Cross

prologue

The story of my life was never one really worth telling. It wasn't like I'd want it to be told either way. Living out of suitcases and train tickets, following my Aunt Lily around cities in Europe wasn't exactly a life I had pictured for myself. However, it was either that or settling with my mother or my father, and truthfully, the voyager life sounded more appealing as I thought about my other options.

It wasn't until my seventeenth birthday that my life really took a turn for the worst. It was when a series of unfortunate events dragged me down to Paris again to live with my father. And since then everything just seemed to go downhill - not that I had expected it to go any differently.

Living with my dad had turned out to be a lot different than I presumed it would be. A neglecting, cold hearted father sounded like heaven compared to what I was faced with once I rang the bell to his excuse of an apartment, bile rising in my throat as I imagined my future with the man that had neglected me all my childhood until I was old enough to beg Aunt Lily to take me in with her.

The first few weeks with that horrible man didn't go as bad, it turned out to be just fine considering he was barely home and when he was, didn't pester me about doing the laundry or washing the dishes like normal parents would've done. It actually took me a considerate amount of time to realize he wasn't doing those things either and we were basically living like pigs in a sty. It really didn't surprise me either when he knocked on my door one evening.

"It's about time you'd help around here, boy." His voice was hoarse as he gripped onto the doorframe to maintain his balance.

"How am I supposed to help if you're not doing anything either?"

Mind you, I blankly asked that question not really thinking anything would come out of it, but apparently I was dead wrong.

"Whoever taught you those manners to speak back to your father!" He roared.

I hadn't even noticed until he raised his hands in disbelief that he had been holding a bottle of whiskey in his left hand, and that it was already half empty.

I honestly had never thought of my father as a drunk, and the sight stunned me. His words were slightly slurred and I caught myself wondering if this was something he did regularly or if I had just caught him on a bad day where he decided to drink to relieve some stress.

"Well, what am I to do then?" I asked, hoping not to get on his bad drunken side - I already knew his good sober side, and it wasn't pretty. This was definitely so much worse I was actually scared of getting to see it clearly.

"Get a job! We have bills to pay, boy!"

The way he spoke to me left some sort of formality in the air. He wasn't addressing me as a son, not that I really thought he would or truthfully wanted him to. He was never much of a father, more of a sperm doner. Yet, my mother wasn't much of a mother either. It was times like these that made me miss Aunt Lily. She was all the real family I had, and honestly all I really needed. But the issues in my family will stay for later in the story, bear with me.

Like my father had asked me to, I went out in search for a part time job to balance with school. But the money I got was barely enough to pay the rent my father had guiltlessly laid upon me and the bills. To my luck, the light and water bills weren't expensive, since most of the time no one was home. And that was the life I lived for the next year: a slave to my father's desires and needs while the life was slowly being drained out of myself.

It was a week before my eighteenth birthday when I realized I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't living; I was merely existing. I felt as much desire to live as I did to spend anymore time in this apartment. I had to find a way to make more money, which had resulted in me selling most of my furniture and trying to live with as little as I could. I couldn't say the same for my father, who at least once a week would barge into my bedroom.

"Charles, I need money." He would order, stretching his hand out.

"Sorry dad, I don't have any." I did have some kept away, but I was getting fed up of his ordering money and leaving me broke every single month.

"Don't give me that!" He would sneer, taking a swig of the usual bottle in his hands.

It was about the third month since I had an income that I realized my father was actually a drunk. He'd step in every week asking for more and more money, which I suspected was for his alcohol. And every week I'd ask him the same question and get the same answer.

"Why do you need money, dad? I gave you some last week."

"It's none of your business, boy! Just get me the money and we are done here. Be quick."

Defeatedly, I'd always walk over to my small safe, putting in the code, making sure my father couldn't see it before handing him fifty euros. And every week it would be useless.

"Fifty!" He always exclaimed in disbelief! "I asked for money, not change!"

Before I could protest, he'd walk over to my safe, taking out the whole bunch inside, usually two hundred euros. I was lucky Aunt Lily had gotten me a bank account when I was fourteen, and had been putting some money in there every month for me to go to college. When I arrived at my father's house, I realized I would have to make a choice between sustaining myself or having an education. I think my choice was obvious.

This life got to a point where it was unbearable. I didn't have friends really, because I never had money to go out. My time was always alternating between finishing school and working at the bookstore. Everything became so dull and boring I had to escape. Except I had nowhere to escape to. Then it came to me, it really came to me.

I can't remember much of that night. I remember the heavy droplets of rain bashing against the bathroom window and the silence - my father wasn't home. I remember my heavy breathing as I took the sharpest knife I could find from the kitchen, holding it in front of me.

Dark eyes stared back at me in the mirror. My face was pale, purple bags under my eyes from the lack of sleep in the last year. I took a moment to point out every emotion in those pair of dark eyes that looked straight into mine.

Relief, I had finally found an escape to the hell I had been living. Anger, I felt so much anger towards everything: my mother, my father, myself, a god I didn't even believe in, hell, I felt angry even at Aunt Lily for leaving me out of the blue. I felt angry at every single goddamn thing in this world. But there was more in those hopeless eyes. There was fear. Fear of what would come after this, fear of the unknown, fear of the next step, fear that I hadn't yet fulfilled all I had to. But coming to think about it, I hadn't anything to live for. I wasn't leaving anything behind.

Blocking out any thoughts that would make me back down, I was quick with my actions. The sharp blade of the knife glided up my arms, sending a burning sensation through me as my skin was teared apart. Gushes of blood erupted from the cuts in my skin and dizziness overtook me. Looking down at the pool of blood on the bathroom floor, I knew it was over. I knew I was finally free from this gloom life I was so tired of living. This was the end for me and I was so glad for it. I barely had time to think when everything blacked out and I let out a last relieved breath.