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“I never want to see you again.”
The echo in my head wouldn't die down.
There I was, in the middle of the pouring rain, completely soaked, completely lost, completely alone, in the middle of a main road, in the middle of the night. And a basketball under my arm. Basically, I wished I could spontaneously get run over by a four-ton truck. Maybe a car would do, either way, but somehow I felt like dying. A fleeting thought, I certainly didn't want to die. But at that moment it seemed like a viable solution.
The rain had long since washed the blood off my left hand, and yet dark red threads sparkled on the wet ground - maybe it was just my imagination. Why on earth do people tend to short-circuit? I cursed all my emotions and gritted my teeth. Get out of here, or I would stand here until dawn, and then again until dusk, until I ceased to exist.
At home, I threw the door into the lock with all the strength I could spare. I don't really remember why I did that, but it felt incredibly good for a few seconds. As I wandered through my modest pad, more disoriented than determined, I slipped my boots off as I walked, letting my jacket slip off my shoulders and smacking it on the floor, adding a few muddy splashes to the wallpaper. The ball also went carelessly to the floor, bounced up repeatedly and finally rolled into a corner. It had been pretty stupid to just run blindly through the small wooded area and stumble countless times, in my right mind I would never have come up with such a stupid idea; but my mind was scattered in fragments over the past time and had to make friends with the idea of not being picked up again so quickly.
My long journey through the small apartment led me to the kitchen, or the battleground of the fattened souls, as a good friend used to refer to it. Ironically, given the situation, this term took on a whole new dimension. With an absent-minded movement, I opened the fridge and randomly grabbed the next best bottle from the corner with the high-proof drinks. I didn't care what it was exactly, I wasn't even thirsty or even craving it, so I brought the neck of the bottle to my mouth, thought better of it and simply dropped the container, causing it to shatter on the kitchen floor and the glittering crystal shards to further decorate the chaos. Unable to think straight, I pulled the rain-soaked pack of cigarettes out of my pocket, tried unsuccessfully several times to light a cigarette without watering it down and then absently threw the lighter into the corner and crushed the watered-down cigarette on the floor.
I exhaled sharply and tried to collect myself. My brain welcomed this suggestion and a wonderful stabbing headache promptly joined the rest of the pain. Fantastic. I don't know how long I stood there like that, but eventually I sluggishly crept into my bedroom, swept aside a pile of magazines, books, worn linen and whatever else you could store on a bed and dropped onto the mattress, which complained with an indignant creak. I sighed. I couldn't think of anything better. And then I started to cry. Without realizing it. There I was, the sad remnant of what I used to be. Had I ever actually cried? The last time I cried was when I was eight, when my father beat me up for the last time before my mother left him head over heels with me that night. I hadn't cried at the death of one of my best friends. And now I was lying here, putting my pillow under water. Selfish me. Self-pitying idiot.
Lo and behold, apparently my mind wasn't completely lost after all. At least it forced me to come to my senses and reminded me that lying here and blubbering wouldn't change reality. I overreacted. Me, of all people, Mr. Self-Control. No, that shouldn't be the case, so I suppressed my tears and rolled to my side. With one hand, I reached under the pillow and pulled out a crumpled, cut-out photo, stared at it, and finally tore it up, tossing the remnants into the air with a flourish and watching the scraps slowly sail to the ground. “As a reminder.” These words burned in my ears, although they referred to something else.
I had to systematically go through the story from front to back and look for the mistake.
It began as it often does in the morning. Just like every day starts before school. I was in the eleventh grade of a high school for boys and girls, the only one of three high schools in the neighborhood that was not an all-boys or all-girls school. It was the start of a new school year, eleventh grade, as I said, and therefore also the start of the upper school. I was planning to do my A-levels and then, well, something else. It's not that I lacked prospects, but I was undecided and didn't want to think too far into the future. My mother moved to Hamburg during the vacations so that she could pursue her job there, and I was left with the apartment we had shared for over eight years. Not big, two bedrooms (one of which now served as a junk room), a bathroom and a kitchen. But it was perfectly adequate for two people. And even more so for one person.
I didn't mind living alone. Quite the opposite. No one constantly nagging me to be tidier and take more care of the household. Admittedly, I am a slob, and not just too much of one. “If you keep things tidy, you're just too lazy to look for them” was pretty much my attitude, and for my part, I got on well with it. I was able to do the necessary household chores and, contrary to some opinions, I cleaned the toilet and kitchen regularly. Everything was clean. Just messy.
Messy. Good keyword. The alarm clock rang, I sluggishly peeled myself out of bed and staggered into the bathroom. If anything could really wake me up in the morning, it was the sight of myself in the mirror; an experience every time. I would have to do something about these dark circles. And my hair. And my face. And generally, I needed to be someone else.
I turned on the tap, washed my face, blinked the water out of my eyes. Jesus, how did the leaves get into my hair? I laboriously cleaned the long shaggy, red-colored strands from most of the botany. The rest would be removed in the shower. That was the next port of call.
What a night. Never again a vacation farewell party. No more alcohol. “Of course,” I heard my subconscious agree ironically.
Be that as it may, water is the source of life, and they probably say that rightly. When I looked in the mirror after showering, the image no longer seemed quite so catastrophic. In general, I was rarely embarrassed by anything, but I didn't exactly find myself attractive.
Enough self-deprecation, I dressed as usual, a plain yellow T-shirt and loose black jeans that were torn in several places, on purpose of course. If it hadn't been intentional, I would have been annoyed because I wouldn't have had the money to buy new clothes.
The small accessories were still missing, such as the silver necklace with an imitation razor blade pendant, the two silver earrings and a decorative bracelet made from paper clips. What can you do to look original, right?
One last look in the mirror, everything was there except for the shoes, so I added black Land Rovers (Deichmann shoes were still cheap back then), satchel over my shoulder, and then out of the house. Conveniently, I'm one of those people who always stow all their essentials in their single rucksack and therefore always have everything to hand. The man's handbag, so to speak. I take out my pack of cigarettes and light up the first cigarette of the day, partly to satisfy my addiction and partly to do justice to my image. And out of routine.
And the routine was to continue in other areas. The vacations had only just ended yesterday, but that didn't change the school routine. The same route, the same building, the same people. Just routine.
And as always, Pete and his three buddies (who no one seemed to know by name and who never said anything substantial enough to engage with) stood at the gate and mobbed anyone who came within range. Four idiots as they were in the picture book, wannabe fascists. Bald skulls, bomber jackets, brass knuckles in their pockets (which in most cases were used to open beer bottles). Plus a huge range of warnings from the school and several attempted reprimands, but Pete's father was sitting somewhere in Düsseldorf and so the authority of the oh-so-objective and uninfluenceable systems was once again circumvented.
As always, I walked past the four of them with a visibly feigned smile. The herd had been silent since the day I had broken one of their arms in a fight, unintentionally actually, but the effect had something to it. Big mouth, nothing behind it, and so the three sheep cowered behind Pete whenever I passed by. That was fine by me.
In the school playground, there was another big hello and reunion with people we hadn't seen since the vacations. And also with the people I'd had a run-in with yesterday. Sabrina, a pretty blonde girl from our class, stormed off, threw herself around my neck with loud screams and almost strangled me. She may not have been the conventional average girl considering this behavior, but I liked her exuberance and twirled her around in my arms several times before putting her back on the ground and then getting a sugary sweet “hello” that I returned imitating her tone of voice. It wasn't that easy, after all it was the first word of the day after a really long night.
“Oi, Daniel, my old man, what's new?” came a voice from the side that belonged to Jan, my best buddy and half-brother, so to speak, considering the time we spent together, mostly in the company of Sabrina and a few other people who were also milling around outside the entrance to the school building. Jan was simply hilarious: his straw-blonde mane, groomed by emphasized carelessness regarding a haircut, blew happily back and forth in the light morning breeze, and his blue eyes, as always, radiated an incredible cheerfulness that was simply infectious. To see him sad, the world would have to end or something equally bad would have to happen.
“You should know that better than anyone,” I replied with mock seriousness, ”You brought the stuff yesterday. You're lucky I didn't wake up in the ditch again, otherwise you'd have been due now.”
If he didn't have ears, Jan would have grinned three hundred and sixty degrees.
“Yeah-ha!” he resumed the conversation shortly afterwards, while I tried to wriggle out of Sabrina's grip, ”But while you were still coming out of your coma, I was already asking about the news here.”
He grinned again, either in pride at his news or at my desperate attempt to free myself from Sabrina. I looked at him quizzically, so eager to continue.
“Yep.” he started again, ”We're getting a new one. He's an import from another school, has been left behind and is repeating the year with us.”
“Wow, that's great,” I blurted out. I didn't exactly think it was a memorable event.
Just as Jan was about to broaden the subject, he was pushed down by an elbow on his head, which belonged to Alexander. The almost two-metre tall giant often liked to abuse Jan as a support, which wouldn't have been so bad for Jan if Alex didn't have a back like a battleship to match his height, so the weight of his muscular shoulders and arms on the other man's head wasn't exactly pleasant.
Alex was eighteen, a year older than average, so he even had a driver's license. Jan, Sabrina and I were seventeen. Alex's face, however, was more suited to a thirteen-year-old, which was obscurely at odds with his stature, and yet his patronizing smile radiated a certain maturity. However, he tended not to express that maturity through adolescent pratfalls. Well, be that as it may, despite all his silliness, the giant with the brown hedgehog hairstyle was a loyal friend when you needed him. Just like now.
Suddenly, loud voices rang out from the entrance gate, comparable to primate roars; Pete and his billiard ball clique were shouting something, or rather someone, with radical right-wing slogans. Civil courage is something that most people lack, but I picked out the people who also had this quality. So Alex, Jan and I sprinted over to the four fascists.
There we had the reason for their primitive outburst of verbal violence: a boy about our age, obviously of Asian origin, Japan, China, I don't know, I'm struggling to tell the difference. The poor guy found himself caught in the crossfire of the four thugs and their profanities as Pete was grabbed by a strong arm and thrown around until he found himself in a headlock under Alex's arm.
The other three backed away reflexively in response - Alex with their head monkey in his grasp, that was a pretty big tactical disadvantage for the pitiful guys.
“Listen, Pete,” Alex hissed at his captive, ”I've told you often enough that I don't want to hear any of that shit around here, alright friend?”
At these words, he squeezed harder and Pete went red in the face, stammering something that probably meant “Okay”. Then Alex released the bald man from his tight embrace with a swing and gave him so much speed that Pete stumbled forward and hit the asphalt. He picked himself up, stared angrily and visibly hatefully in Alexander's direction, muttered something insulting under his breath and left with his pack. Alex put his hands on his hips in triumph and grinned after the fascists, while I turned my attention to the victim of the four.
A handsome little fellow. Taller than me (not really much of a feat considering I'm about 175 cm tall), just over eighty-one. Exotic facial features with sparkling deep brown, almost black eyes and jet-black hair tousled in all directions with gel and decorated with blonde highlights. In addition, a stately figure with broad but shapely shoulders and bronze-colored skin, implied muscles, concealed by a light blue shirt and wide jeans, all this in a posture that was as upright and proud as a flagpole. Respect. Never before had I noticed so many positive characteristics in one person.
He eyed us as intently as I did him, with a frown that gradually brightened. Then he bent down briefly to pick up a school bag. When he was level with our faces again, he looked a little embarrassed and lost. Jan was the first to regain his composure and elbowed me in the ribs, then took a step forward and slapped the new guy amicably on the shoulder.
“Hey, man, that was dicey, wasn't it?” he joked, regaining his usual grin (didn't Jan's face ever hurt from grinning?).
The other boy looked down briefly, then back at Jan and smiled shyly.
“Yeah, I guess that's it.” he finally said, ”Thanks for your help, guys.”
“Well, you're welcome.” Alex's voice boomed down to us from several centimeters above our heads. “I'm Alex, this is Jan and the sweetie next to me is Dani.”
At times like this, I wished I could look deep into Alex's eyes and roast his brain with the heat in my gaze, but I would have needed a stool to be at eye level with him first.
“Yes.” I replied flatly instead, ”And Alex still hasn't been educated by his mom about the difference between cock and no cock.”
A short pause followed, then the new guy smiled more confidently.
“Aha, nice to meet you,” he replied in a chatty tone, ”I'm Myku. Micky for all I care, like the mouse.”
He turned to Alex and added dryly, “And I'm a cock.”
Even the Titanic couldn't have broken the ice any better. We all burst into silly laughter, it seemed to go on for an eternity until a certain sound, hated at times and idolized at others, reminded us of the lesson to come. So we finally settled down and Jan flanked Micky (as everyone was to call him from then on, because everyone broke their tongues trying to pronounce his actual name correctly) to the right, I flanked him to the left, Alex behind us, and we marched into the school building, chatting about all sorts of things.
At that moment, the prelude to the end began.
So his name was Myku. Myku Yue, called Micky by everyone, came from Korea, but moved here with his parents at an early age and therefore spoke perfect German and hardly any Korean. He had an older brother, Choi, who studied chemistry at university. Myku used to go to school in another district, but had to repeat the year due to poor grades, but the following year did not offer all of his electives, so he was transferred to our school. He acclimatized quickly - he got on very well with Alex because they both had roughly the same sense of silliness and stupidity. Logically, he also got on wonderfully with Jan, as everyone gets on with Jan, with the exception of Pete and his gang of monkeys. And Sabrina immediately took him to her heart.
And that was one of the things that bothered me. Micky was a terribly pleasant fellow, but whenever Sabrina came along, the rest of the world seemed isolated to her. They chatted, or simply spent the time making light-hearted and often cheeky jokes (and when I say cheeky, that's saying something), just like I usually did. So what exactly was bothering me? I don't know.
When he joined our group, I usually got quiet or distracted myself by starting conversations with other classmates or doing something else to avoid being around the others.
It's one of those moments when you condemn best friends. They don't miss a thing because they know you too well.
“What's wrong with you, dude?” Jan interrupted me in the middle of my thoughts, ”You're kind of out of character, Dan.”
“Hm.”, I murmured sullenly, ”I don't really know.” I hesitated briefly. “Probably ate something wrong,” I added humorlessly.
Jan chuckled, reached into his jacket pocket and offered me a cigarette from his pack. Of course, smoking was forbidden in the schoolyard, but that didn't interest us any more than most of the other rules of this sap store, so I accepted with a nod and let him give me a light, whereupon he lit a cigarette himself.
I took a drag, exhaled the tangy smoke and followed the gray-blue vapors that rolled lazily through the late summer air until my gaze lingered on Alex, Sabrina and Micky.
Jan giggled again, I stroked one of the red strands from my face with an embarrassed gesture and squatted down on the concrete edge of a flower pot directly behind us. Jan sat down next to it, tapped my upper arm and nodded her head in Sabrina's direction.
“Yo prima donna. Jealous?” he asked with a teasing tone in his voice.
“I don't know,” I hissed at him harshly.
His face became serious.
“Come on, colleague,” he restarted placatingly, ”We've built sandcastles together and torn them down again, you can't tell me that you don't mind the way they're messing around.”
Fooling around. Something made my stomach twist at the word.
“You know, sometimes I hate you,” I replied, taking an uncertain drag on my cigarette.
“You see,” Jan triumphed, ”I can tell by the way you stare at them. You're jealous because Sabrina flirts with Micky all the time.”
Flirting. And another jab.
“Maybe so,” I muttered, ”She only has eyes for him.”
And he only has eyes for her.
So far, everything was fine with me. Every day went on as usual. Myku shared a lot of classes with me, including the ones I didn't have with Alex, Sabrina or Jan, like art, for example. In art it was always chaotic anyway, everyone preferred to talk to someone else instead of working on a painting, a sculpture or whatever other crap was on the schedule, or participating in any other way. Since Micky didn't know anyone else in the course at the beginning, and hardly anyone else in the class, it was natural for him to be my bench neighbor. I didn't really have anything against it in principle. In fact, I was actually in favor of it. But something inside me was resisting. A premonition or something.
Anyway, I scribbled listlessly on a black and white picture in ink without really knowing what I was doing. I was always very good at art, I was passionate about drawing. I probably had something of a vein for it. Anyway, I couldn't concentrate properly while Micky talked to me in a cheerfully naïve way, even though I had Greenday playing in one ear (MP3 players are a great invention - I was almost broke for months after buying one). Niagara Falls was harmless compared to him. I enjoyed listening to him, I didn't really mind. But I was far too busy thinking about something I didn't know what it was to answer him well.
“Yo, Dani,” he said, poking me in the side with his pen. I hated that kind of thing. So now he had my undivided attention after all. “I'm totally stuck here. Can you give me a hand?”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “I've definitely shown you a hundred times.”
“Hm, yes, I have,” he replied, ”but a hundred and one is better.”
Okay, that was it. Once again, I couldn't say no. So I stood up, shuffled behind his chair, leaned over him and put my right arm on his so that I could guide his hand with the pen, I did the same with my left arm on his left flank and grabbed his wrist, although this had no significance for the lesson to come. Step by step, I explained to him how to hold the pencil, how to shade the outline and so on and so forth. In between, he kept looking up at me with a trusting dachshund look in his beautiful narrow eyes and nodded eagerly every time I asked if he had understood everything. His deodorant smelled great, maybe I should get some too.
“Good, thanks Dani,” he interrupted me after a while and shook my hands off, ”I think I can manage on my own now.”
He smiled and then turned his attention back to his picture. Somehow I thought it was a shame, even though I had been so reluctant to help him before. I could have slapped myself.
Several times, in fact. One weekend, our little clique - Alex, Jan, Sabrina, Micky and I - decided to take advantage of the last warm summer days before fall with two other friends, namely Nadine, Sabrina's best friend, and Kevin, Jan's younger brother, and throw a little garden party in Jessica's allotment. Jessica herself, Alex's girlfriend, wasn't there that day as she had to look after her little sister, which is why Alex didn't stay with us for too long. Understandably, and I thought it was nice that he skipped the party so that he could be with his girlfriend. Quite commendable, as many other guys would simply have preferred the party. Despite his shenanigans, Alexander had a sense of responsibility and empathy, and that's what made him stand out in my eyes.
It was really scorching hot that day, and shortly after Alex disappeared, Nadine and Sabrina battled for control of the garden hose, while The Offspring, Sublime, Eve6 and American HiFi pumped up the atmosphere from the stereo in the garden shed. Nadine, a petite-looking girl of sixteen with short copper-blonde hair and a temperament that put even Sabrina's in the shade, won the battle, but in the ensuing water fight, the winner's luck changed hands several times.
I had put on a simple white shirt and didn't button it up, but tied it in a knot at stomach level. Jan kept grumbling that it looked frumpy, and he was right, but somehow I liked to be provocative, even if it was only with one item of clothing.
Micky, on the other hand, had disposed of his soaking wet T-shirt by now, and was gyrating across the meadow like a grasshopper on LSD as he tried to avoid the water jet. Sabrina and I had withdrawn from the main event to take a breather and were sitting on a bench under a parasol. She laughed most of the time in her hysterical but amusing way, while I set about destroying my pack of cigarettes, smoking one cigarette after another without taking my eyes off Micky. I remembered the day I met him. At the time, I described him as handsome. Now I thought he was pretty. Pearls of water on his bronze-colored skin that glistened in the sun. His slightly protruding muscles when he tensed his body to get to safety from Nadine and the water hose.
Obviously. I'd never given a thought to anything like this before, girls or boys. While most were content to change relationships like underwear, it generally affected me rather less. I had almost resigned myself to the idea of being asexual and not finding anything really attractive. Micky was probably the exception. He was irrefutably attractive, I had to admit that to myself. And I didn't find that difficult at all. He was a nice boy, and handsome to boot. It would probably have been too early at that point to say for sure that these were homosexual feelings. The thought that I might be gay or bi was more amusing than irritating. What was really more irritating was how I now felt about Micky.
“He's totally cute, isn't he?” Sabrina grinned at me and tilted her head slightly in his direction, only then realizing what she had said to me, looking embarrassed and probably expecting a mocking response.
“Yep,” I replied completely seriously.
She stared into space for a moment, frowned and looked at me insistently.
“Really?” she asked incredulously, sure that she had misheard me.
“Yo.”, I replied simply and as a matter of course.
“Oh...” she said hesitantly. Either she didn't know exactly what to make of the situation or how to assess my comment. “Are you trying to tell me you're gay or something?”
“I don't know,” I answered her, and I wasn't lying at all. I didn't want to get involved in speculation at this point.
“Hm...” she followed up, ‘It's not really that normal for a boy to find someone else ’cute', is it?”
“Not necessarily,” I said somewhat absently, ”You can find something cute without there really being more to it than that. Your neighbor's cat is cute. So is your aunt's youngest. Maybe I only think he's 'cute' in that sense. It probably depends on what exactly you mean by that.”
“Would you want to sleep with him?”
This question was on point. Instead of engaging in a deeply philosophical discussion about the interpretation of words and human perspectives, she trampled on subtlety and forced me into a corner.
I pondered only briefly. “Not really.”
She looked at me. We didn't say another word to each other for the rest of the day.
I dreamt about it the following night. Of the conversation. Alternative answers. And what it would be like to sleep with Micky. Maybe my answer had been a bit premature after all. Maybe I was just being dishonest with myself at that moment. I would probably find out one way or another at some point.
Some time passed since that fateful summer day. Winter came. I celebrated my eighteenth birthday in a small circle. Ergo with Jan and a bottle of spirits. I didn't like to make a big fuss about birthdays. After all, we had them every year, didn't we? Jan was only there because he practically lived with me. Although he lived with his parents, he took refuge in my apartment most of the time so as not to have to put up with his younger siblings.
So I sat on the bed and strummed my guitar while Jan looked at my collection of various CDs. Completely relaxed, without any stress, in an everyday atmosphere. Still completely fascinated and holding an old Ärzte album in his hands, Jan blindly and completely unexpectedly attacked me with a conversation.
“Okay, I'll wait,” he demanded dryly. Unusual for the Jan I knew.
“To what?” I asked, completely unsure what he wanted now.
“Do you remember the conversation you had with Sabrina? During the garden party in the summer when Alex couldn't make it,” he replied, still looking at the back of the CD inlay, ”You ogled our new arrival the whole time like our dog ogles a pork knuckle. And after the conversation with Sabrina, it was even worse. I was really thinking about tying you up somewhere.”
I had to laugh. Jan's way of wrapping up serious things in a chatty tone was unsurpassable.
“I wasn't drooling at all. Completely harmless,” I replied.
“That would have been even nicer.” He put the CD back on the shelf. “But to be honest, that wasn't normal anymore. Especially that it's been going on since that day. Last week, you almost tore your arm off to take him home after he'd had a bit too much to drink.”
That was quite embarrassing. We were all young and liked to play hard to get. Micky had been so blue that he could barely find his way around Sabrina's apartment (her parents were away for the weekend, you know, the partying kind). I had offered to take him home, as our route was almost the same, I only lived fifteen minutes further in that direction. The thought of not having to share him with others for a very short time took a back seat. It was more about collegiality. But only in the first instance. In his drunken state, Micky had of course vehemently resisted and insisted that he would find his way without help - so the whole thing degenerated into an estimated thirty-minute discussion, at the end of which I had almost literally dragged him home by the collar.
“So what?” I said, ”I just didn't want him to get lost or worse. I remember you lying downstairs in front of the door once, during the vacations, after you had made a big noise about finding the way so you wouldn't have to sleep here.”
“Yeah.” Jan replied, raising an eyebrow, ”Except that you didn't try to hold me back for ages and everything.”
That was true again. But instead of realizing the difference, as he had probably intended, I felt remorse. Apparently Jan noticed that too.
“Ah, come on, I didn't mean it like that,” he said placatingly, ”I'm not angry with you or anything like that. Nah, I just mean that Micky is something else. It's like when I really wanted to take Nadine home. That's probably why I noticed it.”
Sunk. I remembered how Jan had acted after a similar incident with Nadine and him in the lead roles about three weeks ago. He was right. My behavior and his were more or less the same. Somehow that made me grin.
“Heh, probably.” I admitted, feeling caught out all at once, ”I guess that's how it is.”
“Well-ha.” he started again, ”So, if you're in love with Micky, you just had to say so. I might look at you a bit funny, I won't share the bed with you in future and I'll avoid showering in your presence, but otherwise.”
“I'll punch you right in the face,” I said without seriousness, ”But maybe you're right. Maybe I really am in love with him.”
“Are you or aren't you?”
“I'm just not sure.” I resigned myself a little to the thought. Somehow, everyone around me seemed to be better at interpreting my behavior than I was.
“Man...” Jan said after a while, ”It's really not easy to figure you out, you know that?”
That was the end of the conversation.
We spent the rest of the evening emptying the bottle and sharing the music with the neighborhood so that everyone could enjoy it.
The following week, my mother came to visit. We never talked much, everyone lived their own lives. Apart from a bit of small talk, which in my case concerned school and friends, in her case mostly work and finances, nothing special came out of it. As quickly as she arrived, she left again, not without leaving some money behind. I hated it, but I could still use the money. I had the impression that she thought she could make up for everything with a bit of money. As if it was an excuse for her absence and her distance from me. Maybe it really was. But if it was, then it was a miserable excuse.
And so winter went, so spring came, and a school year came to an end.
I forced the memories aside for a moment. My hand hurt. A few splinters had probably penetrated it and now that the numbing feeling in my head was beginning to subside, I remembered the pain.
I walked into the bathroom and rummaged through the mirror cabinet above the sink for a pair of tweezers. I couldn't find any. I probably didn't really need any. So I picked up my pocket knife and heated the blade with the now dry lighter.