Cocaine Kisses
Chapter Two
Lying back on a mattress, cigarette dangling from between thin lips and brown eyes staring holes in the already cracked ceiling.
Obnoxiously loud, thumping metal comes from the room below, occupied by three guys with Mohicans and noserings who think that just because they’re in a band that they’re going to be famous one day.
The girl in the room to the left is crying again, she’s just come out of the loony bin again. She shares the apartment with her boyfriend but they’re always arguing, the screaming has only just stopped for the night.
Drunken, raucous cheers come from the street below and Tom considers crossing the room to peer though the grimy window in the vain hope of finding out what’s going on.
Deciding against it, he listens as the cheers become shouts and then someone’s saying something about a knife and putting it away… the brown eyed boy ignores it, rolling over and putting the cigarette out against the wall, letting the ash fall to the floor, closely followed by the spent cigarette.
Dreadlocks held back by a black band and brown eyes stare hatefully at the already chipping paint and the fresh cigarette burn.
Empty beer bottles litter the floor like autumn leaves, spent cigarettes in filthy ashtrays dotted around the small apartment consisting of only two rooms.
A bathroom in the corner, a tiny grubby little place, a kitchen in the opposite corner opening out onto the sitting room, a sofa-bed next to a coffee table and a cracked TV, the only thing that even links the brown eyed boy to his past being the battered guitar propped up against the ancient television set.
That and the stack of photos atop a kitchen counter, several stained with tears, one stained with blood, all of the brown eyed twin somewhere across the city.
Reaching over and yanking the curtains shut, blocking out the city lights but not blocking out the sounds of the cops and more drunken yelling, bottles breaking, dogs barking, all that’s missing is the hard punk music to backtrack it, but oh wait, downstairs have changed the CD.
God, it’s so cliché Tom feels that he might puke if it got any more so.
***
Bill rolls onto his back, one hand still pressed against the cold hotel room wall next to him.
His guts feel like someone’s grabbed and handful and pulled and it hurts so badly tears spring to brown eyes.
His Tomi’s hurting, he knows because he can feel it.
He wishes he couldn’t, wishes he was strong like Tom was, wishes he could let go of the pain or – better yet – take it out on someone else.
But he can’t, he’s just… Bill… and that’s all he’ll ever be.
Sobs shake an already frail body and someone kicks the wall, his ‘guard’, hissing at him to shut the fuck up, warning him what’ll happen if he doesn’t.
It’s too quiet, too bright, the city lights flooding his room making it as bright as day even though it must be nearly midnight.
The silence is what’s suffocating him though, so he pads across the room almost silently, opening the window and gulping in the cold night breeze, the wind tousling his hair and biting at his skin, making him feel so alive but oh so dead inside when he glances down and the people below are smiling, laughing, there’s a couple too and they’re kissing….
He rips his gaze away from them, almost slamming the window shut and stalking back towards his bed, the fake luxury of the hotel and the irony that hung heavy in the air was lost on the brown eyed teenager who’s only though was of the next time he would see his lover again.
Sighing, he rested his palm against the smooth, cold surface of the wall, trying to pretend that somewhere, Tom might feel it and know that his heart still beat only for him.
Obnoxiously loud, thumping metal comes from the room below, occupied by three guys with Mohicans and noserings who think that just because they’re in a band that they’re going to be famous one day.
The girl in the room to the left is crying again, she’s just come out of the loony bin again. She shares the apartment with her boyfriend but they’re always arguing, the screaming has only just stopped for the night.
Drunken, raucous cheers come from the street below and Tom considers crossing the room to peer though the grimy window in the vain hope of finding out what’s going on.
Deciding against it, he listens as the cheers become shouts and then someone’s saying something about a knife and putting it away… the brown eyed boy ignores it, rolling over and putting the cigarette out against the wall, letting the ash fall to the floor, closely followed by the spent cigarette.
Dreadlocks held back by a black band and brown eyes stare hatefully at the already chipping paint and the fresh cigarette burn.
Empty beer bottles litter the floor like autumn leaves, spent cigarettes in filthy ashtrays dotted around the small apartment consisting of only two rooms.
A bathroom in the corner, a tiny grubby little place, a kitchen in the opposite corner opening out onto the sitting room, a sofa-bed next to a coffee table and a cracked TV, the only thing that even links the brown eyed boy to his past being the battered guitar propped up against the ancient television set.
That and the stack of photos atop a kitchen counter, several stained with tears, one stained with blood, all of the brown eyed twin somewhere across the city.
Reaching over and yanking the curtains shut, blocking out the city lights but not blocking out the sounds of the cops and more drunken yelling, bottles breaking, dogs barking, all that’s missing is the hard punk music to backtrack it, but oh wait, downstairs have changed the CD.
God, it’s so cliché Tom feels that he might puke if it got any more so.
***
Bill rolls onto his back, one hand still pressed against the cold hotel room wall next to him.
His guts feel like someone’s grabbed and handful and pulled and it hurts so badly tears spring to brown eyes.
His Tomi’s hurting, he knows because he can feel it.
He wishes he couldn’t, wishes he was strong like Tom was, wishes he could let go of the pain or – better yet – take it out on someone else.
But he can’t, he’s just… Bill… and that’s all he’ll ever be.
Sobs shake an already frail body and someone kicks the wall, his ‘guard’, hissing at him to shut the fuck up, warning him what’ll happen if he doesn’t.
It’s too quiet, too bright, the city lights flooding his room making it as bright as day even though it must be nearly midnight.
The silence is what’s suffocating him though, so he pads across the room almost silently, opening the window and gulping in the cold night breeze, the wind tousling his hair and biting at his skin, making him feel so alive but oh so dead inside when he glances down and the people below are smiling, laughing, there’s a couple too and they’re kissing….
He rips his gaze away from them, almost slamming the window shut and stalking back towards his bed, the fake luxury of the hotel and the irony that hung heavy in the air was lost on the brown eyed teenager who’s only though was of the next time he would see his lover again.
Sighing, he rested his palm against the smooth, cold surface of the wall, trying to pretend that somewhere, Tom might feel it and know that his heart still beat only for him.