The Tall Boy From Before

She opens her eyes to meet, a pair of black eyes staring blankly on her face, "Drink it." as she hears the words, her eyes follow where it comes from. They landed on the mouth with a twisted corner of disgust, or was it disapproval? As she stares on those lips, her stomach tightens to another knot. This time it has nothing to do with the alcohol she drank in a stupor but rather from a tiny pride that results to this shame, that if there is another human being alive that she wants to see her in her current state is not this man, bent over, hovering above her with no space to run.

She blinks her eyes to refuse the tears from spilling out, she feels the nudge of the warm bottle of tea on her face once again. "Hold it," he said, as he picked her up from the floor, she heard the toilet cover slam hard, and a small amount of impending scolding was acknowledged at the back of her brain that slowly sobered up. But before she could even open her mouth she was sat down on the toilet, and the face she doesn't want to see is right back in front of her face again.

Too close, she thought as she could feel the air he exhales fanning her face, that now even without looking in the mirror she knows turn red, she can feel the skin from her neck heat up to the back of her ears. It woke up the last sleeping cells from her brain, and clearly remember how her mouth tastes and how it smells, that probably being breath in with the same clarity of the air she inhales.

Oh my f*cking god, please kill me now! her panicking brain screams as she grabs the bottle of tea offered in an attempt to wash her mouth with it, to hide the smell of alcohol from her. As she brought the bottle of tea to her lips, he stepped back and leaned on the bathroom wall across from her.

She watches him while slowly sipping the tea, not really sipping it but slowly moving the water inside her mouth to secretly wash it before swallowing. She saw a much gentler face watching her. No, definitely not gentle. He would never be gentle with her this time, after what she did in the moment of her uncontrolled temper.

It happened too many times already that she is sure, this man would probably be too tired of her. Same as everyone in her life. Tired and given up on how difficult she is. The word, difficult is not just a word thrown as something hard to deal with, but mostly with contempt, but hiding the real thought of if - only we can do something to you to make you disappear from our lives.

She blinks her eyes fast and clenches the tea bottle to remind her brain to stay focused and not give in to self pity that is slowly rising. Not now. Not in front of this guy. Never in front of him. He should never know how trash she is. She called in the anger, it's easier to manage and always straight forward.

" Why are you here? How did you get in?" she angrily asked him.

"The door still remembers my fingerprint, while you on the other hand forgot to answer your phone, when I called you so many times last night.", he slowly draws the word as he speaks.

She stands up and walks to the lavatory, lowering her head to wash her face to hide the tears that are about to escape. It's hard to understand how it's so easy for her eyes to shed tears when it comes to DT.

Growing up she rarely cries one of the many reasons why her mother is disappointed with her. She never shows real emotion except for anger. Her great-grandmother Elizabeth, instructed the headmistress of her boarding school in Berlin to make sure she never missed an Anger Management session with her therapist. With her situation, the memory of Brandenburg keeps on hunting her ever since her great-grandparents found out she's in Shanghai.

Before she turns sixteen she left home, and that was just about two months ago, yet it feels like a decade already since she ran away from home, using the cover of never-ending year end parties between her great-grandparent's villa, and grandparent mansion, shuffling between the estate of so many family friends and business associates. Normally, she never attended those holiday events, her great-grandparents made sure for her not to, because it's better not to explain her existence to the world. Her mother never brought her to any of those parties either for her presence is not a good conversation starter in the circle of associates for her mother and her husband.

She spends Christmas and New Year holidays between Spain and France with her Aunt Joy, a high school classmate of her mother. The presence of her aunt Joy which is not a blood relative is another accepted yet unexplained in her life. She thinks it's not that it has no explanation, it's just that adults simply refuse to give a reason on who, what, wherein her life. They just expect her to smile and just nod her head to whatever is being served in front of her. No need to justify things. Just do what they say. They never give her excuses, and at the same time, she is not allowed to explain anything too with whatever reports about her given to her great-grandparents. They all believe those reports, bound in leather files, thick as a diplomat dossier. They must count and write the breath she takes every day, for why would they end up with so many documents as a result.

The thought that she might be sent back again to another boarding school to what country only God knows, scared the shit out of her. But she will die first if she lets the Old People know that those kinds of punishments called discipline scare her. She won't give them the satisfaction of winning her life.