Freefall

Chapter Two

I would've been perfectly happy to continue to ignore the incessant knocking on the door the morning after, but the knocking wouldn't stop. I knew who it had to be and I stalked over to the front door. "What?" I demanded once I'd slammed it open.

"David, we need to talk." Eva stared back at me. "You stormed off yesterday, but you had your time to cool off, so now we'll have a calm conversation."

I wasn't inclined to talk to her. Especially not when she was ordering us to. "I have nothing to say to you. We don't have anything to talk about."

"Yes, we have," she insisted. "First off, how long are you staying?"

"Long enough to sign whatever papers needs signing, attend the funeral, and clean this place out. I'll let everyone have a nice, long look at me, then I'm out of here for good." That's what everybody wanted after all. A good look at the troublemaker to see how I'd turned out after all the shit that had happened, after the disaster that had used to be my life.

"What about the house? What are you going to do about it? It's yours. It's your childhood home."

"And what a loving childhood I had." I snorted and crossed my arms over my chest defensively. "Stop acting like you care, Eva."

"I do care about you, David. Why would you think I don't?"

"Why? Why?" I exploded. "I escaped from this house, Eva! For all those years I escaped from a dad who raged around drunk and used me as his own private punching bag! And what did you do when I came running to you, time and time again? You sent me back! Each and every time!" I felt something break inside me as the words left my mouth. I'd harboured so much bitterness for so many years. I hadn't even known I still felt so strongly about it all, until she started saying she cared.

She didn't care. If she'd cared, she would've contacted the police or the social services—she would've done something. She never had—thus she didn't care enough for it to matter.

Eva had bowed her head when I'd started shouting, but she lifted it again now. Her eyes were blank.

"Don't feel sorry for me now. It's too late!" If anyone had the right to cry, it was me. "I never got a warm welcome at your house, Eva. You were so busy with work and your own kids, and your husband didn't want a bloody queer under his roof."

"David, that's—"

"That's the truth. He told me so to my face!" That was one conversation I would never forget. Just a teenager and told by a grown man to get the hell out of his house, because he wasn't housing some faggot bastard.

Eva didn't seem very shaken about my words either, which told me loud and clear she knew. It didn't surprise me any. Eva's husband didn't exactly keep his opinions to himself, so I was sure she'd got an earful more than once during my childhood.

"Just go away!" I slammed the door in her face, unable to keep looking at her and remember all the bad times.

I ran my hands over my own face, hating that they came back wet. I loathed my past. An abusive father, a busy aunt who didn't have time to care, a homophobic uncle, cousins who couldn't stand me. There was nothing good in my past, nothing at all. So sue me for having a hard time dealing with it all.

I thudded my head against the door. I sunk to the floor and looked at the wall opposite me. It was discoloured and dirty. Guilt plagued me at the way I'd treated her, but she'd never really treated me any better. She'd been the one to always drive me back to this house; to the angry, drunk man that awaited inside it.

Couldn't she understand how betrayed I felt? I'd gone to her for help, for comfort, for something, and every time I'd been sent right back without receiving any of it. I'd stopped running to her, eventually, once I'd learned my lesson. I gave up. There was only so much rejection I could take.