Blindsided

Ashley opened his eyes when his phone went off. Another horrible school day, he thought. He sat up in his bed and his wallpaper started to float through the room, spin around his head. He should’ve known better, he should’ve ended this yesterday. But there was no time to argue with himself, because his father was yelling at the foot of the stairs and he had another torturing school day to look forward to. He looked around the room and picked some clothes up from the floor. Some dirty, some newly washed, he didn’t care. It wasn’t as if the was going to meet he president today.

“Ashley, hurry up!”another angry shout hit his ears. If that old man could just shut up for once – he was getting another headache. The third this week already and it was only Wednesday! He grabbed a random pair of Vans and slipped them on. Just before he got up from his warm bed, he grabbed his iPod from his night stand and plugged it in. “Goodbye social contact,” he murmured, but his music was already too loud for him to hear his own voice. He had a horrible voice anyway.

When he wandered through his room, he passed the mirror. Any stranger wouldn’t have noticed it, because Ashley made it disappear with some old curtains. His mother bought it for him when they first moved in, in this house.
“Now you can see how handsome you are when you go out,” she had told him. Three years later and he still hasn’t gone out. It’s mainly because it’s something his mother always wanted him to do, to experience. But she isn’t here any more, so why should he do something that she wants him to do? It’s not like she knows what he’s doing nowadays.

It was a day like any other: Take the underground to school, get bored in class, ignore the hungry moans from his stomach during lunch, fall asleep during the final periods and get back home after that. Although school was a social activity, Ashley didn’t notice much of it. He preferred to spend his time alone, with just him and his painful thoughts. It was a terrible lifestyle he was living, and he knew it oh-so-well. He didn’t try to change it, though. It was some sort of cycle he found himself in. He couldn’t get out of it. Whenever the tried to change something about it, it was already time for him to go to school, or to go to bed.

It was four pm and Ashley was sitting at the edge of his bed. He didn’t know what to do. He could watch a movie or annoy Ronnie -- his snake. But neither of those things were useful. Just like his entire life; all of it was useless. He wanted something more, he wanted to get out. Something was pulling on his body, something was making him heavier with every second he sat there. He had to get out, he had to get away from all of this. He needed to feel something, something else. Happiness was a feeling he couldn’t even remember, pain was all he ever felt. Pain and pure loneliness.

It all started when his mother died, two years ago. They were such a happy family before. Ashley, his younger sister Pip and their parents. Sunday night was always pizza night, and on Friday nights they used to play some silly games together. It was something Pip always wanted, and Ashley was always annoyed by it. But deep down he enjoyed it as much as his younger half did. Now, without their mother, life isn’t the same any more. Their family has fallen apart. Their mother had a stroke and died instantly. There was nothing they could do any more. It wasn’t even necessary to bring her to the hospital. The paramedics told the family that she had passed before they even arrived. Ashley always thought it was their fault. If they had come faster maybe she would still be alive. That’s a thought Ashley isn’t allowed to share with anyone, says his father.

Ashley’s father was devastated, and Pip and Ashley didn’t even know what to do. Pip locked herself inside her room for three days. She wouldn’t eat or talk to anybody. Like losing his wife wasn’t bad enough; he had to lose his daughter, too. Ashley tried everything to get his sister out of there. He wasn’t doing well himself either, but he had to take care of his family. If his father was too upset, he’d have to cook and do the laundry. He was never complaining, it was something his mother would’ve wanted him to do.

Now two years after the incident, Ashley has broken down. It’s been a while now, but it’s finally time for him to grieve. His father is okay now and so is his younger sister. They can take care of their selves. Ashley doesn’t know how to handle these feelings. He doesn’t know what a healthy way to grieve is. His father isn’t an easy man to talk to, and his sister doesn’t even want to hear the word ‘mother’ any more. He just bottles it all up. And it’s turning to the point where things are getting too bad. He’s going to explode, if he doesn’t look out.

He wants to end it. All of it. He wants his last breath to escape his chapped lips. He’s finished.

His mother used to be the most amazing and beautiful woman in his life. She used to take care of him, and make sure he was always feeling happy inside. Now that she’s gone, his heart is empty and cold. All of his friends abandoned him, but Ashley actually pushed them away. No one can get through to his mind.

Teachers at school ask him what he wants to do when he grows up. “Nothing,” is the only thing he answers. It’s the same answer over and over again. He doesn’t mean that he wants to do nothing when he’s older. He just wants to be nothing. It seems like a fair and easy goal to achieve, but it isn’t. Doing nothing is a lot easier than actually being nothing.

This is something that’s been on his mind for the past few months. But he doesn’t have the guts. Of course he’s too much of a pussy. He can’t achieve anything in his life, why would he be able to achieve suicide? He’d upset his father and sister. The chance of them surviving this will be so much smaller than when his mother died. Because when her soul disappeared from this planet, Ashley was there to catch his father and sister’s. He was there to help them.

But if he’s gone, no one’s going to take care of them. And it breaks his heart knowing that he’d be the reason for their sadness. He may be upset, depressed and suicidal, but he isn’t selfish.

Thirty minutes have passed and Ashley is sitting in his windowsill, staring down the street. It’s crowded for a Wednesday afternoon. He lives in a small street in London. The house isn’t big, but it is tall. His room is on the third floor, just underneath the attic. When they first bought this house, he claimed the attic as his home. But the roof wasn’t isolated well enough and there weren’t any windows, so he got the room underneath it.

Ashley’s chapped lips turned into a small smile when he thought back at his fourteen-year-old self. His clothes were horrible and always ragged. He’d wear eyeliner on the weekends and he wanted to dye his hair. His mother wouldn’t let him, though. She said that he could never get his own hair colour back. He knew that, but he didn’t mind. Six months after she passed, he had dyed it anyway. His father had gotten mad at him, said he didn’t respect his mother. But he did. He did so much and he missed her so, so much. He had regretted dying his hair the day after his father told him how disrespectful he was behaving.

There was a blond girl walking through the street. She didn’t look that tall to him, and it seemed like she was having a hard time getting through the street. It looked like she was crying, and it was making Ashley frown. What could’ve happened to her that would make her so upset? How could anyone dare to hurt such a beautiful girl like her? Hundreds of questions were running through his head.

“She’s in the same place as you are,” a soft voice spoke in the back of his head. Because he had pushed his friends away, he had made new ones inside his head. They always did as he told, and he would never have to tell them how he was feeling, they’d know.

“I don’t cry in public,” Ashley whispered. Once again, he couldn’t hear himself, his iPod was too loud. He hasn’t listened to music out loud for about a year now. His father said it was annoying him. His mother never minded how loud his music was. A sigh escaped his lips, all of these contradictions between his parents were annoying him so much. How could they ever have been happy together, they were so different from each other.

“You should talk to her,” a more mature voice said. He had a very smart brain, even though it was fucked up like this right now. But Ashley never listened to this smart, mature part of him. He didn’t have the guts to get out of his house and talk to a random stranger. How would he be able to find her, anyway? She’d be long gone by the time he was downstairs.

And even before he could finish that last thought, the girl had sat down on a bench. It didn’t seem like she was going to leave any time soon, either. Ashley cursed under his breath and got up from his windowsill. No one was making him do this, no one but himself. He knew how silly it was to talk to himself like that, and to actually listen to what his other egos had to say. But it was the only way. He was giving himself therapy.

“Be back in time for dinner,” his father said when he noticed that Ashley was heading for the front door. Ashley didn’t reply, because his father wouldn’t even care if he did or not. He turned the doorknob and walked outside. The cold winter air hit his face and he shivered. He wasn’t planning on going back in to grab a coat, or to get back into his dark room. He was going to do what the mature version of him wanted him to do.

The girl was sitting straight across the street, her arms tightly wrapped around her pulled up legs. Her legs were skinny, and her skin was pale. He couldn’t see her face, it was hidden behind legs, but he guessed she had a gorgeous face. Any pale skinned girl, with their bones showing, was gorgeous to him. Bones were the only definition of beautiful. Ashley crossed the street and slowly walked up to her. He didn’t know how to start a conversation with her. Every possible thing he could say, sounded like something a creep would say.

He decided on the safer thing to do, he’d just sit down next to her and if she was willing to talk, she would. When he placed himself next to her, and leaned back against the wooden bench, his sight was immediately focused on the buildings across the street. A smile crept onto his face when he saw his own house. It was an old house, something that only his mother would pay way too much money for.

He could hear the girl’s sobs and it was interrupting his thoughts. It was confusing him, too. If you were feeling bad, you would go home, or at least somewhere less social. You wouldn’t sit down on a crappy, wooden bench in the middle of a crowded street somewhere in London. You wouldn’t cry in front of everyone, would you? The silence between the two of them was annoying him. He had to do something about it.

“Why are you crying?” Ashley asked the blond haired girl. He had been debating that question with his other selves for quite a while. It seemed like a normal thing to say, and it wasn’t that stalkerish, was it?

The girl lifted her head from her legs and looked over at the boy that has been sitting beside her. Her blue-grey eyes pierced right through his soul, but Ashley didn’t feel uncomfortable. He could see right through her, he could see in her beautiful eyes how she was feeling. She was feeling horrible, terrible and alone. Ashley would love to hold her tight and tell her life wasn’t that bad. He’d love to make her feel better, but he simple couldn’t. Life wasn’t getting any better and he couldn’t make her feel better either. Life was a bitch, and so was god, because he put everything and everyone on this awful planet. He made everyone miserable, it was all his fault.

“Why would you care?” the girl replied, narrowing her beautiful orbs.

“I don’t,” Ashley simply said. It was true, he didn’t care about her. Only one or two other versions of him did.

“Then why would you ask?” she asked him, a frown growing on her face. Ashley wanted her to stop, he wanted her to look like she did before. Vulnerable, not arrogant or harsh like she was now. Her face was delicate, and soft, like porcelain. Porcelain dolls aren’t supposed to narrow their eyes or frown, either.

“I don’t know,” the boy mumbled in reply. He looked down at his lap, playing nervously with his hands. He could tell her that some voice in the back of his head said that he had to leave his house and talk to her. But that would make him seem crazy, and he wasn’t crazy. He was perfectly sane.

She wiped her tears away with her skinny hands and let her legs drop. She stuck her hand out and Ashley looked up, confused. “I’m Pakka,” she said. Ashley took her hand, shaking it gently. “Ashley,” was all he said.

And they sat there, in silence, for the next thirty minutes or so. Just watching the people pass by, and not say anything. It was a comfortable silence, one that Ashley hasn’t felt in quite a while. His father opened the front door an hour later and looked around, trying to find his son in the busy, crowded street. It looked like he was annoyed, he had told his son to be back for dinner, and he wasn’t there. Ashley noticed and said goodbye to Pakka, giving her an awkward but still comfortable hug.

“I’ll see you around,” she told him. But it was a lie. They never seen or spoken to each other ever again. It was a friendship that only lasted for ninety-eight minutes. It was a nice friendship.