Chapter Text
I often stumble around in the streets, drunk, looking for a fight, or a girl I can creep out, but it's never any fun when you're alone. Anyone I hung around with left me after they got something better to do, it made me wonder if I was even worth the air I breathed. A waste of oxygen, if you asked me. But I wouldn't show I felt like that, I wouldn't show I felt anything at all. Reputation was something we all had, and it was the one thing that I'd get to keep when I died. Young and tired of it all.
I took another drink from the broad liquor bottle I had wrapped up in a paper bag. The stuff tasted horrible, forcing my face to recoil. I hid my expression with my sleeve. No matter how horrible that crap may have tasted, I was determined to drink the whole thing. Whatever got me drunk, Whatever got me away from my life. Away from Tim.
If he didn't find me out here, I'd be safe. He had been hacked off for weeks now, fussing over Dallas Winston. A boy who was shot just a month back. And he made it everyone's problem. If he couldn't find some poor, unknowing kid to beat up, I'd get the worst of him. I was stuck. If I fought back, he'd kill me. If I just did nothing, I'd kill myself. I knew I'd die a child since the first day my step father had beat me. If he or someone else didn't kill me, I'd just find a way to do it myself. I wouldn't live to see my 20th birthday. I didn't want to. I had no reason to.
With every bitter thought, I'd take another sip. My tongue got used to the taste eventually, I still shivered with disgust though. My steps were heavy, making a dull pounding sound each time I walked. It was the only sound I heard, apart from the cicadas and faint traffic. The bottle was about three fourths of the way gone when my vision started to blur. I tried to keep walking but found I couldn't move much without the feeling I would collapse.
It felt like I was spinning, like when I would twist up the chains on a swing at the park and let it whirl me around as a kid. I laughed at the memory, not knowing why. I needed to find somewhere to sit for a minute, or a night. I searched as best as I could for an alley way I'd never seen before, hoping Tim hadn't seen it either. I had a better chance of staying hidden if he wasn't too familiar with the area. But all alleys looked the same, and it didn't matter where I hid. I'd always be found.
Once I was safely shielded from the streetlights by old brick walls, I let my legs give way. I couldn't feel them, or anything on my body for that matter. The floor was cold. Just then I realized how alone I really was. How I wasn't worth the daylight to be cared about in any sense. Not even my own brother cared enough to protect me from this harsh world.
I pulled my sleeves up, staring down through clouded vision at various purple-black and greenish-yellow bruises and patchy scabbed over cuts and many other wounds. I was glad I couldn't feel my arms. I looked at each mark, searching for what I did to get them. Nothing, nothing, nothing, got caught hot wiring, nothing. The worst of it all was the cigarette burns. The way I'd yelp when searing hot ashes pressed my skin, how Tim would press the cigarette in harder if I made too much noise, and then he'd laugh. He'd laugh with that horrible, taunting tone and that crooked smile that always told me that he'd never quit. I had that same feature, that smile. And I hated it, so I would never smile.
My most recent burn, one I got from just looking at him the wrong way, pooled with blood, trying to heal itself. I wished my body wouldn't do that, I wished all wounds would bleed out until I died of blood loss. I trained myself to keep quiet when I would get burnt, or else I would just make it worse. And I knew no one would save me, so I got used to it. At least it'll make me look tuff, I told myself.
It wouldn't be long before he started aiming for different places. My face maybe. He already socked me a few times, leaving me with a black eye, and for all I knew, a concussion. I doubted he would ever stop. He had no reason for his actions. I understood being upset over Dal, he was a good guy, and he died unfairly. But why did I have to pay for it?
“Why me?” I whispered into the deserted labyrinth of streets and alleyways. Nobody would ever answer though, simply because there wasn't an answer. I looked down at the bottle in my hand. It was empty. I chucked it at the wall ahead of me, wishing it were Tim and that every tiny piece that fell off would cut me deep enough to end me. It crashed against the wall with a loud sound that startled me even though I knew it was coming. I cupped my hands over my mouth, realizing that I could have very well just blew my cover. On the off chance that Tim was around the corner, I was dead meat.
Thankfully, I was left with the silence of the streets. I hadn't seen a soul since I left home. It was odd, considering it was a weekend and kids loved parading the streets on the weekend. Maybe if someone were out here with me, I would think being shit-faced was fun. But no, I was alone, drunk, and helpless until the morning.
My head uncontrollably flopped to the side, catching on my shoulder. By this point, I knew I'd have to sleep there. Which was fine by me, I've slept in worse places. Once when I was 11 and Tim was 13, we had to sleep out in the snow because of a really rough fight our parents had. Tim said that snow foxes build snow forts to stay warm so we spent about half the night doing that. That was back when Tim could still feel things, before he let the world kill him. We used to be okay, not that great but he still tried to keep me safe. Like he cared about me.
But now, he only cared about hurting whoever he could on his way out. I knew it was soon, just like how everyone knew Dallas would die soon. With Dally gone and our folks fighting all the time, he doesn't have much of a reason to stick around. I wondered how he'd go about it. Most of us died early, but from getting beat one too many times or shot in an argument. He was too tough for any of that. He could go the same way as Dallas, but that would be feeding into the cops, who we all knew were itching to gun him down. And Tim hated to appeal to others.
My breath flurried around in the cold air like cigarette smoke. I would've smoked a whole pack by now if I could move right enough to grab the pack in my coat pocket. The real struggle would be lighting it. I tried to lay down on my side, avoiding little shards of glass as best as I could. It was hard, and I kept flopping in the wrong direction. I thought I got a piece of glass lodged in my cheek, but didn't care enough to check. I really couldn't check with my hands being the way they were: limp and sporadic when I tried to move them.
I layed there, listening to the wind. It whistled through the trees, giving me a faint admiration for natural sounds. White noise had always been a good comfort for sleep, especially because it's a good change from the sound of two adults bickering and fighting like they were children. Tomorrow I would have to go back to it. I sighed, hoping that tonight would be the night Curly Shepherd was found in some dead end street with too much alcohol in his body, cold and flat dead. I dreamt about how people would react. Some would celebrate, some maybe cry, Tim would be how he always was, and poor Angela, she'd be stuck in the same spot I was. She was the one thing I could depend on in my life. She was something special to anyone she could charm, and that included me and Tim. Nobody got to hurt her without having to deal with her brothers, that was the rule in our town. And if I left her here with nobody except Tim, he could make her the next me. I couldn't stand the thought of her beauty being stained with the same bruises and cuts I had to bear. She didn't deserve all that. She was one in a million. Maybe, if Tim didn't get to her, she'd make it out of this damned town. She wasn't only pretty, she was smart too. She had a lot ahead of her and I had to stay so I could ensure she could live to see another city.
I let my mind go quiet. If I slept, I could get back to her quicker. Sleeping was always the worst part of a day because you never know what could happen when you're off guard. Normally, I was so on edge from countless nights I was woken up, beaten, and sent outside that I physically couldn't sleep deep enough to dream or miss any slight sound in the room. But tonight I couldn't control myself. Being that drunk meant I couldn't fight or be alert and I had no power to fix it, so I just accepted it. If anything happened, I would just take it. I was sure my hiding spot was good enough and if it wasn't, the fault was my own. If I was found, I would deserve that beating.