The Boy Who Broke Mirrors (Chapter Nine)

The Boy Who Broke Mirrors

(Chapter Nine)

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“So hey, I was just thinking, are you going to, y’know, tell me what the hell is going on any time soon?”

Preston laughs as he dabs his left temple with a piece of bloodied tissue. I wait for him to say something but his laughter just fizzles into silence. Matty’s laying out some playing cards beside the mattress Preston and I are sitting on, and I’ve still no idea who the boy actually is. The only sound filling my ears is the battery operated stereo beside the mattress playing a Kate Bush album, which Matty mouths along to.

The room is massive, and it must take up practically the entire second floor of this house. It’s pretty spotless too. There are mismatching kitchen units in one corner along with a small table and two wooden chairs, but the majority of the room is empty besides a few random seats dotted around the place. There’s a wardrobe behind me and a few boxes spread about, and it all looks rather disorganised. The mattress slap bang in the middle of the room takes up some space too, and the walls are decorated with childlike drawings and photographs, but there isn’t a single light switched on. Instead, it’s illuminated by candles.

They’re all over the place, the majority of them resting on top of the disorganised furniture. Their flames create a soft glow over everything, and some of them must be scented because the place smells fresh and woody. It’s oddly beautiful, and the glowing candles seem to be having a peculiar affect on me. I feel calm. In fact, I don’t know the last time I felt so relaxed, which is entirely irrational given the situation. My eyes continue dancing around the room until Preston finally mutters something, and I turn my full attention back to him. He’s gazing into the mirror opposite us as he slowly waves his hand in front of it, causing the oversized jumper he’s wearing to drape off his arms.

“Reflections have always captivated--”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” I groan loudly, and I sort of want to rip my hair out. “For once, Preston, just once… Please can you cut the pretentious bullshit and actually be straight with me? Just tell me what’s going on before I dive my face into this mattress and suffocate myself with it.”

Preston sighs as he fights a smirk off his face. He lies down and shuts his eyes for a few moments. I’m about to seriously consider carrying out my threat when he reopens them, stares ahead of him, and speaks again.

“Matty’s my brother, he’s just turned eight, and he lives with his foster parents in Pontcanna. I live here. I just stay at their house whenever they’re away.”

I’m momentarily taken aback by his candidness. The house I’ve been to countless times before isn’t Preston’s? And Matty's only eight-years-old? For whatever reason I thought he was older. And what, do Matty’s foster parents just hand Preston their house keys and tell him to have fun while they’re away? If the woman who answered the door to me earlier is anything to go by, they’d rather shove Preston face first into a blender than even dream of doing that.

I guess Matty being his brother explains the childish room in Preston’s house--well, what I thought was Preston’s house, but he’s never mentioned a brother before. Plus how come his brother’s fostered, but not him? Where are their parents? I watch Matty, who’s humming to himself as he plays with his cards. He glances up at me and smiles, his dark curly hair falling over his eyes. How can he and Preston even be brothers? They literally look nothing alike, from skin-tone to eye colour.

Preston must notice my confusion because he starts chuckling. “Different fathers.”

I nod slowly. “Do Matty’s foster parents really let you stay there while they’re away?”

Preston’s chuckles turn to laughter, and he winks at me. “I never said they let me. I just said I did it.” He shrugs. “It’s not uncommon for them to be absent from the house. They’re away during every school holiday, and most weekends. I simply use that to my advantage.”

He’s basically telling me that he breaks into the house, isn’t he? How he does that is beyond me, and I’m not sure I even want to know.

I nod again. “So what, do you rent this place or something?” I ask, glancing around the room. “I actually like it; it’s bigger than it looks from the outside. Sort of like a dysfunctional TARDIS or something. Why are all the lights off though? And what’s up with downstairs? I mean, geez, a little polish wouldn’t go a mi--”

“I don’t pay rent, I’m a squatter.”

Preston’s on his feet before I have a chance to respond. He throws his bloodied tissue into a black bin bag on the floor, and walks towards the makeshift kitchen area. He doesn’t say anything else.

A squatter? Is that even legal? I guess that explains the lack of electricity and the murkiness of the rest of the house. It makes no sense to me though. Preston's always struck me as someone with an easy life. I mean, he's always so casual about absolutely everything, and his slightly pretentious attitude mixed with his vocabulary hardly gives off the impression that he's... well, homeless. I mean, that's what he is really. He doesn't legally live anywhere. I gaze at Preston as he shuffles something around on a kitchen counter, and something emerges inside of me I never thought would. I actually feel sorry for him. I can whine about Gwen moving in all I want, at least I have a good home for her to move into in the first place.

I still have a million questions swimming around my brain, but as I watch Preston silently move around the kitchen I figure now’s not the best time to spring them all on him. I’ve knocked him unconscious with a lamp already today, so I’d rather not add fuel to the fire.

“Don’t worry, he never makes sense,” Matty mutters as I turn to him.

His playing cards are now in a neat pile beside him. I laugh a little as he nods at Preston, and rolls his eyes. I couldn’t agree more.

“What’s a squatter, anyways? It sounds like a fruit, is it a fruit?” He pulls a sour face. “I don’t like fruit unless it’s fruit flavoured sweeties, they’re nice. Do they still count?”

I laugh again as Matty watches me with innocence pouring out of his eyes. I lay down onto my belly so that I’m closer to him, and lean on my elbows. Preston’s still moving around in the kitchen area.

“It’s not a fruit, no, uh...”

“As for your other question,” Preston suddenly chimes in. He’s moved away from the corner of the room, and is now standing next to us. He sits down onto the mattress. “Fruit flavoured sweeties are the grown ups’ way to make kids like you eat real fruit. They’re made in factories where apples, bananas, oranges, and all the fruits you could ever imagine are shrunk until they’re teeny-tiny--”

“Until they look like sweeties?”

“No way, that would be way too obvious! They shrink the fruit so much that it becomes invisible, and then…” He pauses dramatically as Matty’s eyes widen. “Then they hide them inside the sweeties so that all the children will eat fruit without ever knowing.”

Matty’s eyes are wider than ever, and his plump lips slowly curve upwards. Preston winks at him as if sealing a deal, and Matty winks in return. I can’t help smiling. He gazes at Preston with more admiration than I ever would have thought possible, and Preston grins back. His eyes focus on Matty’s face as if trying to take in every single feature. It’s almost like there’s a sense of desperation there, like Matty could suddenly vanish and all he’d be left with is right here, right now.

“So, Euphegenia.” Preston taps my arm as he stands back up. “What brings you to humble abode?”

The small smile on my face vanishes. After all of what’s happened, I forgot about Dad. About Gwen moving in. It all comes crashing back into my head, and it reminds me of why I wanted to get rid of it from there so badly in the first place. I purse my lips together. Matty’s not paying attention and is playing with his cards again, but Preston’s eyeing me expectantly. I don’t want to tell him anything.

“Nothing in particular, I was just walking past your house--well, you know what I mean, and figured I’d drop by.” I shrug, but it’s anything but casual.

Preston nods. I wait for him to ask for a deeper explanation, or tell me I’m lying, or even just give me a funny look, but nothing comes. He nods again, and smiles as if he completely understands that the last thing I want are questions. It’s times like these I realise how different Zack Maddox is to the young man standing in front of me. Sure, he’s really damn weird, but I’d jerk Zack out of existence any day for the person he is now.

“Why do you do it?” The words leave my mouth before I even realise.

“Do what?” Preston replies as he heads back towards the disorganised kitchen.

“Why do you change yourself to become someone you’re not, someone so much worse?”

He shrugs as he leans against a kitchen unit. “We all hide behind something.”

“Aren’t there less… drastic ways to do that?”

“Eff, if you only ever take one thing from me, take this: there is nothing more blissful in this world than becoming anyone besides yourself. It’s like when we were kids, when life was easy and we all thought we lived in a dream. We could forget ourselves. We could be whoever we wanted and do whatever we wanted, and it never mattered because we could be someone entirely different the next day.” He shrugs. “We could start again.” 

I watch silently as Preston turns around and reaches for a cupboard. He brings out three cans of cola, and throws one to me. Having the hand-eye coordination skills of a blind sloth, I miss the can and it lands in front of me on the mattress. Matty laughs as Preston throws one towards him, and he catches it effortlessly. He flicks it open and begins glugging. Matty and I have full fat versions of the drink, but Preston’s is a diet version. I watch him questioningly, and he shrugs.

“I’ve heard diet kills you quicker.”

“What, you’re suicidal now too?” I ask with raised eyebrows.

“Merely a risk taker,” Preston replies with a wink as he sits beside me.

I can’t quite tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. The room is darker now, and it suddenly hits me that I should probably text Dad to tell him I haven’t been abducted or anything. I send him a quick text saying I’m over Aiden’s because I’m not sure how he’d feel about me sitting on a mattress in the middle of an abandoned house. When I look up from my phone, Matty’s sitting beside the small table in the kitchen with his cards. Preston’s lying down next to me, and he’s staring at a lighter in his hands.

“Aren’t Matty’s foster parents going to be freaking out? We’ve been gone at least two hours now.” I ask him as he flicks the lighter on. “I’m not even sure he told them he was coming here.”

Preston smirks. “Oh yeah, of course, It’s unquestionable that they’re panicking. In fact, they’ll probably try initiating a warrant for my arrest. Accuse me of kidnapping or something.” He inspects the flame dancing out of the lighter, then blows it out. “But I honestly couldn't give a flying shit.”

“Do you not see him often?”

Preston doesn’t say anything. He just shakes his head. I’m really starting to wonder who the boys’ real parents are, and where they are. I’m lucky, really. At least I have parents. They may be all over the place right now, but at least they’re there. My gaze follows Preston as he flicks the lighter and off repeatedly, and through an episode of momentary craziness, I finally say it.

“It’s my parents.” I speak more loudly than intended. I lower my voice. “I mean, the reason I ended up looking for you was my parents. Well, my dad more specifically, but stuff regarding the both of them. They’ve… They’re in the middle of splitting up after my dad had an affair, and I know you probably don’t care but I swear it’s driving me crazy.” I try to leave it at that but before I even realise I’m doing it, more words crash out of my mouth and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. “It’s driving me crazy because I’m finding it so hard to feel something. The first time I can say I actually felt anything towards it was this morning when my dad announced his girlfriend was moving in, but I still can’t say I really felt much. I must have been upset because I left the house and ended up here, but they’re just actions. It’s… It’s like inside I’m nothing. Just a vacant shell. I want to hurt. It’s like I’m craving to feel any kind of pain, and it scares me. It scares me that I want to feel that badly. What’s wrong with me?”

My throat’s swelling up, and the last word leaves my mouth in a squeak. I’ve no idea if I made any sense, or even if Preston was listening. I don’t even know if I want him to have been listening. All I know is that my tongue feels like it’s buzzing, and I sort of want to throw up. I’ve basically just laid out everything I didn’t want anyone to ever know, and the thought is making me feel sick. I don’t look at Preston because I’m afraid of what his response will be, and I wait. At least a minute passes.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” His voice is soft, so soft that I believe him without question. “Everyone wants to feel hurt. They won’t admit it, but they do. That’s the problem with us, with people: we like pain too much. We pretend we don’t but it’s the one thing that keeps our blood fresh and our hearts beating. It reminds us that we’re alive, and when it’s not there we crave it. It rips us apart limb by limb and crushes us until we’re gasping for breath, and we love every waking second of it.”

The Kate Bush song seeping through the radio’s speakers suddenly alternates and the irrefutable sound of S Club 7 begins filling the room. Matty laughs. Preston leaps to his feet, discards his lighter onto the wooden floor, and within moments the two brothers are jumping around the room like complete lunatics. It’s as if the conversation Preston and I just had never even existed, and I finally realise exactly what he meant about becoming another person. I watch the boys dance from the mattress, and even as the gloomy words Preston just spoke echo in my head, I can’t help laughing a little.

They’re still dancing along to the god-awful pop music when I lay down and rest my head onto the mattress’s pillows. There’s a blanket on the floor beside me, so I wrap myself in it. I lie on my side to watch them and grin at a content Matty as he thrives in his childish world where a smile can make everything okay again. Preston throws his brother over his shoulders as Matty shrieks with laughter, and for a moment, I feel a little uneasy. As wonderful as it may be to shove everything aside and become somebody else, you can’t run away forever. You just can’t.

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I've no idea why, but I really struggled with this chapter. The only reason I actually managed to write it in the first place is because I did it whilst drunk at, like, 3am or something... which probably lessens its quality even further, but hey ho, something is better than nothing. As a result, I will seriously appreciate any help I can get here!