Page 20 of Vile Emotion
My feet hurting kicks in by the time I make it to the bus station and this time I’m not alone, there’s the town drunk, Godric, who always takes the bus at the same time as me.
I don’t think he’s the town drunk because he’s always somewhat sober to me. Maybe he just needs some guidance and friends. He’s a really sweet guy.
He looks up at me and moves over, giving me space to sit. He smiles at me and I smile back. He does have a really great smile. If I wasn’t so badly scarred by men or rather a man, I’d consider saying Godric was attractive. I’d even say he could be a guy I’d befriend so that he wouldn’t feel so alone in this world.
“Feet hurting again?”
“Badly.” I respond and he chuckles.
“I told you to pour some whiskey on those puppies. It’ll soothe it.” He runs his fingers through his long hair.
Godric is half Native American and half white. He told me he wasn’t raised much with his father hence his lack of knowing his home and his people. He was only raised around his white mother.
“Godric, you’re just saying anything now.” I laugh.
He’s the only one that’s been able to help me laugh lately even through my misery.
“I’m not but that’s alright, it’s an old thing to do. People don’t do that anymore.”
“Godric, what would you know about being old? You’re younger than me.”
Which is what made me wonder how he became the town drunk at such a young age.
Godric laughs.
“Being older means nothing. For all you know I’m stuck at the age 18.”
“Yeah right,” I laugh. “18? You look just a year younger than me. Life has just made you look older.”
He smirks. “Yeah.”
When he smirks, he oddly reminds me of Alaric. His eyes, the brows, even the cheekbone structure somehow points to Alaric. The difference is, he isn’t mean looking or mean at all.
“Can I ask you something, Godric?”
“Sure.”
“Why do people avoid you? They pretend like they don’t see you when you’re out in town.”
Godric shrugs his shoulders. “Because they feel guilty for what they did.”
“What did they do to you?”
Godric doesn’t speak, instead he just runs his fingers through his waist length hair again and looks up at the night sky.
“Don’t trust the people in this town, Ana,” he gave me his own nickname that my sister calls me and now, I expect to hear it. “They aren’t worth shit and they’ll betray you or ostracize you. If you have a way out, leave. This is a ghost town. It’s not a town worth getting stuck in, you don’t want to be stuck here.”
He says it so sternly, it makes me think of Alaric and it spooks me a little. It sounds eerie.
“Is that what they did to you? Is that why when I ask anyone about you, they immediately change the subject?” My heart skips a beat at the change in his expression. There is such profound sadness on it that it breaks my heart.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it ever mattered.”
“Why didn’t you ever leave and go find your father? Maybe h?—.”
Godric cuts me off with a harsh, bitter tone. “He already had a family. Right before my 18th birthday, when the town made me feel like it wasn’t worth my time, I went to see him and found out he had 2 sons and a daughter. He turned me away on his son’s 10th birthday. It was a crazy one too for as big as it was. The theme almost like an entire carnival itself and don’t get me started on how sweet the fucking rides looked but none of that mattered.”
“That’s why you came back here?”
