The imperfection we called our love | ✔

*Six*

The thing about being young and reckless; was that things happened so fast, maybe sometimes too fast.

Like it could take two years to build a friendship with someone, and a day to change all that, an eternity to have your mind programmed one specific way, and one second of spending time with some junkie you don't even know to change the way you thought about everything.

And one night where one of your parents didn't come home, to throw your life entirely out of orbit

Nothing new

That Friday my father never came home.

My mother went ape-shit crazy and began raving on about - I wasn't sure what exactly. I was pissed at her despite the fact that I was worried where my father was. I was pissed at my mother for how she went on, making it all about her. She went on as if no one else noticed, which we had, but maybe no one noticed how 'worried' she was.

It was that week that my father had taken a full week of leave, so he had been at home all week. So it was not as if he was at work, he practically just disappeared out of thin air.

And my mother couldn't live with any explanation.

Saturday night my mother was about to call the cops, when my father's car tore up in the front garden ripping apart the garden as he parked on my mother's plants, he came into the house and kicked the front door open, the door banged against the wall behind it causing all the glass in the front door to shatter and fall on the ground. The phone in my mother's hand fell to the ground the moment she heard my father's car.

He barrelled through the kitchen and she ran after him.

He ignored her when she called after him, and he shrugged her off when she tried to grab him. I came down from the stairs hearing all the noise, and saw my angry father barrelling up the stairs full speed. I backed up, but he was fast, my mother not far behind running after him, tears streaming down her face.

''Dad'' - I said my voice shaky.

He looked at me as if noticing me for the first time, a look I couldn't quite decipher painted on his face. He pushed me out of the way with force, I saw the anger flash for that brief second, when my mother called after him, and I had said his name in sync with my mother's voice, also sending him a silent plea for the look on his face sent chills all the way down to my toes.

- My body flew to the left due to the impact of the hit, my head knocking the railing of the stairs, the back of my head zinging, my head also causing my sight to blur.

I lay there for a while blinking. Looking around me trying to comprehend, but it was as if my hearing volume was turned down to mute. I saw my dad screaming at my mother, my mother yelling back, small dots of spit flying as she yelled back at him. I saw Matt exit his room. I raised my hand gesturing for him to go back into his room. I got up to my feet, and walked towards my parents room catching a glimpse of a duffel bag laying open on the bed, my dad shoving clothes in the bag hastily, my mother perched on the edge of the bed, bent over like she was pleading like an infant would to the mother, and my father ignoring her and packing faster and faster

It was like watching a loop, my mother's desperate sobs, and my father shoving more and more into his bag

He didn't even look at my mother, hell; he didn't look up at all, as if he were too afraid of what might be staring right back at him

Well at least now I know where I got my cowardice from

I watched him, his every move, how all of his actions were so rushed, like every second he spent in this house, was a second more of absolute and complete agony.