Throw Your Halo Down

Drunk on Shadows

“See you Wednesday!” I called over my shoulder to Myles, who was standing at the door of the back room. He winked at me before closing the door. Month five of this secret relationship and things were going well. It was hard to maneuver around my schoolwork and his job and my hawkeyed mother, but we were making it work.

“Where you off to, Min?” Mikko asked, leaning over the counter.

“Home, I’m drowning in work. We’ve got finals right before winter break and all my teachers decided to make my life hell.” I rubbed my eyes, feeling how dry and gritty they were. I hadn’t been sleeping very much thanks to my workload. It didn’t help that Mom yelled at me every time she found out I’d been staying up late. She wanted me to get my work done before 11 so I could sleep a normal night, but she also didn’t seem to understand that there was just so much work to be done.

“Hey, think of it this way, once winter break starts you’ll be in LA partying with rock stars.” Mikko knew very well who my dad was and had fangirled a little bit over it. I’d decided to have Dad and the guys sign some stuff for him as a late Christmas gift.

“Yeah, partying with my five year old brother and my hippie step-mom. Rock and roll!”

“From what I’ve heard, your brother can be-” He paused, staring intently at me.

“What? Is there something on my face?”

“No, on your neck.” He tugged the edge of my cardigan away from my neck, exposing what I knew had to be a hickey. The look on Mikko’s face gave me a sick feeling in my stomach.

“I can explain-” No I can’t god what am I going to tell him we’re in so much trouble this is really bad-

“I know damn well you didn’t have that when you went into that room.” His voice was so cold I could feel the icicles forming in the air.

“Mikko, please.” ‘Please’ what, I didn’t know.

“Just get out Mina.” He turned away from me, back towards whatever pedal he’d been tinkering with before I came out.

“Mik-”

“I said get out!” He roared. I let out a soft squeak and hurried out before he could see the tears falling down my face. I hated the lies, hated how I had to keep secrets from everyone. Now Mikko probably hated me and everything would fall apart. Myles would lose his job, maybe even go to jail. He was too fragile for that. He was still too skinny, still not sleeping enough. I knew he was depressed but he refused to go to a therapist. I couldn’t hold him together and I apparently couldn’t hold the web of lies together.

God, I’d told him to lay off my neck. He never listened, he knew how much it made me squirm when he kissed and sucked on that one spot on my neck.  He loved hearing that soft whimper that I could never seem to suppress.

I reached out and struck the wall, yelping when the brick scraped my knuckles. There was so much turmoil inside my head, fear and rage and pain and this foreboding sense of doom.  The pain in my hand, however, seemed to clear that up. I watched the blood well up in the cracks and dribble down my hand with a strange fascination. Some small, rational part of my brain asked how I was going to explain that, but it was drowned out by the wave of calmness that washed over me. Or maybe it was just numbness.

I wrapped my hand in an old napkin I found in my purse and switched the guitar case to my uninjured hand. All I had to do was go home and think of an excuse for the bruise and my hand. Maybe I’d tell her I’d burned myself with a curling iron. She’d totally believe that. I suppressed a sarcastic snort; I was already getting weird enough looks from people passing by, I didn’t need to start making weird noises on top of it.