Mickey hated breaking the promises he made to himself.
That was kind of a problem because he promised never to do a lot of fucking things. It was getting to the point where almost everything he did was another thing he swore he would never do.
He promised himself he would never go to college. He promised himself he would never let anything bad happen to Mandy, but he’d been shitty at keeping that promise. He promised himself he would never be sentimental or romantic, that was a waste of his goddamn time. He promised himself that if he ever was so stupid to have kids, he’d never hit them. He promised himself that he’d never do anything hopeful, because hoping and wishing for things were what led to disappointment, and God knows he’d had way more than his fucking share of disappointment.
He also promised himself that he’d never drink vodka upside down again, but that was a different story.
There was an endless list of shit he said “never” or “never again” to, but it was hard to live your life like that. The first promise was already on its way to breaking.
He was living with Ian Gallagher. The guy had kind of turned his life around. He’d offered to let Mickey live with him in some shitty rental house and at first he had said fuck no, but the guy talked him into it and he ran out of that house he had been forced to live in all his life like a bat out of hell and never once looked back. He kept wondering how long it would have been before he snapped had Ian not gotten him out of there. He was shitty at expressing anything to Ian, but especially the fact that he didn’t know how long he would have lasted without things happening the way they did. He didn’t know how to say thank you; so instead, he lessened the amount of times he called Ian a faggot. He was pretty sure Ian got the message, but he still felt like a fucking asshole for not being able to… well, not be a fucking asshole.
The house was small, pretty fucked up from the inside and outside, and not in the best place. Mickey figured that was alright, at least he and the house had a lot in common.
He was finally far away enough from that piece of shit he called a father for him to not matter, he had a job, and he was looking at colleges. Mickey might as well have been the fucking poster boy for the Why The Fuck Would I Go To College movement, and he was looking at colleges, breaking one of his fucking promises.
It was Ian who had convinced him. Of course it was, what couldn’t that little shit convince him to do?
Another part of Mickey’s weird new life is that he had friends that he didn’t fuck shit up around town with. They were almost all friends of Ian’s from college, except a few assholes he’d met at work, but Ian’s friends seemed to like Mickey well enough. He doubted they would have liked him had they met him even a few months earlier. Ian had kind of been trying to teach him how to behave less like a rabid dog and more like a person, and maybe it was kind of working.
Their friends were all led to believe that Ian and Mickey were friends from high school. Mickey had made it pretty far in all this moving on bullshit, but he hadn’t made it that far. He didn’t see why anyone should have to know about him and Ian’s private life. It was called a private life for a goddamn reason, and Ian was almost irritatingly supportive of the whole thing. He lied for Mickey constantly.
One of Ian’s friends from college was slightly older than the rest - Julia. She was twenty-three. She had “fucked up” when she was fifteen, but was on her way to getting her life “back on track”. Mickey tolerated her. He kind of thought she was a piece of shit, but he also kind of thought he was a piece of shit. There was a pretty narrow selection of people he didn’t think were Grade A pieces of shit.
But when Julia said she was getting her life back on track, that meant she was leaving what she so kindly called her “big mistake”, otherwise known as an eight-year-old girl named Ariana, home alone in a fucked up, dangerous neighborhood with next to no food in the house so she could take shitty community college classes and go out with her boyfriend nightly.
Julia claimed she loved her daughter, and Mickey thought that was fucking bullshit, but Ian begged him to behave when she came over. Behaving generally meant seething at her from across the room, but Mickey figured Ian would take what he could get when it came to people Mickey disliked. Hey, at least he wasn’t chasing people down the street with a crowbar anymore.
It just fucking bothered him because she treated her kid like she didn’t matter, and shit like that pissed Mickey off beyond anything else. That kind of shit turns kids into people like him, and the way Mickey saw it, the world didn’t need any more people like him. Julia’s kid never asked to show up in this shitsack world, that was Julia’s decision. Why should the kid have to suffer for it?
Ontop of everything else, it was because of Julia that Mickey ended up breaking another promise. He was about to do something hopeful.
Ian had come home from school and told him that they were watching after Ariana for the night, because “Julia wants the house to herself, her boyfriend’s coming over”. Mickey didn’t really want to think about that shit so he just said okay and asked where the brat was going to sleep.
There was a spare bedroom that was passed off as Mickey’s bedroom when people were around, but it was all bullshit. He slept in the same room as Ian, but not when anyone was around. Mickey took the couch and let the kid take the spare bedroom. He sat in the tiny half-living-room-half-kitchen with the TV on. It was turned down too low for him to really hear anything, but they had already put the kid to bed, Ian was in their room writing a paper, and Mickey was bored. He was watching the news of all things - the fucking news. He felt domestic as fuck and it bothered him.
The quiet sound of the weatherman’s voice droned on in the background and he turned the volume up just enough to actually hear the guy talk, he just wanted to know if he was going to be shoveling an assload of snow out of the driveway or not. The guy ran his mouth about the cold and rain, and basically all but said we don’t know jack shit about if it’s going to snow or not. Fuck you.
“We’ve been hearing a lot about tonight’s meteor shower. Conditions are great for seeing those shooting stars tonight, even better if you leave the city and get away from all those city lights. Let’s take a look at the cloud cast for the area. As you can see, very clear tonight…”
Mickey stared at the TV and debated walking out and looking for shooting stars like a fucking asshole, and then he faintly remembered the first time he’d ever seen one. He turned the TV off and quietly walked down the narrow hallway to the spare bedroom. The kid was asleep, her mouth half open and looking kind of goofy.
“Hey,” he whispered. “…Hey!”
The kid barely shifted in her sleep, and Mickey rolled his eyes, walking into the room and shaking her arm. “Kid,” he said, and Ariana glared at him.
“I’m sleeping,” she said.
“Yeah, I can see that. Get up,” he said. Ariana stared at him blankly. “There’s a meteor shower… thing. You know, shootin’ stars and stuff. The things you wish on. Come on, let’s go outside. You got your coat?”
“Yeah, hold on,” she said, pushing the covers aside and picking her coat up off the ground, walking unsteadily. Mickey guided her outside, putting on a heavy coat on his way out. It was freezing out, but he was going to show this stupid kid a fucking meteor shower, even if it meant breaking one of his goddamn promises.
They walked out into the front yard, which was more like a glorified patch of grass in front of the house, and Mickey was surprised at how quiet the neighborhood was.
“Alright, let’s look for these shootin’ stars,” said Mickey. “This is our little secret, you hear me? I don’t do shootin’ stars. This is the only exception – ever.”
Ariana looked up at the sky and then over at Mickey.
“Okay,” she said, seeming disinterested in his weak attempt at callousness towards her. “I’ve never seen a shooting star before,” she said. Mickey looked down at her. She was short, even for an eight-year-old, and had this kind of crazy, poofy brown hair.
“Yeah? How come?”
“I dunno, my mom doesn’t really care about stuff like that,” said Ariana.
“Well, you’re gonna see one now,” said Mickey. “Hey, what are you lookin’ at me for? Look at the sky, kid! Ain’t gonna see any shootin’ stars on my face.”
Ariana laughed and they both looked up at the sky for a while, waiting for any sign of movement in the sky.
“Is that a plane or a shooting star?”
“Plane. Shootin’ stars move way faster than that, you gotta be quick to see ‘em.”
A few more minutes passed, and then they both yelled something along the lines of “I SAW ONE!”
“You saw it too?” yelled Mickey.
“Yeah!” said Ariana, not taking her eyes away from the sky in hopes of seeing another one. “Did you wish on it?”
“Hell yeah I did,” said Mickey. “How about you?”
“Yeah,” said Ariana.
“Yeah? What’d you wish for?”
Ariana looked away from the stars for a moment to glare at Mickey.
“You can’t tell or it won’t come true, everyone knows that.”
“That’s bullsh- uh… Oh, don’t give me that face. I’m an adult, I can say whatever the hell I want,” said Mickey, and Ariana giggled with that look kids get on their face when adults do something in front of a kid that they shouldn’t have. Future blackmailer, Mickey thought, but he smiled. “You can tell people what you wish for if you want. Screw the rules, kid. You don’t always have to, ya’ know, keep it all…”
Mickey gesticulated, unable to put his thoughts into words, and Ariana raised her eyebrows.
“Bottled up?” she offered.
“Yeah, that’s the word.”
“Words. Plural.”
Mickey narrowed his eyes at her.
“Well, aren’t you just a smarta- kid. Smart kid.”
“Fine, what’d you wish for?” she asked.
“Oh, I can play this game,” said Mickey. “I wished for Ian to stop bein’ so busy with school.”
“You miss him?” asked Ariana.
“Don’t get all mushy on me, brat, that’s gross,” said Mickey, pushing at her shoulder lightly. “Your turn. What’d you wish for, kid?”
“I wished for my mom to break up with her boyfriend,” said Ariana, looking away and back up at the sky. “Is that bad?”
“Nah, not bad… How come? He annoyin’ you?”
“He’s not that great,” said Ariana. “And my mom spends all her time with him now. I don’t know.”
Mickey looked down at the kid, and when he did, he didn’t see Ariana. He saw Mandy. The first time he had ever seen a shooting star was with Mandy when they were kids, sitting on the roof, hiding from their dad… there he goes, breaking another promise. Fuckin’ sentiment. It’s all bullshit. The point was that this little kid with her poofy hair and big, wide eyes reminded him of Mandy, another broken promise, and at this point he was starting to wonder if he would never keep any of the promises he made to himself, or anyone. He doubted he ever would. He couldn’t fool anyone, not even Gallagher, into thinking he’d ever be able to be a good person.
“Is he mean to ya’?” asked Mickey.
“A little? I guess.”
“Don’t you breathe a word of this to anyone, ‘cause I got a reputation, but if anyone ever bothers you, you come straight to me, okay?” said Mickey. “I’ve got a way with makin’ people do what I want. Me and Ian can help you with anything you need, alright?”
“Like what?” asked Ariana.
“Like if someone makes you feel scared,” said Mickey.
Ariana looked up at him and held her hand out, her pinky extended, with a look that just screamed “pinky swear” in his face. Mickey rolled his eyes but smiled as he wrapped his pinky around the kid’s and she smiled. Kids were too full of hope.
“Thanks,” she said, moving her hand back to her side. They stayed outside and spotted a few more shooting stars before Mickey spun Ariana around by her shoulders to face him.
“I just remembered,” he said. “This is serious. If you don’t go to sleep right after you wish on a shootin’ star, the exact opposite of what you wish will happen, which means Ian’s gonna get even busier with school, which means he might kill me or go crazy somethin’. We gotta go to sleep, like now.”
Ariana just laughed at him and Mickey shook his head, picking the kid up and slinging her over his shoulder.
“This is for your own good,” he said, and Ariana laughed and yelled as he carried her into the house. He set her down on her feet in the middle of the hallway. “Goodnight, brat.”
“Night, Mickey.”
The door to the spare bedroom shut and he shook his head, and he was already starting to get that thought in his head that he hated himself. He’d lost count of all the goddamn promises he’d broken that week. He was hopeful and sentimental at the same fucking time, way to go. This stupid, shitty system he’d worked out in his head was controlling everything about his life and it was like being smothered, except he had signed up for it. He cultivated it.
The kid was happy, though, at least there was that. He guessed she might not have the best life, now or later. Might as well give a suffering person a good memory or two while you can, he figured. Maybe that made him less of a shitty person. Maybe it didn’t. He didn’t fucking know and he didn’t want to fucking think about it, he just wanted to sleep.
He walked towards him and Ian’s room and saw him standing there in the doorway.
“That was adorable,” said Ian.
“Move it.” Mickey nudged him out of the way to get a pillow off of their bed.
“Seriously, that was precious,” said Ian, moving to lean up against the wall next to his desk.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Mickey, walking towards the door. “Just don’t get all let’s-have-adopted-babies on me.”
“Where are you going?” asked Ian.
“Sleepin’ on the couch.”
Ian laughed. “You don’t have to sleep on the couch. Get in bed, asshole.”
“Not with the kid around.” Ian gave him a look, and Mickey shrugged. “Maybe she can sense faggots.”
Ian raised an eyebrow at him and Mickey rolled his eyes.
“Gays. Gay people, whatever,” he corrected.
“You’re lucky I love you,” said Ian. “If I didn’t, I would’ve punched you in the mouth by now.”
“Would you shut up with the love?” asked Mickey, looking over his shoulder as he backed out of the bedroom. He turned around and walked towards the couch, but then two hands were on his shoulders, turning him around. In a split second, Ian’s lips were on his.
Ian pulled away with an exaggerated “MWAH!” and Mickey whacked at him with the pillow in his hand.
“Go,” he said, hitting him in the side with the pillow. “Go the fuck to bed, Jesus H. Christ.”
Ian grinned ear to ear and walked into their room, closing the door behind him.
No comments:
Post a Comment