Tattooed

Awake and Alive

VI

Meenakshi tried to have as normal a week as possible. She taught her kids, wished them the best for their exams. She asked Anushka to stay with her for the rest of the week without offering an explanation why. She kept the balcony door shut at all times, no exceptions. Windows would suffice for ventilation.

Basically it was her who crawled into a hole.

All week long she avoided anything and everything to do with Zach. It usually started with thinking about him and ended at the temptation of peeking out the balcony, just once. Why? Well, she felt responsible for him somehow. She hoped it would have been enough to distract the boy from his daily stress but no, it wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough, she reminded herself every day. Nothing she did would be enough, and that would be because Zach Carter (or was it Lowell) was a drug addict, and she was nobody to try and say otherwise.

She came home that evening, tired and exhausted, and yet somehow sleep deprived. How she craved to sleep and let it all go to hell, but sleep evaded her. She took off her coat and shoes and shivered, wet from the rain. August had settled in and the rain had become ruthless. She didn’t think it were possible, but this was the coldest Glasgow had ever been in her eight years there. She then cooked for her best friend and her, cleaned out the apartment, put away the garbage and changed into warm PJs.

"All you need is some bars and vertical stripes on your t-shirt," Anushka said as she came home that night after work.

"You're late." Meenakshi observed. It was well over eleven in the night, the sun had just set.

"And you need a jailbreak, seriously."

Bob-haired best friend went into the guest room and fell onto the bed. She heard the familiar flop on the mattress; she wasn't listening to music, not anymore anyway.

The next day everything seemed to take place as on routine. It was the seventh day in a row that she refused to worry over Zach Carter or Lowell Carter... Or whatever the hell his name was.

At school the children filed into the classroom one by one before the final bell had rung. She picked up the board marker and wrote on the whiteboard.

She couldn't help it though. Silently, she worried if Zach had taken again.

Allen had arrived three days after Zach had taken, surprising him more than anything else. They exchanged pleasantries, got the cousin settled into his room as Zach questioned her on how long he intended to stay.

"I've got quite a few projects lined up in Glasgow... so maybe six months?" Allen said as he wiped a pound of dust from the kitchen counter. He narrowed his eyes at him.

"Why are you here, Al?"

Allen didn't answer the question. “I’m going to hire some help for this place,” he said instead as he blew away some dust from his chair and took a seat. “Sheesh, look at this mess,”

Days passed by without event as Zach attended his classes and went back home monotonously, without much else to do. He avoided thinking about the ‘incident’ as much as possible. Most of his energy went into painting and sketching now.

One evening, many days after Allen arrived, Zach decided to lounge in the living room and watch some TV. That was when his other house guest arrived, with a supple knock on the door. Allen had answered it.

“Jules!” he said as he hugged his sister. “So glad you could make it,”

Zach stood as a clear view of his sister Juliana hugging his cousin shielded out everything else.