Why did Yazeed mean so much to you?

He was my first friend. I moved around so much that I never really made friends until him. And he was the only one that stuck around for longer than a year.

You don't refer to him as your step-brother.

He was never really my step brother. He was my step-father's step son from another marriage. He was not at all my step-brother.

What made him so special?

He was kind and responsible and he looked out for me.

What happened then?

What happens with all people. They just don't care enough.

Like you?

Yeah. 

***

Kids can be mean.

Complete fucking assholes.

Don't let yourself be fooled. They lie, they cheat, they steal and they break. No one believes that they could do anything wrong.

But they can.

They can hurt people so badly that their souls are never whole again. Who said it was only adults that could break kids. Kids break other kids too... and like any kid who breaks a toy, they just don't care.

 ***

He's waiting for me as I lock up for the day. He's been waiting outside my office for over a week, but I simply refuse to acknowledge him. I know what he wants. He wants to be back in my life, but I don't understand why. We aren't connected anymore. The only mutual person in our life is dead so he has no real reason to want to know me.

I know Yazeed, though.He's persistent.

But he knows that I'm far more strong willed than he ever thought to be.

I walk to my car, ignoring the ache in my toes as they're pinched by the stern point of my heel. I want to be away from him. But unlike the previous days, he doesn't allow me to walk past him. He steps out of him car as soon as I'm near enough. His hold is gentle on my arm but strong enough to keep me in place.

I don't look at him.

I barely even allow him to know that I'm affected by the situation. But I am.

I'm having a panic attack on the inside. My heart and my brain and my stomach are screaming in unison. My heart palpitates against my ribs and my stomach cramps so badly I feel the need to bend over but I don't want him to know what he's done to me.

What his mere presence has caused in my life.

"Please don't walk away again." His voice has changed since I last knew him. It's deep and rough and sad. He was never sad before.

I remain silent, my mouth begging for water as I feel dryness creep upon my tongue.

"Please talk to me," he begs, "Look at me. Scream at me. Shout me. Something." His grip tightens for only a second. "Please."

I remain silent. But my head throbs and my throat closes up as I try to swallow whatever spit there is in my mouth.

"Please, Amaani," his voice croaks as tears drop from the corner of his eye. He knows he hurt me but he doesn't know to what extent.

"You don't understand what it's done to me. I can't keep a relationship, I can't sleep, I can barely eat. I only just kicked my addiction, but I can't stay away completely until I've faced everything I've done."

His words irritate me.

He wants me to talk to him so that he can kick his addiction. Fucking dagga-dronk.

It's more than dagga though. I can see the track marks on his arm as he lifts his hand to wipe the sweat off his eyebrow, but I don't have it in me to care. All I want is for him to leave me so that I can go home and fuck myself into a dreamless sleep.

"I was one hit away from giving blowjobs in the park for a score." His whole body sags in shame but still, I feel no remorse. I'm happy he has a shitty life. I'm happy that he's hurting. I want him to hurt. I want him to be addicted for as long as I am. I want him to hurt for as long as I hurt because even that will never settle our scores.

Nothing will ever hurt him as much as he hurt me. He can get fucked in the ass on a voluntary basis for all I care. I want him to get kicked out of rehab and go back to the whichever shithole he crawled out of. Maybe then he would be forced to use sex to get what he wants.

Wouldn't that be the perfect irony?

"People think I'm okay. I've convinced a lot of people that I've kicked the addiction." He chuckles humourlessly. "I'm heading our group therapy sessions because the higher-ups think I'm a miracle. They think I've defeated it, but I'm only pretending."

He's good at pretending.

He always was good at it, so it should be natural for him.

I still haven't looked at his face. I don't want to but he steps in front of me, bending just enough to be in my view. He looks like shit.

His skin looks oily and shiny; his eyes are bulbous above dark black rims and his cheeks have sunken into hollows on his face. Even his hair looks putrid. He looks nothing like I remember. He isn't the boy I remember at all.

He's broken, and I like that.

"Fuck you, Yazeed." I barely recognise my own voice. It's bitter and icy and when he hears the words that spew from my mouth, his entire face crumbles as he loosens his grip on my arm.

I walk away, leaving him to cry next to his beat up, old white golf in a desolate parking lot, beneath a starless sky.

There's a bottle of Jack beneath my pedestal.

I hide it away. I don't want anyone knowing that I drink but I do. Sometimes I need it. Sometimes, it's easier to be drunk when I'm about to get myself fucked into oblivion. It lessens my ability to feel shame and embarrassment but today I want it just so that I can forget everything. I can forget the feeling of his hand upon my arm and the smell of smoke on his breath and the circle pin he had pinned to his t-shirt. I take a deep gulp of air as I open the bottle, pouring it liberally into the little plastic cup in front of me.

I hate the first taste of it. I always have but once I take a second and a third and fourth, I barely notice the taste at all. I don't care for the taste. Only for the dull thud in my head and the feeling of light-headedness as I pour more and more of it into my body.

When I open the door for him, I'm smiling. He can probably smell the alcohol on my breath, but he doesn't care. He's been on benders as well. He knows what it's like. But he likes it when I'm like this. He likes that I'm pushing him around, slamming his back into the wall as I grind my body against his. He loves that my tongue invades his mouth as I unzip my dress. I barely allow him to touch me, holding his hands against the wall as I grind further and further into him, allowing him to feel my wetness over the soft material of his pants. I want him in me so badly that I don't even allow him to take off his pants. I simply lower his zip before I guide him into my body.

I feel the tension leave my body as I gasp for air.

This is all that I need.