Love Sucks

Love Sucks - 6

Chapter six;

“Where to?” Alex asked, glancing down at me. I’d decided to take a sneak peak at him, not caring for the water that dripping into my eyes. He was running at a human speed now, his breathing not having faltered once. His emerald eyes met mine, and for a moment, they softened, before flashing back to have the slight edge. His face was dripping with rain water, his dark hair soaked and scruffy.

“Anywhere,” I muttered, shivering in the cold.

“Let’s go in here,” he set me on my feet, grabbing my hand and dragging me into a café, where we subtly moved into a booth. He asked the waitress for two coffees, somehow knowing how I like mine, before he turned to me with expectant eyes.

“You wanna tell me what all that shit was about back there?” he asked.

“You wanna tell me what you were doing in my house?” I shot back. Sure, I was grateful he’d helped me out, but I didn’t need saving. I was glad he was there though, at the sight of him staring at me, it gave me a tad wave of hope. Hope that someone out there was going to just magically whisk me away from the hell I lived in that I was supposed to call home… even if he was a monster. It was better than nothing.

“Fair comment. I was there because I just so happened to be nearby, and I heard commotion round yours, so I ended up wanting to check it out… and landed in your bedroom to see you balling your eyes out. Now, can you tell me why your mother was going mental?” he raised his eyebrows at me.

I shrugged, “She’s abusive when she’s high, that’s all. We got into an argument because when I got home, I saw her lighting a cigarette up, when she swore to me she’d quit smoking when my dad died,” I stopped abruptly as the waitress bought over two steaming mugs of coffee, and I looked up to see Alex leaning on the table, his eyes fixated on me, so I continued; “And my dad died because of those things, of Lung cancer. They’re like a smoke-able death, for Pete’s sake! I got angry, well, angrier, since I was already angry – no thanks to you, by the way - and I told her not to make promises she couldn’t keep, and she flipped out… tried to hit me. I stopped her, flushed her load down the loo, and ran to my room, where she started hammering on my door, and I was… somewhat whisked away by you.” I smiled unwillingly at the end.

“Is she like this often?” his face stayed straight.

I nodded glumly. “Too often,”

“And this is the first time she’s tried to hit you, right?”

I shook my head. “No. Nearly every time she’s off her head she tries to. Today was the first time I noticeably stuck up to her.”

When Alex didn’t reply, I looked up to see him watching me through narrowed eyes. They weren’t suspicious; they were hard at work… he was deeply thinking. They eased up though, and he sipped his coffee, averting his gaze outside. Silence stretched between us, and I resorted to listening to the background music, alongside the chatter that buzzed all around the café.

“I have to go back there, you know,” I said quietly. “Every time she gets high, you can’t just take me away from that, Alex. Even if I became a vampire, you could never truly take away the pain of losing my father, you could never take away the memories of the things I’ve suffered. It’s not something I can just run away from.”

He leaned across the table, our eyes meeting. The emerald colour in his own sparkled, and I wasn’t sure if it was the light or not, before he muttered, “Can’t you?”

“No, I can’t,” I sighed. “I don’t need saving. She’s my mother for goodness sake, I know how to stand up for myself against her. I’m fine.”