flash

I sat on a curb, upending a bottle of whiskey. Back then, liquor stores had no qualms about selling to 16 year olds, provided they looked 18, and I did.

A word was said, a sentence I imagine, as I sat there, waiting for the whiskey to alleviate some of my pain. Waiting for anything to happen to take me out of my hell, however briefly. I don't remember the word, or who said it, but it was connected to the boy sitting near me. It referred to a night, a drunken, high night involving him and two others, one of my bungling attempts to escape.

One of the others I liked, one I disliked (his friend), and one, this one, I didn't know. The one I had liked very much, and had gone out with him, sort of, before. There was desperation and fear in all I did then, and after that he stopped talking to me, unable to understand me, and I was unable to explain myself. I thought this was my chance to have him, what I wanted so badly, what I imagined would quell the fire for just a moment. The others were meaningless, they were there, so they would be part of it, as he did not seem inclined towards me on his own. The one I didn't know didn't phase me. The one I didn't like disturbed, but I put it down as the cost of what I imagined I wanted, and ignored what he was.

I don't remember the word, but I remember it hitting me, the anger flashing quickly and intensely, filling me, bursting out. The bottle went up, and came down on the curb, whiskey everywhere, broken glass at the boy's throat. My anger at everything, everyone, at the throat of a scared, innocent kid. He looked in my eyes with fear and desperation and sadness of his own, and said "I was the one who wanted you". All of my anger left; only the desperate sadness remained. I walked away, alone, the boy's statement, and the feeling in his eyes echoing through me with an eerie hopeless yearning and regret. I never saw him again.