The Darkness Within

by Taylor K. Scott

  I don’t turn back to look at any of them, and no one dares to say anything to me as I march myself through the doors and head home. I may look like a crazy bitch right now and will no doubt have a load of gossip headed my way, but I’m really beyond caring. They can beat each other to a bloody pulp and get expelled, but at this moment in time, I’m done. I don’t care if I’m bunking off school, I can’t breathe here.

  Chapter 23

  Amelia

  My monthly visit to see my big brother soon comes around and after Friday’s meltdown, I’m beyond ready for it. You know it can’t be good if going to visit your brother in prison is a relief compared to dealing with all the drama at home. Bowie had texted me a bunch of times since his and Matt’s altercation, had even turned up at my door, but thankfully respected my wishes to be left alone.

  I could see he was hurt, and I did feel like a bitch, but I need him to know I’m not some vapid female who needs to be fought over, to be won like I’m a medal of honor. I tried my best to explain this to him and, hopefully, he got it. However, he’s since ignored my text messages so who knows. It might have been the shortest relationship in history, but it’s my truth and I won’t change it for anyone.

  The same routine as before occurs when I enter the government building, but this time I don’t feel so intimidated. I just let it happen without the fear I had when I last saw him. The emotional lump doesn’t make an appearance until I see his hunched body. I practically run over to hug him with a waterfall of tears falling over my cheeks, even though I had promised myself I wouldn’t cry.

  He laughs over my lack of restraint, just like any big brother would, but under the circumstances, I let him have it. His hair is even longer, and he now has a wispy beard coating his chin, making him look about five years older than he really is. I choose not to say anything, even when I see a new pattern of bruises along his jaw and underneath of his right eye.

  I begin by telling him about my eavesdropping on Matt, but choose to omit the crying part, because my friend, although has been a bit of an idiot recently, deserves to maintain his dignity. Besides, I think he was a little sloshed, so it’s not really important to Grant’s case anyway. Grant seems perturbed about the mention of drugs, especially the sort that has you so completely out of touch from reality you don’t even know where you are.

  He asked me to get more info on Russ but otherwise remained silently pensive about the whole thing. I get the feeling he wants to protect me by not asking me to put myself in harm’s way, particularly as Sam’s attacker is still out there.

  “Grant, I’ve also spoken to Bowie about Sam,” I say softly, gripping hold of his hand, which I notice is cut and bruised along the knuckles. “He says she’s happy at college and appears to be getting on with her life.”

  His features drop and he looks a little dejected and I berate myself for being so blasé about it. He’s obviously still in love with her and hearing that she’s moved on without him can’t be easy to hear.

  “That’s good,” he finally replies, shaking his head out of it, “that’s really, really good. How did you manage to get Bowie to open up?” he laughs, “Did you put his balls in a vice or something?”

  I’m unable to hide the guilty look in my eye. When I sheepishly turn away, I feel his hand almost instantly tense up over mine. He leans back to look at me, to see if there’s any hint that his suspicions are at all unwarranted, but, of course, they’re not.

  “Oh God, no,” he murmurs almost to himself, “no, no, no, not him, Mils!” He grips hold of my other hand and leans in close again, forcing me to make eye contact. “The guy’s a jerk and is so not good enough for you, it’s not even funny!”

  “I’m sorry,” I shrug like a sullen child being chastised by their parent for taking the last cookie, “I didn’t mean for it to happen, it just, kind of did.”

  “Have you slept with him?” he leans in with an even quieter voice, “I mean, did you lose it with him?”

  Fuck, this is beyond embarrassing! I could quite easily jump into a black hole and let it consume me right here and now. However, in the absence of a much-needed pit to hide myself away in, I involuntarily screw my eyes shut and hold my breath, bracing myself for this conversation to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.

  “Jeez, Grant, I don’t want to talk about this with you,” I eventually answer when he refuses to do the talking for me. I forget the guy’s been parenting me since I was twelve and already has the ability to punish me without doing anything but stare me down.

  “Mils, he’s just using you!” he grits out through clenched teeth. “I’ll fucking kill him!”

  “No! I don’t think he is. He says we’re together now and that I’m his and he’s mine!” I try and convince him, knowing full well how pathetic and gullible I must sound. “He even held my hand through the school corridor and told Matt that he is with me now.”

  “I bet that went down like a lead balloon,” Grant scoffs, “poor bastard!”

  “If you’re going to berate me for being with Bowie while feeling sorry for the guy who hit me across the face, then I’m leaving!” I snap, getting to my feet and readying myself to turn, before clasping a hand over my enormous, untactful mouth.

  “Amelia!” he says in that authoritarian voice your dad uses when he knows you’re lying about something. The voice that has the magical ability to make you inwardly wither up inside of yourself with just a quiet yet deadly tone. “Turn, sit!”

  Obediently, I do as he says like a naughty little child. He leans in real close with a thunderous look in his eyes. Eyes which are normally blue, like the ocean, but now look almost as black as blood drawn from a vein.

  “What do you mean the guy who hit you?”

  “He was just angry that I’d chosen Bowie over him,” I mutter before swallowing hard, “he just temporarily lost control, that’s all. I bet all guys do it.”

  I try and laugh it off nervously but I’m obviously not too convincing. I notice my brother balling his hands up into fists, trying to contain his rage and I full-on gulp, probably looking and sounding like Goofy.

  “No, they don’t, Millie, and don’t let any guy try and tell you otherwise. What else has Matt done to you?”

  “Nothing!” Liar, liar, pants on fire!

  “Amelia?!” he growls slowly, knowing full well there’s more to tell, especially since my fingers are twiddling with a loose thread and I’m staring directly onto the floor beside me.

  “He may have, kind of, forced himself onto me,” I admit, trying to be so quiet he hopefully won’t hear me and will magically forget all about it. However, he continues to stare at me, with his jaw clenching, waiting for me to elaborate before he explodes like Mount Vesuvius. “He wanted us to kiss so we could see if there was anything there,” I explain sadly, “there wasn’t on my part, but when I tried to stop it, he wouldn’t let me…,” at my pause, he hooks one eyebrow, the hairy little fiend silently ordering me to continue, “...and ended up pushing me to the edge of the bed. Bowie came in and stopped him.”

  Grant punches his fist on top of the table, causing the whole thing to rattle so noisily, several other inmates and their visitors look around. He continues to growl loudly and run his hands angrily through his hair, just before a guard is at our side, making a move to pull out his baton. Panic sweeps through me when the guard grips his arm aggressively, making me want to hide or scream; anything to make it all stop.

  “We got a problem here, Thomas?” the guard asks him with a brutish air of authority. Grant remains tensed up and I feel like I have to intervene, to stop my brother from making things even worse than they already are.

  “Please, Grant,” I gasp in a panic-stricken voice, “please don’t lose it now. I need you. I’ve waited all month to see you. Don’t ruin our only time to see each other over something you can’t do anything about right now!”

  I hold my breath for a moment, watching the flicker of indecision spread over his features, praying
he goes with the more sensible option. Eventually, I see him release the rage and physically relax, nodding at me, though I can tell it pains him to do so. He finally looks to the guard and holds up his hands defensively.

  “No, I’m good,” he mutters. The guard looks to me and I nod back, giving him what Bowie used to describe as my ‘Bambi eyes’.

  “Ok then, anything else, and I’m hauling you back to your cell and you’ll have your visitation rights restricted. You hear me, Thomas?”

  “Yes…sir,” Grant replies reluctantly. The guard nods back to me, then returns to his original post. It’s only then that I manage to release a long-held breath and tell my heart it’s ok to beat again.

  “Jesus Christ, Grant, don’t ever do that again,” I whisper, feeling slightly pissed at him for putting me through that terrifying situation. “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “I’m sorry, but to hear that has been happening to you and not be there to sort it out is a tad frustrating,” he deadpans. “I don’t want you seeing Matt anymore. He’s obviously not the guy you were once friends with, and I don’t trust him. As for Bowie, well, I still don’t trust him either, but I’m not going to come down all heavy and try and get you to stop seeing him. That’s going to have to be one for you to figure out on your own. I just hope it doesn’t end up being a hard lesson.”

  “Matt and I are still friends, Grant,” I smirk at him, like he’s totally over-reacting. “We’ve made up our differences, so…”

  “No, Millie! I said no!” he shouts out suddenly, causing the same guard to look back to us with his hand already hovering over his baton again, looking like he thinks he’s Luke Skywalker and readying himself to save the galaxy. “Please, for the love of God, keep your distance and never let yourself be alone with him. What the hell does Bowie make of all this, given that he’s apparently said you’re together?” I shoot him a disdainful look over his choice of words, but then tell him about the fight I had to walk away from on Friday. “Well, he’s gone up a little in my estimation then,” he says with a mirthless laugh.

  “Look, I’m seeing Gabe after Christmas. You know when I go and look around Stanford?” I decide to try and steer the conversation away from my boy dramas. It seems to be the only way forward without the guard with itchy hands coming back over to act out his Star Wars dream. “So, we’ll hash out some ideas together before I see you next month. In the meantime, try not to lose your shit in here.”

  “Can’t make any promises,” he smiles sadly, and grips my hand tightly for comfort. I could cry over how broken he looks but I stop myself, because right now, I need to be the strong and confident one for him.

  “I’ll see you just before Christmas,” I reassure him when it comes to the time when we have to hug goodbye.

  “Yay, another festive season in the slammer!” he mutters into my ear and breaks my heart at the same time.

  “Hopefully, your last,” I whisper before I kiss him on the cheek goodbye. “Stay safe, ass face.”

  “You too, tubs!”

  Bowie

  I never thought I’d be slumped up against Millie’s front door, waiting for her to get back from wherever the hell she is. I always thought we’d be sworn enemies, forever despising one another until the day we could part ways for good. Yet here I am, leaning up against her house with my ass slowly numbing on the cold step in front of it.

  Severe boredom kicked in about ten minutes after I arrived, so I’ve been playing with my pocket-knife for the last two hours; a gift from my grandfather when he passed away. It’s worth less than nothing, but the sentimental value is infinite to me. When I was still in middle school, he used to tell me war stories on demand and would repeat old tales while expertly flicking the blade about in front of me. In the end, he’d always promise that it would be mine when he eventually died. I hated hearing him say that, but at the same time, it had always felt like the day he would eventually pass was a day that would never come. It was merely a throw-away comment with a chuckle at the end to try and take the sting out of death.

  In eighth grade, the same year I was snubbed by the entire year group, that day fell, and we buried him alongside my grandmother. Mom had cried so hard she burst a blood vessel in her eye, and I remember thinking she looked like she had the eyes of an albino rabbit, similar to the one we had seen in the pet shop not too long ago. She didn’t even have Dad there to comfort her; he was on tour in Afghanistan, fighting for his country while his wife was falling apart.

  After his funeral, Mom retreated to her room and I heard her sobbing into her pillow, desperately trying to mask the noise from Sam and me. However, I had spoken to Dad that day and remembered promising him to look after the girls, with him telling me that in his absence, I was the man of the house. I crawled in behind her, just as Sam had climbed in on the other side and we all held each other, crying over the old man who had always had a look of peace about him, even when people were losing their minds all around his gentle exterior. I remember thinking that even though Mom and Sam were girls, and I was ‘the man’, we were all here together, crying, and feeling just as broken. I needed them just as much as they needed me.

  And now, here I am for Millie, the one girl who needed protecting from me, once upon a time. But the moment she stood up to me at Matt’s party, proving she was just as strong as Sam and Mom, I realized how perfect she was. She showed me she was more than the ‘Bambi eyes’ I had so often referred to her as and far braver than I was. She never fell into line to be accepted, she didn’t take up with Matt just because he was Mr Golden Balls and liked her a little too much, and she never backed down to me, even when I was the worst kind of person to her. She didn’t even break when her brother was imprisoned for rape and her parents abandoned the both of them.

  Instead, she fell into me, the boy who had given her such a hard time because of the lies he had been told. Not only that, but she fought for exactly what she wanted and what she deserved from me. So here I am again, ready to give it all to her and to try and be the man worthy of her affection.

  I considered ringing her when she lost her shit with me, especially seeing as I deserved her wrath, but I decided that I needed to try and face her in person again. I had acted like a jealous prick instead of thinking about what she needed. In my defense, this is all so new to me. Besides my family, I’ve never had anyone else to consider but myself. Especially since Sam went away.

  The rumble of a car engine and the sound of rubber rolling over tarmac infiltrates my ears. At first, I think I’m hearing things; I’ve been waiting here that long. But when I force my stiff neck to look up and see her stepping out of the taxi in front of me, I literally try to leap to my feet. Unfortunately, my ass still isn’t working, so I sort of fall back down in a crumpled heap, making me look uber cool by the way. However, it’s all worth it when I see Millie standing over me with her arms crossed, her hip popped out to the side, and with a giant grin all over her face. She takes one look at me on my back and breaks into fits of laughter, pointing at me like I’m a street performer who has no real talent other than to act the clown. I pretend to be angry but then join in with her before she eventually takes pity and reaches down to help me up from my rather undignified position.

  “Where the hell have you been, Millie?” I ask but with a soft chuckle. “My ass went to sleep about an hour ago!”

  “What?! How long have you been sitting here?” she asks in disbelief, struggling to pull me up so that I sort of fall into her before getting my balance back.

  “Come here,” I whisper before pulling her in for a kiss. It’s been days since I laid my lips on hers and as pathetic as it sounds, I’ve missed it. Thankfully, she reciprocates, so I relax a little, knowing she can’t be that mad. In fact, it turns so intimate, I’m pretty confident I have her back under my charms.

  “A few hours, I lost count,” I reply with a cheeky grin, the same one my mom falls for whenever she’s mad at me. Usually for something I totally deserve her wrath for, like
coming home drunk, leaving assignments till the last minute, flirting with the woman next door. You know, your standard boy stuff.

  “Don’t think that’s gonna get you off of my shit list, Bowie,” she points her indignant index finger at me, but from her expression, I definitely know I’m not long for said shit list.

  She unlocks her front door and invites me in, shoving her keys and bag onto the hall table in a crumpled heap that has me instantly wanting to organize it because the girl is obviously a little slovenly at times. We walk into the open plan kitchen slash living room where she puts the kettle on as a habit of routine. I pull up a breakfast bar stool and watch her flitter around the kitchen, almost fascinated by her every movement, being so self-reliant and independent in everything she does. She’s wearing a shade of yellow which brings out her icy blues and chocolate colored locks. If I wasn’t so cold, I’d be sporting a hard-on right now.

  Millie silently makes our drinks and I shake my head in disbelief over the fact this girl already knows my preferences when it comes to coffee. I never even imagined being in a relationship like this with anyone, least of all Millie Thomas.