debauchery *gawsten* ✓

Chapter Six

edit: 8.19.20
738 words

awsten p.o.v.

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One.

i bolted to the locker rooms faster than even otto would be able to, and he's been on the track team before. i just wanted to escape the blue-violet-red that was threatening to make me explode. i grabbed my stuff and rushed to the bathroom side of the locker room to change in a stall.

i didn't want to bother otto any more than i already had today. i didn't want geoff to look at me like i was a dying rabbit to be pitied.

i could hear them asking our classmates if they've seen where i ran off to. they eventually came into the bathroom and called for me. i had to hold my stuff and squat on the toilet seat so that they couldn't see my feet if they looked under the stall door.

"awsten, this isn't funny," geoff called. "where are you?"

"maybe he went to room 294." i heard otto say.

"room 294?"

"he sometimes goes there to play piano. if we hurry, we might catch him playin'." otto explained. i heard their pattering feet hurrying away.

otto had really good intentions, but he could be so naive sometimes.

i crept out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later when i thought it was safe. i took the closest exit that would take me out and away from the school basically unnoticed. i had to hurry and run home before he got there. if i got to my room before he could see or notice me, all the better.

i prayed that it would take him two hours to get home because it would take me at least forty minutes.

a car horn sounded behind me, and i froze. the key-lime green was free to take over.

"hey, awsten! car troubles again?" a semi-familiar voice called. i finally turned toward the street to see ash driving her truck. ash and i were sort of friends; i've helped her dye her hair in the school bathroom once or twice.

i nodded, and she offered to drive me home. i was grateful that she gave me some pink-yellow lemonade. she also didn't question my silence.

when ash got me home, his truck wasn't out front. i signed a thank you to ash, smiled brightly at her, and hurried inside. i wrote a quick note saying 'elsewhere' on the table where he would surely see it.

mum used to visit elsewhere all the time. i suppose she's now staying somewhere there.

i hurried up to my room and locked the door. i threw my bag onto the floor and kept my phone in my hand. i went to my closet and pushed through the clothes until i reached the other side. there was an opening into the old chimney.

the fireplace downstairs got closed up some years before i was even born. i had studied the structure of the house and found out that the chimney would have gone past my room. i spent a week trying to figure it out. before mum went away, she helped me tear down the wall separating the chimney and my closet.

we soon discovered that the chimney also went past a part of the attic we didn't know about before. my two uncles came by to help make a way for me to go up there. they had built a floor extending from my closet so that i wouldn't fall down the old chimney. then, they built rungs on the side up to the opening that was also torn from the attic.

that little attic area became the place where i painted and kept my instruments. mum figured that because of the hidden attic space, our house might have been a part of the underground railroad.

now, i turned my phone ringer off as i stepped into my studio. i saw that otto had texted me, but i didn't care to read what it said. i put an mcr cd in my radio and cranked up the volume. i didn't need to turn it up that high because i had my radio hooked up to a surround system.

i laid down on my side under the table that was in the middle of the room. i wasn't quite sure where i let my phone fall from my hand. i didn't really care.

mum, i'm coming to visit you. maybe someday soon i'll be coming to stay.