The sun rose and set without caring how fucked things really were. It was the way of the world, and if someone was caught in that never-ending cesspool of degradation and disgust, there was no one who cared one way or the other.
Bunny sat on the steps of the Magnus building in the heart of Thorne, the cigarette she had between her fingers unlit, a reminder of her past she kept close to her heart. The cigarette was tattered, frayed at the ends, but she still focused on it, her thoughts drifting as she remembered what this cigarette signified.
Her father.
Burning.
Pain.
Fear.
Numbness.
Rolling the now slightly off-white and pathetic looking cigarette between her fingers, everything else faded away as those horrible memories of her childhood faded and the ones of what she missed most consumed her thoughts. Closing her eyes and breathing out, she saw his face in her mind, felt his touch on her body. It had been years since she’d run from the only good thing that had come into her life. It had been far too many years if she were being honest. But her past had taken a stranglehold on her, and at the time running from it all, from her father, from … him, had been the only option she thought was right.
It hadn’t been right. It had been so wrong to leave, so fucking wrong.
Brendan.
His name flashed through her mind, and she opened her eyes, the brightness of the sun momentarily blinding her. She’d seen his sister within the last year. She was worried about Lila and the man she was hanging around. Even trying to talk to Lila had come up with unanswered calls. Hell, she didn’t even know where Lila was staying, and in the last conversation they’d had Lila had said everything was fine.
Bunny looked down at her watch and cursed. She’d lost her phone last week, and couldn’t afford to get one right now, not until she got paid. But no one cared to call her anyway, not even Lila anymore, it seemed. The other woman was too in love.
Love. Fucking love.
That word was fucked up in all senses, and the only time she’d felt it, the only time it had meant something less disgusting, less painful, had come from the one man she’d run from.
Brendan.
She thought of him, of every part of him, how he’d made her feel … that she loved him, that she’d been the one to screw everything up.
Yes, you loved him and ran. You ran away from what you could have with him, the only good thing that had come into your life.
This pang started her belly, and she clenched her teeth. For a second she thought about crushing the cigarette in her hand, but she exhaled the stress, as best she could, and tucked the cigarette in the pocket of her jacket. Even though Brendan and Lila both knew about her past, about what she’d gone through, they’d been her only family, stuck by her no matter what, and had loved her regardless.
And I loved them.
For these past years Bunny had thought about Brendan, about hearing him whisper those words, telling her he loved her, that he’d never let her go. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking when she snuck out of there, left him sleeping alone, naked, without a goodbye. And she’d run, left the little bit of home she’d ever had, and run as far as she could. It wasn’t until recently that she’d come back to Thorne, and that was only because the piece of shit father that had caused her so much pain had died. She would have burned her childhood home if she could, but the fact was she did have some good memories there, happy thoughts of when her mother was still alive.
But those few memories she had with her mother, the ones that made living in that house bearable, were far and few, the time passing making it so they faded as if a dream, as if they’d never been real at all.
She slung her backpack over her shoulder and looked around the main part of Thorne. It wasn’t a metropolis, but it was big, with large buildings, busy intersections, and enough people someone could feel claustrophobic just standing there.
Why’d you come back to this shithole?
Because it was the only home she’d ever known. Because she was broke, alone, and because when her asshole of a father died she’d felt this freedom, felt the need to come back here. Maybe it was kind of fucked up, but she was here, and she needed to figure out what in the hell she was going to do.
But coming back hadn’t been that release she thought she’d feel, that freedom she’d been longing for. It had lessened, of course, but she knew it would always be with her, always be like a second skin, never letting her forget about anything. Being back in Thorne had the images, the memories of her mother, of Lila and Brendan slamming into her, wrapping her in that warmth she’d always missed.
This would always be her life, and what a fucked up, lonely one it was.