Another City Of Lights.

Chapter 28.

Karachi.

Aaron's POV:-

When I wake up, it's dark and cold, but I'm covered in sweat, and I can feel my heartbeat in my ears.
My heart is pounding, and I can't find my shirt.
I reach for my phone, and it's not beside my pillow, and I realise that this isn't my pillow anyway.

The reality hits me like a truck going faster than a hundred miles an hour, and I cannot believe how utterly stupid I've been.

I jump up from the bed, and frantically search for my items of clothing in the dark, trying not to make any more noise than I have to. It's always better to leave without questions anyway.
I find my phone under the bed, and it's blowing up from calls from home. Great, one more thing I'll have to deal with tonight.

It takes me a total of fifteen minutes to get dressed and another ten to find my shoes. I figure it's way too late anyway, so a bit more couldn't make it any more worse than it already is. But it does get worse, because just as I'm about to skip out the door of her bedroom and make my way to my car that's parked out back, she wakes up. And then she actually sees me, even though I try to hide behind the nightstand, quite stupidly to be honest.

Amelia, her name is. My "girlfriend". For this week? For this month? For this season? I don't know. She isn't the first, and probably won't be the last. And it's brilliant because I generally don't care about it, or her, but for the time being, she looks incredibly hot. And I don't mind it at all.

Sex is something that everyone hides, but what everyone does. It isn't a hobby, it's just a thing that you do. You don't need to feel anything, you don't need to see who it is, it's pretty doable with anyone. That's what I've learned. And all these amazing hypocrites all around school, and the town that call me madeup names, it isn't like they aren't doing it too.
Sex is a major part of this city, but it's something that no one will admit to.

There's a huge part of me that believes in the saying that I'm an asshole, and I don't argue with that part. But you really can't consider it your fault when the other person is just as desperate as you are.

So there's Amelia. The apparently quiet, sullen girl in my chemistry class that I didn't know existed until about a week ago when she randomly came out of nowhere and purposely bumped into me. Maybe it's what she wanted all along, maybe she heard it around school that the kid with the cigarettes and the dirty hair liked to sleep around. I don't know which it is, and I've not cared about it either. Because just in two days, she was all hands around me in the back seat of my car.

And it's surprising sometimes how people just don't realise that the girls of this city are just as dirty as the guys. Not that I'm pointing fingers or anything.

I just don't like the waking-up-after-it part very much, and I prefer to be gone as soon as it's done. And I'm in complete and utter agony right now, because she's awake and looking at me like she's expecting something. I don't have that "something". I never do.

"You can't go out that way", She points out, matter-of-factly.
Right, fuck. Parents. I always forget the blasted parents.

I give her a curt nod, and lamely make my way across her disheveled room to her window. It's a pretty small space for me to fit through, but I see my car from here and it gives me enough motivation to squeeze through the small, stupid wooden thing.

I regret doing that as soon as I do it, because I can't even hold on to anything and I fall directly towards the ground, and make a loudass noise when my body hits the cemented floor. And it hurts bad, but I don't waste any time in getting up and sprinting towards my car.

I love my car, I absolutely love it to death. But I have a deep hatred towards it right now, because it won't start. At all. It was fine a couple of hours ago, I know for sure because I was driving it here. And now it won't start.

I call Dash after a while of trying to fix my car. And when he arrives in his faded blue car, he looks pissed.

"Who's house is that?", He spits at me as soon as I get in.
"Someone's", I shrug.
"You're an asshole, man. And how can you not fix your stupid car? You're doing engineering in mechanics!", He yells, and I try not to get pissed off.
"What's wrong with you?", I ask him, and he looks at me like I'm crazy.
"Me? ME? Are you mental? What's wrong with me?", He yells some more, "what's wrong with me is that I'm sick and tired of covering your ass and picking you up in the middle of night from random girls houses!".
"I won't ask you next time, if you hate it so much", I tell him.
"I don't hate that, but I'm beginning to hate you", He says, not even looking at me now.
"That right?", I ask him again, I'm always getting these lectures every other week now.
"Yes, Aaron. You are an asshole turning into a manwhore", He replies, and this one does piss me off.
"Right because what exactly?", I can't even defend myself, and I know it's because he's right, but I won't admit it.
"It's been a long time. Look what you've done to yourself. It's actually pitiful", He says, and looks at me how he always does.

It's not just him, even Hailey looks at me like that. Like they're sorry about what happened, and now they feel sorry for me that I've turned in to this-whatever I am now.

It hasn't actually been that long, I want to tell him, it's just been 6 months. Six months for realising and accepting that we might never see Sam again. Six months of me accepting my failure. That I screwed up the one chance I got, and let them both down.

Both of them keep telling me to move on. But move on from what? It wasn't like this with her, not even close. And whatever I do now isn't a consequence of that one event, is it?

I don't usually think about what I'm doing, I just do it. It's working out so well for me, none of it has backfired in my face so far.

"I don't even know who you are anymore. How can you risk everything? Do you even consider the possibilities of your-this thing?", Dash screams again, and I don't reply.

I hear him screaming at me, but I conveniently zone him out till his voice is just like background noise to me.
And I continue to ignore him until he parks infront of my house, and sighs loudly when I get out without saying a word.
Then I brace myself to go inside and ignore my mother, who's definitely ready to pounce on me as soon as I walk inside the house.

This life, really it's just monotonous and predictable. Like a script, where you can't change the scenes and make the bad characters good, and bring back the ones they cut out from the story.