Sorrow Swallows My Screams

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen:

Zacky’s POV:

One month later.

The past month has been interesting. I’d been having a lot of mood swing sort of things; the smallest thing would make me feel really unhappy. And I still missed Mikey. A lot. But I hadn’t tried to kill myself again, though I’d thought about it a lot and seriously considered trying it again numerous times. And I was still living with Brian.

I’ve been going to school every day and not a lot has changed there - I still get punched at least once a day by the captain of the football team or one of his little minions. One day - one day I swear I’ll get revenge on those fuckers.

For the first week or so after my father had come to the door of Brian’s house looking for me, I’d been worried that he would find me somehow and I’d have to go home; after a lot of reassurance from Brian and his dad, I stopped worrying so much.

Also, Brian and I were just still friends.

Today was a day, to be honest, a little out of the ordinary. I hadn’t been beaten up at school (for the first time in monnnnnnnths) and when I arrived home (yes I was calling it home… if I didn’t count this, I didn’t have a home) neither Brian nor his dad were there. Well, Brian’s dad not being there wasn’t unusual, he didn’t usually get home until about 5:30; he worked a normal nine-to-five job and it normally took him about half an hour to get home after stopping off at the supermarket to get some food for us for dinner.

But Brian… he was usually there. He was supposed to be there. I forced myself not to worry. I’d been worrying about stuff way too much since Mikey had-

I waltzed casually over to the lounge in the living room after dumping my school bag in Brian’s - and mine - room. I switched on the television (“Best part of the afternoon,” as Brian always says) and flicked through the channels to find a good show to watch. South Park was on. It’ll do.

About half way through it, a knocking began on the door with the accompaniment of a loud voice calling, “Open up!”

I cautiously made my way to the door. I didn’t recognise the voice. That was good in one way because it meant it wasn’t my dad, but bad in another way, because that meant that it wasn’t Brian or his dad and some random stranger was knocking at my door - not sounding too happy either.

“I said, open up! Police!”

Police… I wasn’t sure if I believed that. In fact, I doubted it very much so. I inched forward just a little further and pressed my eye to the peep hole and peered through it. The uniform looked like a police officer’s uniform, but couldn’t kids get Halloween costumes like that? So what’s to stop an adult from getting a hold of one?

Now is a good time to remember how I said that I now worry too much.

I opened the door a fraction and saw that there were actually two officers outside; one had been hidden from my line of sight in the peep hole. One reached for a walkie talkie radio thing that was attached to his belt and spoke clearly into it.

“Lieutenant, we have him here.” He paused waiting for a reply which was too muffled for me to hear. “Yes, it’s him.” Another pause. Another reply that I couldn’t hear. “Yes, I’m sure. We’ll bring him in now, sir.”

He clipped the walkie talkie radio thing back to his belt and dipped into his large coat pocket for something. His hand exposed again, I saw that it was a pair of shiny, silver handcuffs.

Not good.

“Sir, you’ll have to come with us down to the station.”

A perplexed look spread over my features. “What? Why?”

“I think it’s best if you just come with us now, sir.”

“Wh-?”

“That’s enough, kid. Get in the car.”

I shot the officers a pleading look - I just wanted to know what was going on - before I reluctantly climbed into the back of the semi-beaten cop car.