BooksBarbecue
Back At Dawn
Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
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  39. Copyright

I woke shivering on Sunday night, nine days in the apartment, the floor a slab of ice, both windows rattling as though someone was trying to get in. I got up and turned on both burners, then stood over them trying to get warm. After a while I tired of standing and turned them off and went back to my pile of clothes. I couldn’t sleep. I sat against the corner of the room and pulled my knees to my chest. A passing train, light and shadows on the walls and the floor around me, swirling shadows that looked like animals hunting in the night. Shaking that I couldn’t stop, my hands, legs, lips. A cold that emanated from my very core, a cold exacerbated by the silence in the room aside from the rattling glass. Angry jagged shadows, lunging shadows. So cold. I have nothing I am nothing so scared and alone. I miss my mom I wish she was here I can’t stop my hands from shaking my heart from pounding I just want to be anywhere other than where I am I want to be with somebody please somebody keep me safe I have nobody I want to die and to hell with these tears pulled so tightly into myself that everything aches but I say let it ache at least I know I’m still alive that way and goddamn it don’t give up so easily you’ve gotten through worse fuck getting through anything you’ve gotten through worse you know these moods pass with time but goddamn it I hurt and I don’t think I’ll ever be better I might as well get it over with and open the window and jump to the tracks and lay my neck across the rail and do the world a favor just do the whole damn world a favor at least I can’t hurt or disappoint anyone any longer at least I can stop letting myself down what have I ever done to be proud of other than on that cold March day all those years ago oh yes keep living in the past keep pitying yourself keep feeling sorry for yourself it’s always worked so well for you that’s just what I’ll do I wish I could just go to sleep and never wake up why can’t it be that easy. I don’t want to die but goddamn it sometimes I do.

10

I don’t know if I trusted him after that, after he caught me on the swing. I think that maybe part of me did. He was there for us, had helped my mother through her time of mourning, helped her cope with the pain of losing the only parent she had left. For a time it seemed as though we were a real family. I suppose there’s good to be found in even the worst situations.