song for the broken. // Cass

It’s been different, a moment of peace here and there where I can escape into comfort. I think it’s helped in a way I had never anticipated. I feel more comfortable, more as though life has meaning. I don’t feel so much like I am wasting away, and I can give more of myself to the children on the streets because I have more energy and strength. Finding food for them has become easier, I can run for longer, stay up later and recover more quickly on the days that I stay with Blaze.

Fighting the guilt that came with prioritising myself was a challenge. But Blaze has a way of making me feel comfortable as if it’s okay to value my own two feet. She makes the world seem a little calmer when in reality we’re both clawing at the life raft, hoping that someone will let us in. At least, when I’m with her, it feels like I have a life jacket on. Maybe we won’t drown, another week or month or year where we can live.

Today, she’s even decided that she’ll teach me how to throw a punch. I don’t think it’s the greatest idea. Even though Blaze is skinny, you can see the muscle on her, legs and arms and abs made of steel. There’s a lifetime of training in her movements. Even though I know I can run and hide, you can tell by the way her feet seem to dance on air. She’s agile, designed, and shaped by her father to be strong and fearsome.

I feel like paper in a breeze beside her, a step away from crumbling. But, when paper crumples it only gets stronger, so maybe I need to break a little to make myself stand a bit taller.

She tells me to come at her, and I find my fists clenched by my sides. I feel foolish, heat creeping onto my cheeks as I raise them up. I’d seen her pull a defensive stance (is that what it was called?) before, and I try and mimic it. I creep forwards, careful with my steps and not wanting to fall on my face before I can even reach her.

I’m standing in front of her as she moves into a stance that I’m unfamiliar with. She tells me to hit her as hard as I can. She can take it. I have no doubt that she can, she’s made from stone, carved by her father’s caring hand. I don’t think my hand can handle hitting her. I swallow, sweat beading on my forehead as I scrunch my eyes up and pull my hand back.

Where am I supposed to hit her? I’ve got no idea. My head scrambles, replaying the dozens of fights I’d seen on the streets, trying to remember where they threw the punch.

Ah. The head.

I take a deep breath and swing as hard as I can, fist connecting with the side of Blaze’s face.

Fuck.

“OWWWWW.” I gasp, drawing my hand back to stare at the knuckles that feel like they’ve split. It’s got to be broken, right? That hurt so much, the pain is pulsating up my arm and my eyes water. I want to cry, but I blink back the tears, biting my lip to stop myself from yelling again.

I look over to Blaze to apologise, but in a second, one moment I know I’ve completely fucked up.

Oh shit.

Not like just a little screw up. Not like when Big Barry caught me stealing food for the kids. Not when he chased me down a street for a few minutes, and I could feel my heart clawing its way out my chest. Not when he almost reached me, but I was able to duck out of the way and slip between a fence that he couldn’t fit through.

No, this was worse, I can see it in Blaze’s eyes, I can see it in the way she moves reflexively.

This was a big fuck up.

The fist smacks into my jaw, under my chin, and snapping my head back so quickly I stumble a few steps. It doesn’t stop, the screeching pain in my skull has hardly registered before the next one locks onto my nose. There’s a burst of pain so bright and brilliant, the scream caught in my throat. Stars dance across my vision and then suddenly the ground is rushing up to meet my face.

---

Blaze’s voice is soothing and gentle, nothing compared to the aching throb that pulsates through my entire face. I feel like cracked glass, falling apart, shattered into a thousand pieces by two hits to the face. I don’t get it when people say that they can’t feel their faces after they’ve been hit because it’s the only thing I can feel right now. The pain in my hand is little more than a tingle compared to whatever was going on with my face

I groan, long and low through a split in my lip that protests at the movement. A hiss quickly follows, the sting biting and vicious as it mingles with the punches that had been delivered. I try and open my eyes. One of them refuses to open and I reach a shaking hand up to touch it, it’s swollen completely shut.

My nose hurts, tears rolling down my cheeks as I try and look at Blaze. There’s blood in my mouth and I’m pretty sure my nose is broken. Well, it hurts enough that it has to be broken.

“’ed tah hit yah ‘ard,” I croak out, looking at her. It hurts to talk; it hurts to do anything.

Ow ow ow ow ow.

“Yah hit ‘ard, ‘aze,” I try twisting, rolling over to face her. “’hik yah ‘oke a ‘ose,” the words are spoken with as much effort as I can manage, trying not to disturb the broken nose.

“It ‘urts,” I groan, closing my eyes to fight of the stabs of pain that spill across my face.

Blaze tells that she wasn’t the reason why my nose is broken. I find that hard to believe as the words leave her mouth, but moments later she’s connecting the dots for me and building up the dumb story of how I really screwed up. I mean, I really screwed up. I can feel the results with each second, throbbing through my entire face as I fight back another groan.

It wouldn’t help, my face felt like there was nothing on earth that could fix this. Why does it hurt so much? I’ve been through pain, the kind that gnaws at your belly until there are stars dancing in your vision. The kind of pain that comes from skin and bones and starvation, but this? It’s too much.

Blaze is beside me, her hand cupping my face and I wince, wanting to pull myself free, but her grip is strong. Ripred, Blaze is strong. The next words that come out of mouth send a spike of fear coursing through my entire body. I reach upwards, my own fingers holding onto the wrist of her hand, wanting to pull her away, but knowing I’m not strong enough to do it.

When she grabs my nose, I know what’s about to happen. My lips part demand in my throat to tell her to stop. A crooked nose was nothing to worry about, I’m sure it would hurt a lot less-

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” there’s a pop and a burst of pain that comes with the flow of hot, sticky blood dripping into my mouth. It mingles with the scream and I try and wipe it all away, cupping my face with a hand as I curl in on myself. It hurts so much, tears streaming down my face as Blaze admires her handiwork before disappearing.

I hope she doesn’t come back too fast. Every time I end up here, I leave a little better off, but with more bruises then when I arrived.

Blaze sits down next to me, handing over a bottle of orange juice. Tentatively I press it to the new wound, the shape is awkward and not really designed for this purpose, but I’m not complaining. The relief is minimal, but it’s better than nothing.

“tis ok,” I give her a gentle smile, reaching forwards with my free hand to rest it on hers. Closing my eyes I lean my head against the floor, trying to push aside the pain that threatens to push me too far. “’est ‘ay to ‘earn is bah doin’.”

I pull the juice bottle away, looking at Blaze with my best cheeky grin- as much as my face can move without hurting. “I ‘hink I still ‘ook great.”

I bat my eyelashes, “don’t you?”

Blaze is brutally honest and for a moment it catches me off guard. I falter, smile dropping as I listen to her tell me how terrible I look. But after the initial shock wears away, I’m left shaking my head- as gently as I can manage- a grin on my blood caked lips. It’s almost refreshing being around someone like Blaze. I’m so used to listening to children try and lie their way through their lives.

Children trying to trick me into thinking that they’re not hungry. So used to them telling her that the bruises all over their bodies aren’t from falling over. That they hadn’t spent the day trying to convince their abusive drunken dad to let them come home again. It’s exhausting staring at them as they lie through their teeth, afraid that I might get upset or disappointed for them simply being children.

Whilst I try to fix the holes in their hearts, it’s impossible for me to mend the gaping wounds. It’s like trying to hold sand in a bucket with a hole, no matter how many times I scoop more in, it’ll just keep running out. They want their families; they want to feel loved and cared for and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I don’t quite understand what Blaze means by a two-dollar whore. Two dollars is a lot of money and I’m not aware of what the term whore implies. Coming from Blaze’s lips I’m sure it’s something that’s not quite endearing. It’s more likely that it’s a bad thing, so all I can do is nod along with the commentary, dragging myself into a sitting position.

The couch is pressed against my back. The throbbing in my face is like daggers under my flesh. There are black dots at the edge of my vision and I’m not sure how much longer I can stay awake.

“That sounds really nice, Blaze,” I say, focusing my gaze on the floor to stop myself from throwing up or passing out. Maybe a little of both. “I’m sorry to intrude again, but may I sleep here?” I point to the spot I’m sitting, knowing fully well that I’m not going to be able to move from here.

“Like, right here? I don’t think I can move,” I give her a pathetic smile, eyes narrowing as the world spins a little more. I don’t even think I’ll be able to eat whatever she gives me, but I’ll try otherwise I’ll just pass out tomorrow from hunger. "Don't worry you won't have to drag me into the shower this time." Or maybe she will.

Blaze must really think I’m a mess. She’s not wrong.

I can’t help but snort at Blaze’s comment only to immediately regret the action. The stab of pain is enough for an audible yelp to escape my lips as I grasp at my injured nose with my free hand. The ice was working its magic, stinging the area but also numbing it enough that the throbbing pain was a little less intense. I wonder how many times I’ve made Blaze worry about having to dispose of my unconscious body.

The first time we met she was simply being kind to me, and I fell unconscious on her floor. Here I am again falling onto her floor after her showing me the kindness of trying to teach me how to fight. I mean, at least this time, it wasn’t entirely my fault I’d ended up on the floor. But I did have a strong history of being fast friends with the floorboards beneath my body. We were intimately acquainted with one another that’s for sure.

I watch as Blaze looks through the fridge, a slight frown on my face. She’s a puzzle, a brash and blunt girl with fists made of iron. She’s kind and unpredictable, willing to let a stranger crash on her couch and sacrificing her own food to feed me. She’s rough around the edges, but there’s a softness in her touches and her words that makes my heart twist. She’s a special girl, the cruelness of the world leaving scars within her, but she comes out stronger and capable of still believing in good.

There’s a lot I can learn from her. She’s already taught me so much and makes me want to live a little more for my own goals. Before meeting Blaze, I was stuck, sacrificing everything I had to help others until it almost killed me. Now, I feel as though I can draw shaky boundaries and try and eat more and be more of the person I used to be. Before the streets became my home, before my mother died.

She sits down beside me, tossing film on floor as she tucks into the meal. My hands find the container, ignoring the burn against my skin I place it on my own lap. The last time I ate a warm meal was when I was here with Blaze. She spoils me, treats me to food and drinks that I have not had since my mother made them for me.

“Your Pa seems like he was an incredible man, Blaze,” I say, digging my fork into the meal. I don’t look at Blaze, a knot in my chest as I bring a forkful to my lips. I may not have had a good dad but I had a mother who loved me with her entire heart. “He certainly raised an incredible daughter.”

The food burns my tongue, but I ignore it, overcome with flavours that bring tears to my eyes. I hope that one day I can live with the safety of four walls around me, eating meals with people I care about. Part of me hopes that one day I can repay Blaze for all the wonderful things she has done for me. I want to cook her one of the meals my mum used to make me.

“I think you’d have really liked my mum. She used to make something similar to this, it reminds me of her.”

Blaze wears her heart on her sleeve, built from kindness and moulded by the rush of waves that collide between the world as it is and the one her father created for her. She’s something else, something the world is better off for having in it. She makes the world better, builds it with love and a gentle, naïveté that goes beyond even my own. I’m not the smartest person, flawed to a fault and surviving on my limited wits. I think between the two of us we have enough common sense to make it without getting too hurt.

She fills the gaps in my knowledge, allowing me to be a little braver and stronger. She says things that make my heart melt and bring tears to my eyes. I’m soft, even after the countless times, my father’s fist has found my stomach. Even after losing my heart as my mother died, nothing has hardened me. I let the grim and dirt of the streets build up over wounds to pretend they don’t exist.

Every time I see Blaze, she washes it away, revealing scars that I had forgotten about. Forcing me to realise my own weakness or remember the pain I have chosen to forget. She makes me feel human, makes me feel like I might live rather than survive.

“Don’t need any dessert, Blaze,” I say, finishing off the last bits of food sitting in the tray. A cookie was an imaginary thing within my mind. So far gone that I didn’t even miss the idea of eating one anymore. It’s funny how loss becomes so stable that nothing really bothers me anymore.

We’re in a dance, Blaze and I, a song for the broken.

We hold the pieces together through the choices we make towards other people. Built from memories that stain our souls but make the world seem a little less rose-tinted- a lot more realistic.

“Breakfast would be lovely,” I lean back into the couch, resting my head on the edge as my head turns to the roof. My face is throbbing painfully, and I can only imagine how stiff, bruised, and swollen my face is going to be by tomorrow. Maybe it’d scare away some of the feral animals that try to eat the kid’s food. I smile weakly, thinking of growling at them with the mess that sits on my face. I could pull it off. “I’ll help make it if I can open my eyes tomorrow. Otherwise, I might just have to lie here until I can see.”

I laugh, turning my head to face her. “Knowing me, I would definitely fall down the stairs if I tried to leave with swollen eyes. You’d have to carry me down to prevent it.”

She’s the only friend I’ve ever had.