Sidewalk Shadows

He could still taste Sam on his lips.

He punched the wall and felt the knuckles in his left fist reverberate with the force, a burning cascade shooting up his wrist to his arm. He knocked his head forward, slamming it into the brick, and shoved his boot against the solidness. He kicked and he kicked again. He kicked until he felt the pain dully in his foot, quaking. He tasted blood in his mouth, the metallic tang, and the rough etch of brick across his forehead.

He was still, slumped against the wall. He didn’t kick anymore, but he felt the aches in his feet, his grazed knuckles, his scraped cheek from Ginger’s slap. He felt it wobble inside of him, unending.

“Goddammit.”

His voice was hoarse, his body slow. All of it poured into the unrelenting wall, the anger and the sorrow. Goddammit, goddammit, running over and over in his head. Goddammit.

He wanted to go back, but he knew he couldn’t. Ginger would only slap him again. And then little Joy would start crying. It would just be a mess. He hated messes.

He clenched his fists. His heart burst into those clenched knuckles, racing for him. His breath was still coming out fast, heavy heaves. He wanted to punch the wall again, but it was a distant thought.

He pushed away from the brick, looking up at the setting sky. It was sticky outside. He turned onto his back and slid to the ground, sitting there. He watched a passerby walk down the street and turn down the road. He waited until his knuckles stopped throbbing and then some before getting up, the rough scrape of gravel on his jeans and his hand burning when he had to lay his palm against the brick to stand.

He hobbled away from the brick wall and over to the sidewalk, seeing Ginger’s shocked face rumble through his mind. He stepped along the cracks of beige, the slight summer breeze on his cheeks, kissing the red cut there. Ginger’s nails had been sharp on his skin, the swift cut, the sharp shrill of her shriek ringing in his ears. He couldn’t go back, not again.

He walked across the road to the other side, followed the path of dirty sidewalk with children’s chalk paint, and turned at the corner and made his way there, where Sam lived.