I was in my life. I had planned what I'd say to Phil when I was finally let free to roam in this hellhole we call earth.
It's slightly after two and I'm in the children's park. The sun is almost unbearably warm in my black hoodie and jeans, but I don't mind too much. I watch the children run around the playground with demented smiles plastered to their faces and wild eyes, screaming and shouting with happiness every 3.5 seconds. It's driving me insane but at least it gives me a distraction from gazing at the same four walls of my gritty flat for twelve hours.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and I stare at my wide brown eyes flecked with gold in my front-facing camera on my iPhone. Holy fuck, I look exhausted. There are purple shadows beneath my eyes and I look like I haven't slept properly for months. My skin is sickly pale and my dull brown hair has grown out now and is nearly identical to my 2011 square-hair. But I don't give a fuck about how I look. Nobody cares anymore about how long my hair is, how tired and worn out I look, how thin and frail I am.
I need to stop making excuses for Phil. This isn't all my fault. I mean, most of it is. But not all.
"I'll race you to the swings!" I hear a young child shout to another young girl with wavy hair and a splattering of freckles across her face. She smiles at the other boy and waves excitedly as she runs by my bench.
"But Leo, I want to go on the slide," she complains but races him to the swings anyway.
I glance to the space beside me on the wooden park bench and notice a woman with bleached blonde hair and a cigarette carefully balanced between her fingers. She looks about my age, twenty five, and something is clearly on her mind as her left eye keeps twitching and she's bouncing her knee.
My fingers ache for a cigarette. I left my box of Marlboro at home. Shit. Well done, Dan.
Before I can tell myself not to, I ask the woman next to me if she would give me a cigarette. I instantly regret it as she snaps her head towards me with a look of distaste and narrowed eyes.
"Excuse me?" she asks, clearly stunned that I was bold enough to ask.
"Oh, nothing. Never mind," I shrug it off. Well, now I've made things awkward. I feel miserable.
Then, after a few moments, she taps my arm. "Here," she says and offers me one single cigarette. I take it, mumbling thanks, and she lights it for me with a heart-shaped lighter.
"Are those your kids?" I ask her, not because I care, but just to make conversation as I blow grey smoke into the sky.
"Only the girl. Her name's Chloe," she points to the freckled girl who is now arguing with the boy named Leo. "She's with her cousin."
"Oh," I smile. Did she just blush? It's hard to tell beneath her make-up, but her cheeks certainly look darker. "They look so alike."
"Yeah, I guess they do," she breathes and takes a puff from her cigarette, and relights it. Her eyes rake over my face and body, sliding over my dead eyes and running down to my black boots with the unconventional zips. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
YOU ARE READING
nyctophilia | phan
Fiksi Penggemar{{ part two of psychedelia }} It's been two years since Dan moved out of the apartment to go to a rehabilitation centre, and in that space of time he's heard nothing from Phil. Not even a "hello." Dan's scared that Phil's moved on and forgotten abou...
