The Broken Ones

Chapter 26

Felix:

I was in my room, standing somewhere between my bed and my closet. My arms hang loosely at my sides. My hair is flat, my eyes heavy. The only sounds to be heard is there constant yelling, the screaming echoing throughout the house. They yell about everything, really, just for the sake of yelling. Just because they hate each other. Hate their son. My name slips in every so often, always accompanied with the words 'disgrace' or 'disappointment' or 'mess'. I guess I couldn't blame them. In fact, I couldn't help but agree.

My phone sounded from the opposite end of my room. There was zero motivation in me, even to simply walk over and grab my phone. Still, after a long moment of contemplation, I grabbed the phone. Taylor texted.

Taylor: Hey, Felix. Still up for going to the alley tonight? Kat said she would come too.

No motivation. Even Taylor's name hurt to look at, couldn't relieve this feeling inside of me. God. I just want it to end.

The words continued to flicker through my mind. Over and over and over and over again. I just want it to end. With those words in mind, I stepped out of my door. They were screaming about everything now, throwing things, cursing unforgivingly. The saddest part was it didn't even affect me. Not at this point. I was just . . . numb to everything. To the world.

Another step through the hallway. Kat's face flashed through my mind, along with Taylor. Their laughter and how they made me felt. They made me happy. All the more reason to leave them. I felt like a parasite, like a cancer that would only continue to infect them until there was nothing. They didn't deserve that. I cared for them too much.

The bathroom wasn't far. I would just have to cross the living room; the battlefield of screams.

The moment their eyes landed on me, their voices somehow raised even more.

"And what do you want?"

"Do try to change the subject!"

"Your son isn't a good subject? He's a walking piece of disgrace!"

"And you're not? He's your son too!"

"He is no son of mine."

I walked away from their useless quarreling towards the bathroom. The fluorescent lights burned my eyes as soon as I stepped into the room. Everything was cold and harsh, doing nothing to ease the thoughts attacking my brain. It was hard to distinguish from another, the thinking. This internal struggle is something one could only understand if they have experienced it--too complicated, almost messy.

I looked as worse as I felt. My skin was pale and sunken as well as my eyes, ringed with darkness. The white light casting upon my ghostly features only made it worse. A mop of unkempt hair on my head and chapped lips from excessive biting. I had run out of cigarettes, too. This only brought withdrawal symptoms which defined the numb feeling.

I just want it to end.

My eyes flickered to the cabinet next to me. Almost blindly, with no feeling or any awareness of what I was doing, I opened the cabinet. Inside were rows of bottles with prescribed pills, mainly for my dad's insomnia, scattered toothbrushes and other toiletries. But my eyes were trained on one specific bottle. It happened so fast I had no time to stop the tears escaping my burning eyes. Pathetic sobbing from years of hurt. My fingers gripped the sides of the sink painfully, turning my knuckles white. I stared into the mirror at the unfamiliar boy staring back.

Are you broken? my consciousness asked.

No, I replied. Yet my hands still found their way to the bottle with an unsteady grip. I wondered if my parents heard the sobbing. It was a small house; no doubt they did. If they cared, I wouldn't know.