Chapter 25: Please call me

Bah-bah dah… la la-la la… yeah. I love my New Zealand bands. They rock so much. Look them up sometime and that’s an order.

I know this is pointless. Don't remind me.

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Rachel knocked upon Murdoc’s Winnebago door, barely hanging on from its hinges. There was a clash of glass bottles inside before he opened up the door. She offered a downhearted smile but he practically refused it. “Hey, Murdoc…”

“What do you want?” he moaned. She shook her head lightly then shrugged wondering if it was a bad call to come back to him. He titled her chin up to meet his sights and she saw he wasn’t angry. He was just upset. “You’ve been crying…” She shook her head as tears started to fall again down her face now that he mentioned it. He sympathetically smiled and wiped them away for her. “There’s no use in that now is there, luv?”

“Murdoc, I know what I said… but I don’t care. I just want someone to talk to me.” He chuckled lightly and stared down at the sad wrecked remains of his young flesh and blood. But he soon remembered what she’d been through and rubbed her shoulder as more tears fell.

“… Oh fine, I’ll talk to you. Only because you’re my niece.” He invited her inside and they both took seats at the table once they’d moved some junk. He heaved a large sigh and stared across at her determination. “So tell me about your day, honey.”

“You know what I’m going to ask you, don’t you?” he nodded grouchily. “Are you going to answer me this time? Because if you’re not, then I might as well just jump off a cliff.” Murdoc eye’s widened at her words and he grabbed her hands before she could react to him, knowing he’d do anything.

“No, don’t… But you’re gonna hate me.”

“I don’t think I can hate you any more than I already do.”

“Believe me when I say you will, babe…” she rolled her eyes and took her hands back.

“Just tell me.” He groaned and leaned his hand on his head. This was too hard. What if she reacted the way she did last time? It’ll be an infamous creepy reprise. He looked back at her and he finally nodded. This wasn’t uncomfortable, just… difficult.

“I’m going to take it one step at a time. You’re going to stay with me no matter what. Because I love you…” she smiled and titled her head still waiting impatiently for the answer she well hard-earned deserved from a week ago. I should’ve just told her the second she came here and sent her on her merry way…

“I can never take you to see, Hannibal, luv. I lied to you because… I didn’t have the heart to tell you. He’s not getting out… ever. And that’s because…” he looked deep into her eyes and wondered if the memories came flooding back. “You’re father’s dead.” He finally told her and relief overcame him though it shouldn’t of. He looked down at his hands as she remained silent. He didn’t want to look at her. He couldn’t… After a few long seconds of sharpening his nails there was a fierce sob. He glanced up and saw she must have been using all she had to contain the tears from her eyes. Her mouth down-turned to stop the crying and she ached all over. He looked away, he couldn’t handle this.

“… Tell me it’s not true,” she muttered tearfully. He shook his head lightly and a hand slapped hard across his face, sending him backward. “TELL ME IT’S NOT TRUE!” she screamed and covered her mouth with her hands as she bawled her heart out. He ran a finger over the red burn and sighed. She jumped to her feet as she kept on crying and tried to run but Murdoc grabbed her.

“LET ME GO!” she screeched but he couldn’t. He needed to snap some sense into her and shook her by her shoulders.

“I will not let you throw your life away because of this! It’s only your father, who you were doing fine without anyway! He was in jail, for Christ’s sake, he was a criminal and a bad influence! I know how you feel, you told me but now I’m telling you! Over my dead body will I let you go!” she struggled against his grip not daring to look into his eyes.

“You’re a bad influence…. He’s my father. Don’t you understand? I have nothing… NOTHING!”

“You have me!” he brought her into a hug though she punched him and tried to push him away but he wasn’t letting her go. “And you know I will never let anything happen to you, I will still talk to you after you’ve ruined my band, I will still love you though you tried to kill yourself…” She finally gave up fighting and fell into his arms, tears soaking into his t-shirt. He rubbed her back and stroked her hair, the agony rubbing off on him. “Oh, babe… I will always love you like a daughter…”

She didn’t speak as she gripped for him dear life only sobbed through her pain. It took 15 minutes to finally pry her off but the tears kept falling like a waterfall. He sat her down on his bed and she was still leaning over to him for comfort but he could only take so much before it would affect him the same way. She rested her head on his shoulder and stared at a poster on the lower wall and that was all. She was back in her mind, her fantasy was shattering and it was cutting her deep.

“I’m not lying when I say I’ve lost everything… I talked to my friend. She… she can’t take care of me anymore. She’s leaving town. She narked on me too… but maybe she was lying. I thought she was my best friend. I loved her.” Murdoc glanced at her.

“Like you loved…?” Rachel shook her head.

“As a friend. I loved… Okay, I love both 2D and Noodle. On different levels. But because of that they don’t love me anymore… I lost the first relationships I actually had a shot at achieving pure love. They weren’t one night stands, why can’t they see that? And my boyfriend cheated on me.”

“Well you cheated on him. With 2 people. So what do you expect?”

“But it was with my best friend. It was a part of her revenge. My other friend’s only like me for… well not for being me. They’ve disappeared completely, abandoned me let alone letting me live with them every other night. Emily’s parents were awesome… they supplied my entire weed,” she laughed for the first time that day and at first she didn’t even recognize it. Murdoc rolled his eyes.

“You sure know how to attract a crowd… Do you remember anything?” she paused for a little bit before she shook her head sadly. What does it matter…?

“No home, no family, no… muse. My life was substantial… I never realised that before, I was only thinking of how much better it could have been. But after that one mistake I made… I don’t know. Everything in my life that could have possibly fucked up, fucked up indeed.” Murdoc finally leaned his own head on hers; feeling the empathy again and it really did sting as bad as they said it would.

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Almost finished just give it… like… 2 more chapters… 4 at a max… but I’m sure it’s 2. Wake up girl, we’re almost home.

OMG I can do the raise only one eyebrow thing. It’s awesome. I tell you, I can sit in front of a mirror for hours with that one.

I’m really determined to finish this story now… I’m out of the mood but… I’m so close