Welcome to the Dark Side: Chapter 8

2015-2016 Zeus is 35. Louise is 16.

Zeus, It’s my sixteenth birthday today. Mum threw me a massive Sweet Sixteen party with like four people I actually like and one hundred people I actively can’t stand. They were all hoards of plastic Ken and Barbie dolls littered around our backyard like a kid’s playroom. Only, I didn’t have fun with them because I refuse to play with them. I stood in the middle of all the pastels and polo necks listening to my parent’s friends talk about politics and vacation homes and I was more than the usual bored. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and honest to God, I think I was having a panic attack. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand my own life anymore. I wanted to rip off my double strands of pearls, tear the Tiffany charm bracelet from my wrist and run away. Do you know whom I wanted to run away to, Z?

You.

All I could think about was racing to you, finding you already straddling your great metallic dragon, the rev of the engine like a warrior cry as we took off into the night. Not sunset. There are no sunsets for men like you and women like I am at the heart of me. Only inky night that clutches at you as you tear past, moving through the darkness like we own it, like we are only free inside the shadow vortex of it.

I’m being nonsensical. I snuck a few extra glasses of champagne and my head feels like it’s filled with helium. What I’m trying to say is that I want to run to you. It doesn’t have to be away with you. You’ve got kids, really great ones from the looks of things, so I get that we probably have to stay here. I get that it’ll be hard because you’re a mechanic and I’m the Princess of Entrance, because you’re nineteen years older than my sixteen. But I know it’ll be okay just as long as I can get to you. I’ll leave whenever you want me to. Just say the word. And Z, say it soon.

I love you, Loulou Louise, Can’t write you anymore. Don’t ask me why or try to change my mind about it. It’s not cool, a grown ass man writing to a teenage girl and it’s my fuckin’ fault that you got confused and you think you’re in love or some shit. You don’t love me, little girl. Fuck you don’t even really know me. Happy to have been here for you through the cancer, through your growing into a seriously cool young woman. It was my fuckin’ honour to be your guardian monster. But truth is, you don’t need me anymore. You’re good, healthy and grown. So, I’m gonna duck out here, tell you to keep livin’ true and free. Forget your parents and their bullshit, forget what anyone else expects from you. Life’s too short and you know it, little warrior, so live while the goin’ is good.

Z.