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A girl is dead.
Two.
She couldn't have been much older than nine.
Three.
She fought back.
Four. Five.That overwhelms me with pain. She wanted to live. But also… a kind of pride. No one else will give her that sentiment. No one else was there to see her fight back.
Six.
Don't feel.
"Clay?" my younger brother Max mutters from behind me, a hint of surprise at my presence circling his tone.
I'm not often here.
I twist my face, finding him in the door jamb, once again covered in bruises from rugby or boxing or simply experiencing his young dumb thug life.A life I don't know.
His grey eyes dart to the blood gushing from the wound along my collarbone to the ceramic, to my pained stare as I hide my emotions from him, but the sinking concern in his gaze wrings them from me. My body wrestles with my mind, seeking a kind of comfort that has always eluded me.
A world of empathy and anger darkens his expression. That hint of wisdom fractures something in my chest, making me want to grasp at it.
Does he know what this is?
Does he give a shit?
Nah. Not him. Not Max.
As feelings crest, my throat tightens to restrict them, so I bark, "Fuck off," needing him gone before they overcome me.
Max's brow furrows, but he leaves, and I exhale hard with relief and loneliness—
I face the ceramic bowl again, struggling to remove the memory of the girl as my blood blotches the basin in evidence.
"You're so handsome. You look just like my father.” My mother's voice startles me, and I look up to see her standing behind me in the reflection of the mirror. "I thought your brother was bothering you. I should have known you would handle him yourself."
Dammit.
She moves towards me, her lips forming a straight line across her flawless face as she assesses me.
She sees me, sees the regret. I can't hide it as it crawls inside my eyes, finding a home.
Don't feel!
Our matching blue eyes meet, mine instantly stinging with the onset of tears.
Maybe she'll let me…
Maybeshe'llunderstan—
"Don't!" she states but recovers quickly, schooling her disdain for my sensibilities and smiling tightly. "Butchers don't cry, Clay. We have nothing to cry about. Nothing is worthy of our tears."
She grabs a cloth, and I clench my jaw until my teeth ache. It's a pleasant sensation. It overthrows the need to burst with common sadness for the girl. And, pathetically, self-indulgently, for the eighteen-year-old boy within me who wanted to shake that girl back to life and protect her from her own past, her own knowledge, from being dragged into the dirtiest, coldest corners of this world.
Like some kind of hero.
