Page 74 of Eternal

AZRA

“Unfair” by The Neighbourhood

Past

I’m already opening the door, hoodie on, hair down, hairpin in the pocket, my key.

Same routine, right turn, twist, little click. I’ve done this more times than I can count, I could do it asleep, I almost have.

I don’t look at the house behind me when I get out of here.

The car’s where it always is. Silver, loud, parked under the broken streetlight at the end of the road.

I climb in, the man inside is older, maybe thirty, always looks like he’s half-bored, half-horny.

Looks at me like he owns something. Scruffy beard, hoodie too, smells like cheap cologne and weed.

He calls me baby even though he doesn’t know my name.

I don’t know his either, I never wanted to.

“Money?” he says.

I handed it over without a word, he checked it like he thinks I’d cheat him, I don’t even blink.

He tosses the baggie on my lap, then hits the gas, the music’s loud. Something angry, I can’t tell what, but it doesn’t matter.

I tear the bag open with my teeth, two pills drop out, and I don’t even care what they are anymore.

Just something to shut me up. One under my tongue, bitter and quick.

The other I crush and snort off my wrist. It hits slowly, but good, it numbs the hole inside me, not enough to take me away, just enough to keep me breathing.

He’s talking but I don’t care, something about how young girls are always messed up, something about daddy issues, something about how hot I’d be if I smiled more, and so, I smile just to fuck with him.

“I bet you think you're tough,” he says, but his voice feels like a mosquito in my ear. “I could break you in half.”

I laugh, not because it’s funny, only because I feel like it. “Try it,” I mumble. “Maybe you’ll finally make me feel something.”

He shuts up for a minute after that, we park in some dead-end spot behind a closed gas station. It’s quiet, only the song blasting and I’m floating now, light. Like I could unzip my skin and step out, maybe then it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

My body’s loose, useless, it’s not mine, it hasn't been mine since… Doesn’t matter.

He’s still talking and I let him.

Then his hand is on my leg, somewhere between casual and not. I don’t move, I don’t even flinch. It’s not worth it, not again. If I say no, he’ll just laugh. If I say nothing, at least I don’t have to fight.

He keeps talking, like it's normal, like he isn't slipping his fingers higher, like they aren’t invading me without any response from me.

My head’s leaning against the window, cold glass. I open it a little and let the air hit my face; the wind feels cleaner than anything else in this car.

I think about the park, the one mom used to take me to before she stopped being my mom. The little cars you could sit in, the swing with the squeaky chains.

I’d throw my head back and pretend I could fly. I’d fly so high I’d swear I was touching the sky, and mom would clap and say, you’re gonna fly away one day, zahrati.

Her flower.

That was the last time my body felt like mine.

“Hey,” he says.

Slap, not hard, just enough to bring me back.

His hand disappears from inside my shorts like it was never there, like it wasn’t real. But my body remembers it in a way. I can hear it scream, but no one ever heard it apart from me.

“Get the fuck out, now. We’re back.”

So, I do.

It was quick. I didn’t even see him drive back, didn’t even feel the car moving, nor his hand.

I walk back, slow, I can’t go too fast, I can’t make noise. They’d hear it and they’d kill me.

Back through the living room’s window, back up the stairs, back in the room.

Bathroom light flickers as I sit on the floor, the tiles are cold, and that helps. My thighs are shaking, my head spinning. Heart… not really there. Not sure where it is.

The blade’s in the drawer, it’s cold, and clean too.

A cut, another one, another one, and I sit there.

I don't feel pain, I just feel something, and sometimes, something is enough.

I lean my head back against the wall, letting the ceiling blur above me. I just sat there, still high, still numb, still not mine.

I smile a little, stupid and lopsided. “I feel like I could fly.”

But there’s no swing this time, no little car.

Only the sting of metal and the smell of my own blood, and then I close my eyes, maybe I’ll go back one day, and maybe next time… I’ll be free.

And maybe I’ll swing as high as the sky.