If you can, you must.

Short-Fiction.

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Streetlights die like fading stars as I kick a can up Grosvenor Park. Metallic pangs on the concrete pavement scatter thinning shadows into trees, breaking the pin-drop quiet. I wince, but it’s better than the hush. It’s eerie how silence feels deafening when the chaos in your mind won’t let up. I called Jane earlier and told her I was coming to Edinburgh. “I’ll have tea and a blanket waiting for you,” she gasped, her voice so steady it made me believe her. She’s a sweet one, Jane. She has these eyes that make you swoon like you’re not sure what to say when she asks you a simple question. I don’t like her or anything, but good people are hard to come by, at least for me they are.

I cursed my mother for the seventieth time that night and vowed to never go back. My stepdad laughed through his eyes when I told him I was leaving. I grabbed what I could— my butterfly knife, two cans of Sprite, a loaf of stale bread and a tattered copy of Slaughterhouse-Five. He watched me do it with this big smirk on his face whilst my mother filled her eyes with tears and begged me not to leave. She’d call the school, she said. Fuck if I care. There’s schools in Edinburgh. I came this close to slashing my stepdad right in the kidneys the way he was watching me when she said it. He spends his days watching reality TV and leeching off my mother. They fuck at night like it’s no one’s business except it’s my business because two pillows over my ear still won’t drown out the squeaky grunt shrieks.

When the bus pulled up, I walked inside like I do it every night. No sign of weakness. I slid through the middle partway and gazed at my mutual night riders. Fringe folk, graveyard shifters, drunks and overworked nurses all clumped together like extras in a movie. I sat myself down on one of the back seats and let my head hit the cushioning as the bus drove off. I promised myself that the next time I’d go back was when I was strong enough to knock my stepdad out. Even though he was as thick as dulled lumber, I knew he could beat me in a fight. I’d size him up any chance I’d get. When he’d be asleep on the couch, when he was watching his leftovers spin in the microwave like a braindead chimp, when he’d stand and chat to himself in the mirror— I’d look for ways I could slap him around the chops, gouge him in the eyes, slash his hamstrings. I’m not violent or anything, but I couldn’t help thinking of ways to belittle him. To make him feel like whatever the hell he was doing to me. I know it’s not moral or whatever, but I just don’t think I deserved it, that’s all.

Anyways, you can imagine I was in a piss-poor state when the bus drove through the night, and listening to music didn’t help either. After a while, I pulled my headphones off and watched the moon through the trees. When I was little, I used to think the moon would soar alongside me through the car window. It became this big game where my mom and I would race the lunar orb, and when it disappeared behind the buildings, I’d be watching to see if it would still be there when we came to the end of the lane. My mother would squeeze my thigh and whisper, ‘who’s gonna win? who’s gonna win?’ and she’d tickle me when the moon would show itself again. That was back when she still had light in her eyes. When her skin glowed and her hair smelt good. I loved my mother, I really did. But when my father died, she fell apart like paper-mâché in the rain. I’d help her with a lot of stuff, I’m not a prick. But it ruined her. She never found a way to pick herself back up again. I mean, I still think about my dad, of course I do, but I don’t live my life thinking he’s going to come back and fix everything, you know?

My father never followed the rules. He was an artist back when the term sounded like a slur, and he had pride in what he did. He held his head high, even when he had little money. He had this unshakeable belief that things would work out for him. One day, he sold his paintings to an eccentric businessman looking for offbeat art and scored himself a six-figure paycheck. He shook the man’s hand like he made deals like that every day. I saw it; he took me with him like I was his fucking assistant or something. I had to remember to close my mouth after the businessman shook his hand. That was the proudest I’d ever seen him. He drove his dusty Volvo home like it was a Cadillac, biting his lower lip and bobbing his head as the speakers poured J-Dilla into the streets. I don’t know where the money went because while life did get better for a while, most of it went to my mum when he died. It made my insides red-hot when I’d think about how much of that money she gambled into oblivion.

The bus was making way, breaching out of the concrete kaleidoscope that is the city and powering towards greener lands. The world has a deeper edge to it when you know you won’t see the same place again for a while. It dawned on me all of a sudden that I was only now really living my life, and that I wasn’t going to let anyone define my story. ‘If you can,’ my dad used to say, this great big twinkle in his eye, ‘you must’. He said it when I admitted I wasn’t sure if I could pull something off. When I told him I liked photography but I was too scared to ask a girl for her photo. When it was raining, and I didn’t want to go to football practice, even though I had perfectly functioning legs. He’d say it to me right before I started painting. If you can, you must.

The night is darkest right before the sun breaches. This must’ve been that point because I could barely see the world outside, could barely recognise it. The rumble from the motor was all that confirmed the ever-increasing distance from what I knew. I began to feel lighter, the way you do when you take off wet clothes. I think I even let myself close my eyes for a bit and felt, well— peaceful— until a pothole rocked me awake. In an instant, the bus hoisted itself onto the side of the road, four orange lights flickering into the night. We were at a standstill.

A scratchy voice came onto the loudspeaker, ‘This bus has broken down. Please evacuate until further notice.’ Now you can imagine how we took this, four in the morning, bloodshot eyes glaring out of hoodies, muttered swearwords in the air, cigarettes being lit. I staggered out of the bus like everyone else. A woman must’ve felt sorry for me or something, she offered me a blanket and gave me a warm smile. I said no, but it made me think about Jane. Made me wonder if I’d ever get to her. What I’d even say to her. If I’d have the guts to stroke her cheek and tell her what she meant to me. How much I owed her.

A weird sense of grief welled up in me as I watched the sunrise over the edge of the hill. The silhouetted landscape morphed from black to grey-blue, then green, before orange spilt out at the same time tears did. I couldn’t stop, didn’t even want to. The weight of my tears held something I needed to purge. I didn’t want the life that fell into my lap; I wanted to create it. I wanted to be the decider of my fate. My chest was oscillating, up and down and down and up, and it must’ve been frightening because the woman ended up wrapping the blanket around me anyway. She didn’t take no for an answer. So there I was, heavy tears streaming down my cheeks, a toothy grin on my face. It was the weirdest thing, the way I breached the heaviness. I thought about Jane. I thought about Edinburgh. I thought about my dad. I thought about all the different paths I could’ve taken. I thought about all the ones I still had the choice to make. I thought about the person I’d like to be, someone I could believe in, and I heard his voice, quiet and hoarse, whispering, ‘If you can, you must.’

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