tattoos || clony ;

tony

tony's pov

     "what about the man you beat half to death in an alleyway?"

  my eyes shoot up to look at the room around me. a bland room with a simple, small bed. a desk with an apple laptop lying there, perfectly positioned. a blue lamp is on the desk, glowing a faint, translucent light from the almost dead light bulb. worry washes over me and i could feel the beads of sweat slowly dripping off my forehead.

"fucking answer me."

i suddenly hear a scowl and i see clay sitting on his bed, with a menacing look on his face.

i ball up my fists, "wh-what are you-"

his neck twisted and glared straight on at me.

"i know what you did, you know.. you could've saved her, tony, but..you didn't see the signs. no one did. NO ONE FUCKING DID."

he harshly stood up and grabbed me by my shirt collar, the back of my neck started to painfully sting. my eyes watered up and i grabbed clay's shoulders.

"clay, p-please st-st-"

"why should i trust you?"

"clay. yo-you need to trust me-"

clay had eyes of rage peering into into my brown eyes.

"face it, tony. I'll never love you."

He throws me down on the bedroom floor, acting like I weigh a feather and everything unraveled into darkness.
-
the sudden image of the roof of my bedroom appears and I abruptly sit up.
I start breathing heavily and heaving through breaths. my clothes were soaked by my own sweat, my pajamas sticking on my skin.
I look to the analog clock on my bedside table. it read, '6:13 am.'
i wiped my forehead with my sleeve and brought my legs over my bed to stand up. I started slowly tip-toeing to the shower for a quick relieve from the haunting nightmare I had.
  I reached the door of my bedroom and opened it to see the hall of my house. I went down the hall and to the right to see a oak door with a golden knob. I use my short sleeve to turn the knob since my hands were still inhumanly sweating.
   I go into the tile-floored room and turned on the blinding lights. I cover my eyes and groan from the uncomfortable rays. I wait for a few seconds to get used to it and I turn around with my eyes half-lid, I closed the door with a click and locked it.
  I finished stripping and turned the shower knob to a neutral position for a steaming shower. I started it and got in, I was immediately relaxed and wiped my face with water to wake me up so my eyes don't look like I smoked a shit ton of pot for the past 6 hours.
   "I'll never love you."
those words kept endlessly playing in my mind, every word. especially the, 'never,' echoing throughout every nerve of my brain.
   i smack my forehead, trying to get out of my own trance. I continue my daily routine of a weekday and calmed down to finish the morning.

--time skip

"Tony! Come down, please," my mother called from downstairs. I went down the steps while trying to fit my arms in the my glossy, vintage, top-of-the-line leather jacket. 

'I got ready your breakfast, im going to work now," she cups my cheeks and looks me in the eyes. she then furrows her eyebrows with confusion. 

"baby, are you ok? your eyes are completely red!"

I smile a sincere and yet fake grin, "it's fine. i just got shampoo in my eyes. nothing to worry about, you know me, im strong," i jokingly flex my muscles through my shirt, showcasing my arms like they're for sale.

My mother brightly smiled, easily outshining the morning sun that glare through the blinds, dust gracefully flowing in the air.  she pats my cheek and softly pecks the dimple barely showing whenever i smile. she checks her watch and her eyes open wide, "oh shoot.. hun, i have to go now, see ya later baby!"

she speed-walks to the front door and I hear the car honking, signaling that she opened her door for her car. my ear rings with the raspy sounds of the engine starting. i just imagine me when i was younger, riding in her car, lowering down the window to catch the breeze slithering around my cheeks. 

I walk up to the window, i turn my head to see my mother's car getting tinier while she gets farther and farther away. i see a glance of my reflection showing on the window, there was a shade of red around my iris, i looked like i completely cried for the whole night. i chuckle thinking of all the borderline sexist jokes my  dad would make if he saw my eyes, he wouldn't know all the bad context behind his jokes sometimes, he's probably offended hundreds of people throughout his life, maybe even thousands. i sit down on the wooden chair that is at the right side of our medium-sized, rectangular shaped table that all my siblings would sit at. they would most definitely talk about how many physical fights that happened at school, my sister would talk about all the guys and purposely making my dad irritated, and finally me just casually listening about the, to be honest, intriguing gossip . i'm a fairly great listener. 

i finish my breakfast and bring my plate to the sink and grab my car keys from the kitchen counter, swiftly doing a spin to the door. i click on a button, beep, there goes my beautiful baby. I open the driver's door and get in with a soft groan escaping my lips, tickling my throat. I put a cassette in my old-school radio, i enter my key, all in one go, in my key slot. i drive to school, taking twists and turns, trying to make it seem the ride is slower than it seems. when i arrived at the school, i see clay's bike locked in the bike rack. i kept staring at it and complementing the memories of when he rode all the way from his house to mine, just to steal my damn cassette player. i laugh out loud because of the sweet yet sour nostalgic thought. i was a little early for school so i just close my eyes with my engine still softly whirring at the beat of the 80's music.

-time skip  

"tonyyy!"

"tony! dude!"

"for fuck sa-"

I jump out of my seat because of the loud banging of my window, i rub my eyes and tiredly look over. my eyes widened a bit and i could feel a rose shade developing my cheeks. 

"hey clay.." I say, a bit weary since because of the extremely realistic dream I had in the morning.

"we have to go to class! let's go!" he looked very enthusiastic about something but i put it off to the side. 

"ok, ok.. hold up!"

"commme on Tony.." he said with a defeated sigh. 

I unbuckle my seatbelt and turned off my engine. I open the door to see clay with an old bandage on his head and him with a gorgeous smile plastered on his face.

'I'll never love you!'

so what?

it doesn't matter. 

i love him. 

sure, it's an inevitable one-sided love. 

but i don't give a living fuck.