16th

The pizza looked like it was melting, not cooking. The cheese, that when frozen had looked at least remotely appetising, now looked like a bad special effect from a film from the 70’s. The mozzarella was slowly drooping over the side of the crust like a dying slug. But if you watch anything in the microwave for long enough you begin to question yourself. Darren was simply too hungry to care. It was close to 10:30 at night and his last meal was at 2. Since he’d arrived at his Dad’s place, he’d sustained himself only on water and a pint of coke from a bottle that had been squashed into the fridge door. The warped plastic had looked as flat and deflated as the coke tasted. Darren had searched high and low for something to eat. The egg box had been empty, the apples were bruised, the bread was hard and the butter was even harder.

The inside of his Dad’s fridge showcased all the tropes of an amateur horror production; a flickering light, a suspicious red stain and if you opened it slowly enough it even creaked like a floorboard carrying the weight of the slasher. There were scraps of food dotted about the shelves, more stains on the back-wall and empty plastic boxes revealing the mummified remains of God-knows what, which Darren would only have opened for a seven-figure sum. The whole thing looked like it had been clumsily looted by a group of starving elders with a shared inability to process fizzy drinks.

In the freezer, the ice had taken over like weeds in the park of a Council Band A estate. There was a box of strawberry ice-cream, which Darren had already hurt the palm of his hand trying to wedge the goods out of. And pizzas. Four of them, small and wrapped in plastic. His Dad must have bought them the night before. Darren didn’t even like them all that much. This was all because of that one time his Dad had seen him eat one the first time he visited. Typical parents. They see you do one thing one time and then assume your whole life is dedicated to it. Darren couldn’t count on both hands how many times he’d told him things he preferred to eat. Chips, burgers, chicken wings, nuggets, proper pizza. And birthday cake.

Eventually, the inappropriately optimistic ding of the microwave made sound and Darren gathered his dinner. With a pair of scissors, he cut the pizza into four quadrants. When he’d finished the sticky mass of toppings made the scissors look like Lovecraftian old ones. For a minute, Darren searched through the drawers in the kitchen. He was hoping to find some birthday candles. It would have been his first ever birthday pizza. The image in his head amused him. The thought of him blowing the candles out and making a wish over his questionable cake substitute, and how the wax might drip onto the cheese and nobody would notice any difference. Alas, there were none.

Darren parked himself on the setee and pulled a mangey blanket over his legs. His shoulders shivered and he decided to construct a makeshift nest that would cover as much of his body as possible, but not limit his ability to eat. In this house, one would open the window to warm up. The central heating was temperamental and his Dad didn’t have a lot of money. Darren felt he could get by with the blanket just fine. The pizza was soft in some parts and crunchy in others. It didn’t have much of a taste, which could have been considered a relief. At the very least though, it was warm, and that was much appreciated.

The TV was off and Darren wanted to keep it that way until he could have the remote in his hands at all times. When he finished his pizza, he placed the plate on the floor near the others and switched the TV back on. The film still had over an hour to go and Darren had returned at just the right time. On the screen, a woman was sat on top of a man and they were both swaying rhythmically on a bed in a fuzzy glaze. She was mostly naked with only suspenders, tights and a thong guarding her decency. Her skin was a pale, crystallin white and her hair was shaped into a style that had been deemed redundant years before he had been born. The man had his hands fixed to her waist and Darren wondered why they hadn’t lunged any higher. Thankfully where Darren was concerned, most of the screen-time was afforded to extensive, sweeping shots of the woman as she closed her eyes and contorted her body.

A thud came from the room down the hallway. The TV had been kept almost on mute so that Darren could hear even the quietest noise. He held his finger over the numbers on the remote and listened for more. Nothing came. A false alarm. Whatever it was that his Dad got up to in his room, it wasn’t going to interrupt Darren now. It was nearly 11pm. There was no way his Dad would resurface now. It was long past his bed-time. Which meant Darren had the whole place to himself and he liked it. Whenever he visited his Dad, they’d get to hang out, but Darren would also get time to be himself and do things he couldn’t get away with in his Mum’s house. He felt more grown up this way. More free.

The scene on the TV ended and now some man in a suit was talking to another in a sunny American suburb. Darren checked his mobile. He had forgotten to answer Becca before he made his pizza. She had had to wait more than 6 minutes for his reply, which was of course an outrage she made clear with her “hello?” spelled with far too many vowels and question marks. Perhaps it was because he was at his Dad’s place and whatever strange psychology took place in that building, but he decided not to be very apologetic in his response. Girls liked to be treated coldly, he was certain. Another thud came from down the hall which made Darren drop his mobile and scramble for the remote.

Footsteps were approaching and Darren still had plenty to do to salvage the scene his Dad was sure to find. To his relief, he heard the bathroom door open and shut. A flush eventually followed and the door reopened quickly. He heard the sound of his Dad down the hallway on the other side of the living room door. He was sighing repeatedly. The noise of his feet slapping against the hallway floor told Darren that he was going back to bed. Each step sounded like a trout being slapped against a rock. The steps were sometimes one after another and sometimes spaced apart. He continued to grumble as he reached his bedroom. The door handle was hardly a complicated mechanism, but it had brought his Dad to a grunting, agitated standstill like an ape with an abacus. Darren pondered getting up to help him, but before he could decide, he heard his Dad barge through his door. It shut firmly behind him.

A welcome silence returned to the room. It was broken by the sound of a car faintly screeching its tyres on the TV. Darren turned it off. That was a close enough call for one night. He spread himself out on the setee and made sure to tuck the cover under his toes with the blanket. The feeling of the knobbly material it was made of caused the skin on his arms to itch, but it was bearable. Darren was content to spend the rest of his special day texting Becca before falling asleep. Sure, it was nothing like the parties his mother used to throw him, but birthdays weren’t supposed to mean as much when you got older anyway. He was 16 now and would soon be an adult. You can’t expect to have balloons and excitement on your birthday nowadays, he told himself, its childish. He rolled over on to his side and sent an army of Xs to Becca, before putting his mobile face down beside him.

He imagined his Dad bursting into the room with a cake and singing the song no one ever admits to enjoy having sung at them. He imagined a perfectly cuboid present, wrapped in bright paper, with a big, red bow on top. Darren felt it was selfish to think of such things, but it helped him get to sleep with a smile on his face. He didn’t really want his Dad to blow the little money he had on some silly gift. Darren just wanted him to be well and to see him a little more often. With thoughts of party poppers, laughter and one big happy family in his head, Darren drifted off to sleep.