Again, it was another eventful day. I mean, with Joseph joining the club and all. Though, I still couldn't bring myself to trust him, I was willing to hear him out like Victoria had said and I was actually in a pretty good mood. I didn't think we all realised it at the time but, we'd done it. Starting the next day the club was going to become official, all our hard work finally paid off. I even surprised myself at how much of an interest I was showing in it.

Until it was time to go home. To this day, I wish I hadn't that evening. 

Turning the key in the lock I slowly creaked open the entrance, but before I could even open my mouth to announce my arrival, my eyes met something I would never forget.

Mum was at home, but she wasn't alone.

It was under the dim kitchen light that I saw her, her body sprawled out across the table while its legs moaned under her weight. She was laying under someone. A man. Again, someone I'd never seen before. There was a lot of grunting and panting and moaning for the two of them and phrases left their lips that I felt too disgusted to repeat. 

My mouth stood gaping open, my bag fell off my shoulders and onto the dusty floor and finally, with the sound of my keys falling out of my hand and hitting the ground, they stopped what they were doing and both turned to look at me.

There was a moment, and for a split second, Mum's eyes met mine. I don't think she could bring herself to say anything. Her expression was a mixture of so many emotions and feelings, but I'm sorry was the one that felt the strongest. Tears began to well up in her eyes and fall one by one as she silently sobbed. 

It was that, that finally made me snap.

If anyone had the right to cry it was definitely not her. I was beyond angry, beyond upset, I couldn't name just one word for it, because none of the ones I could think of were even close to what I was feeling. There needed to be a word that meant absolute hatred, anger, sadness, loneliness, pissed, annoyed, devastated and cheated all at the same time to even begin to describe what I was feeling.

I was so overwhelmed and angry that I couldn't even speak, instead, I let my facial expression do that for me. I looked up and stared at mum deep in her eyes, all these emotions inside me and with the most bitter expression I could make, I uttered one sentence.

"Why am I not surprised." And ran out the door. 

I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't care as long as it was away from her, from her and her disgusting ways. I couldn't believe I'd actually bought into her little facade when she was sober, like hell she'd changed at all. She'd always stay the same no matter what, it was stupid of me to think there was even a slim chance of going back to the way things were. 

Not then. Not ever. 

I continued running. 

I wasn't even looking where I was going. I passed many streetlights and busy roads and people on my way. I didn't stop. I wouldn't stop. I couldn't stop.

Cars, trucks, people, they all seemed like blurs of colour to me as I ran. I still had my school uniform and coat on and I stank of sweat, yet I still didn't stop. Soon enough, I was crying too and the tears were making it hard to see anything. I had bumped into many people, stuttering out the words sorry and excuse me for each one. 

I continued running. 

I had dropped my keys over at the house but I didn't care, there was no way I was headed back there again. Never again. I just wanted to be like every other kid at school, with a nice loving family who cared, was that so wrong? Was it bad for me to want that, did it make me selfish?

I tripped up. I was turning a corner and a loose tile tripped me up and I went face first into the ground. When I got up, I put my hand to my face and winced, it hurt, though I couldn't feel any scars. My hands, however, weren't so lucky. They were bruised and pretty badly at that.

I couldn't find the strength to keep on going, my legs were burning and I felt like I was going to pass out if I didn't rest, so, I sat down at the corner of the wall instead watching the cars and bussed go by.

People walked on by me, probably mistaking me for a homeless guy, some even tried to give me money, but I felt way too guilty about taking it when I knew I had a home. Even if it was a crappy one, I had a roof over my head somewhere, I didn't deserve those people's generosity. Or was it pity?

I sat quietly, wondering what I was going to do now that I'd runaway. I'd had no intention of returning home that night, I'd go in the morning when her and her friend would be gone, but not that night. I needed to find some sort of a place to hide out, just for a while. 

It wasn't too long after that I felt a drop of water hit my forehead, and another, and another. It was raining, heavily. Luckily for me, I still had my coat on, but that didn't mean I wasn't cold and it was only a matter of time until the rain seeped through my coat.

Before long, the rain got heavier and more minutes passed by, though it seemed like hours. My head got heavy, my eyes grew droopy and all systems were beginning to shut down. I was cold, damp, starving and for a second knew what it felt like to be homeless and alone. Slowly my eyelids closed and the last thing I saw was the blaring street lights and car horns slowly getting more distant.

***

"Josh? Oh God, Josh please be alright."

I couldn't tell how much time had passed but the next I looked up from my position I was staring up into the azure blaze which was her eyes.

"Victoria." I managed to croak out.

"Oh good, you're awake, thank goodness."

There was then a long silence between us as a car zoomed past.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Don't try and change the subject," she replied with that concerned yet annoyed expression on her face, "I asked first and besides, I think out of the two of us, it's pretty obvious which one has more explaining to do, don't you?"

There was another long pause, which by then the heavy rain had steadied to drizzling and I could feel the raindrops dampen my hair.

"It's a long story," I began.

"I have time." she came closer and sat down next to me until both of us were now sitting on the kerb, drenched in the rain.

"It's a handful." I persuaded.

"Well, then aren't you lucky I have two hands."

"There really is no winning with you is there?" I smiled weakly.

"Nope."

Rubbing the sleep out if my eyes, I looked around, it was still late night and I was still sitting near the kerb, but the number of cars had reduced and the streets were all but silent. How long had I been asleep? 

As I had expected, my coat was drenched and soggy and felt uncomfortable to wear but it was the only thing keeping me moderately warm. My hair was still damp and my butt and back hurt from sitting on the concrete so long, in fact, my whole body was achy. 

"Home," I muttered simply. 

"...Something bad?" she replied and came down next to me.

"I'll let you guess that one," I said. 

A woman walked by, giving us both dirty looks as she made her way down the street. I ignored her, but it did make me wonder if that's what all dossers had to deal with on a daily basis.  

"You can talk to me you know," 

"But what are you doing out here?" 

"Can you stop changing the subject? You're going to tell me what happened sooner or later just get it over with,"

At that, I sighed. 

"It's nothing much..." 

"Josh." 

"It was Mum." I began, "I never told you much about it when we met because usually when I let people in on it, they slowly drift away from me." I paused after that to sort of prep myself. "I didn't want the same thing to happen with you."

"Ever since Dad and Mum got divorced mum was never the same, she started drinking and smoking and going out to the clubs and bars more often. It soon became her way of coping with the loss I guess, and anytime I saw her she was usually drunk or smoking. It didn't stop there, though." 

I stopped again. I wanted to see the face Victoria was wearing, but I was almost too scared to do it in case I didn't like what I saw. When I turned around, she was sitting quietly, not speaking a word just carefully listening to what I had to say. I continued.

"She slowly, after a while, started to see different men, it always ended badly though and so she moved onto the next one after the next." I started to recall everything bit by bit and bitter memories came back again. 

"She'd stay out later and later and soon I gave up waiting for her to get back. It's gotten so bad, she'd basically turned to prostitution to make money to get her fags and alcohol. And today, I guess, I just couldn't take it. When I got back from school, she was bent over on the kitchen table." I paused "Victoria, she having sex with some guy I'd never see or heard about. Again! I don't want to go back there again." My voice gradually narrowed to a whisper and I buried my face in my hands.

Victoria didn't say anything. I continued. releasing all the bent up feelings I'd kept bottled up for so long. 

"I just don't get it. I understand she's recovering from the breakup but I never thought it would end up like this. It's always the same and the fact is she doesn't even seem to care about anything anymore, not about me, about how she acts, any of it. She does it everytime, she uses them, toys with them, then tosses them away. It's not like I haven't been expecting it, though. My life is just one big mess after the other isn't it. I just can't believe I actually trusted her-"

I was shut up with a hard smack to my right cheek.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to do that so suddenly but I needed to get you to snap out of it." Victoria began. "I'm sorry, I can't empathise with you, I've never been through something like that and so I'm really the worst person to be telling you this." She started.

"I know it's hard to trust people with your circumstances at home and I'm probably just getting in the way, but, I promise on my life, it does matter how bad things at home get, you have friends and it can only get better." She smiled.

"Daniel and I won't ever leave you OK, you don't have to carry the burden you have alone now that me and Daniel are here. You don't have to keep putting yourself down. You don't have to keep your feelings bent up because it's OK." 

"But it's not OK, nothing's OK anymore Victoria!" I shouted "It's not... OK. I 've got nothing, both my parents have left me. It feels so stupid to say this because you know, teen angst and-"

I turned to look at her and her eyes met mine and she smiled. "But you have me."

I stood unable to move or do anything, I was lost for words. I couldn't speak, there was so much I wanted to say, but my throat was clogged up trying to find the right words to get the message across.

"Thanks," I choked up the word.

"It's OK, you can let it all out your know." She replied with that warm smile I so longed to see.

I didn't know when I had started, but I slowly brought my hand to my cheek and widened my eyes to find they were wet. I was crying.

"Oh God, why now. This is so embarrassing..." I said in between sniffs and sobs as I turned away to wipe my tears away, but the more I tried to get rid of them, the more they just kept coming.

Suddenly I felt something warm pressed up against my back. It was so comforting and a bit of a nostalgic feeling. The heat radiating from it filling me up reaching the deep corners of my frozen heart.

"It's OK, go ahead,"

Without saying a word, I broke down into a fit of uncontrollable sobs and whimpers. I don't know how long I was there for crying like a girl while having Victoria slowly comforting me as I let out what I had kept locked inside since the day things started to go wrong. I pretty sure at least three people had passed me making a scene but all I could think about is crying.

"This is so awkward, isn't this usually the other way round in cliche teen romance movies." I laughed over my sobs.

"Yeah, but this isn't a cliche romance movie, this is real life." She smiled, "You know, Josh, you don't have to carry the weight of your problems all alone. No one can see us, no one can hear us, so you can cry, sob, scream and shout all you want. You can be selfish and angry, and no one will judge you or call you weak. We all have something we suffer from physically or emotionally so it's stupid to try and hold it in all the time for the sake of being strong. Because you know what?" She looked directly at me smiling.

"What?" I said tears streaming down my face showing no signs of stopping.

"Even the strongest of people, have to let their true emotions out sometimes."

As I sat there in the middle of the street bawling my head off, I wondered What would I ever do without that mysterious blonde girl, who suddenly popped up into my life out of the blue. The girl that I wanted to keep safe and protect was now the one doing the protecting, pretty ironic huh?

She was right, maybe all I ever needed was someone who I could let out my feelings too. And now that person was here, I finally had it, my long awaited shoulder to cry on. 

And it felt good.

Keep reading for the next chapter...

Chapter 23.1 - And so it finally begins