Dreams of 18(40)

My hobo slides down my shoulder and thuds down on the floor, beside the broken glass. “I heard everything.”

At this, he widens his stance, his mouth parting as he drags in a charged-up breath.

“You are an alcoholic, aren’t you? I mean, ever since everything happened. I gave up drinking and you’ve taken it up. And you hate schools too, don’t you? That’s why you don’t show up.”

I have to take a pause because I see his chest vibrating.

“I hate schools too,” I continue because I want him to know that he’s not alone. “I hate corridors and students and teachers. Everyone with their judgement and their gossiping. I went there once after… everything happened, to see the principal, and I hated every second of it. I hated the smell, the air, the lockers. Everything.”

I went back to school to tell Principal Jacobs that it was me who did the wrong thing. The building was empty, save for a few people. I didn’t meet anyone on my way to the principal’s office, but I could still feel my skin crawling. As if they were all watching me.

“That’s not it, though, is it? You don’t only hate schools, you hate everything. You hate your roses too. Is it because I was trying to steal them that night? Is that why you don’t take care of them anymore?”

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, feeling so small and so vulnerable.

“They remind me of you,” he rasps at last, jolting the breath out of me.

“Your roses?”

“Yeah.”

It’s a hoarse sound, his yeah. It’s both sad and angry. It’s tortured. Anguished.

It squeezes my heart so much that I think it will explode. The veins will burst. The chambers will collapse. My heart will self-destruct.

“And that’s why you hate them now, because you hate me,” I conclude on a whisper, wondering how many girls dream of being someone’s rose and how many of them cry when they really become it.

He flinches; it’s a big flinch.

As if I slapped him. As if I smacked his chest or kicked him in the gut.

As if I sliced his skin by uttering those words and I don’t understand.

Isn’t that the truth?

He does hate me, doesn’t he?

His features rearrange themselves in a flash and I don’t have time to wonder about inconsequential things. They morph into what they always are when I’m around.

Cold and sharp.

“Yes, I’m an alcoholic now. Yes, I hate schools. Yes, I don’t take care of roses. Are you going to say sorry now?” he lashes out. “That’s why you came. You told me that, right? To apologize. So are you going to get down on your knees and beg for my forgiveness?”

“I...”

“Is that your plan? To get down on your knees and beg me to forgive you? To do my bidding, plant me new roses, sacrifice yourself? What if I ask you to crawl around on your knees? Are you going to do that too? Are you going to follow me around like a lost little puppy? Are you going to take every cruel thing I do to you before it gets through your head that this whole thing is not worth it? It’s not worth it, okay? So leave.”

Somehow, his rapid-fire questions, his callous words fill me with more determination. A new, solid kind of determination.

He’s hurting.

It’s plain to see. He’s in pain and he’s lashing out and it’s my doing.

So yeah, that’s my plan.

To beg for his forgiveness. To take every cruel thing he does to me. Because even if he doesn’t believe it, this whole thing is more than worth it.

It’s so worth it and I so feel it in my bones that I get down on my knees. I don’t even think about it. I do it just because it was something that fell out of his mouth.

And when I do get down on my knees, he frowns.

He almost stumbles back as if this time I shot him with a gun and the bullet went straight through his heart.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he growls.

“Whatever you said,” I whisper, looking up at him, my knees on the squeaking, ancient hardwood floor.

Then I go ahead and put my hands on the floor too, going down on all fours. My hands are a few inches shy of where the shards of glass start. They are scattered around, between him and me, and I don’t care if I have to crawl through glass to get to him.

I glance up at him again and find his frown the thickest I’ve ever seen. It’s so deep, it’s almost like a hole in the ground.

“You told me not to play games with you. Not to mess with you. To do as you say. So if you want me to kneel, then I’ll kneel.” I put my hand forward and take a step toward him. “I’ll crawl and beg and sacrifice myself until you move on. Until you don’t hate or feel angry. I’ll do anything and everything. Because that’s all I can do. I can’t change the past. I can’t take back my kiss, Mr. Edwards, but I can make you forget and move on.”

And then, I lift my hand and walk it forward.

I’m about to bring it down on the first broken piece of bottle and cut myself on it so I bleed and seal the oath that I’ve made him in blood when a hand grasps my wrist.

Before I can even process this strange turn of events, I’m snatched up and pulled off my knees.

The sudden change makes me dizzy and a furious Mr. Edwards swims in front of my eyes. The bones of his cheek and jaw are hard. As hard as his grip on my wrist, my bare wrist.