The Bottle
by Nicola
Hayden snatched up his bottle, 'Well, if it's like that, ...'. He stormed out of the room, with Chloe quickly following. Hayden glared at her through bleary eyes. “Yeah. Good idea. Can do better for myself than a nagging whore like you.” He took another swig, pushed past Chloe through the front door, to sit on the couch under the veranda. Knowing there was no point talking to him when he was like this, she sat at the kitchen table and sobbed quietly into her folded arms. The car door slammed, the engine revved loudly and Chloe leapt to her feet tearing out the front door as fast as she could. “Hayden stop! Please!” He reversed down the driveway, took another defiant swig as she fell to her knees in the driveway. “Don’t drive! Please!” she yelled, arms out before her pleading, tears streaming down her blood drained face. In response, he leered and gave her the finger, gunning the accelerator as he did so. Chloe stumbled after him as he wove down the street at high speed. Laughing perversely at her reflection in the rear view mirror, he didn't see the school bus as it rounded the corner until too late. A last minute swerve, and a screech of tyres preceded the awful sound of metal being ripped in two by the stobie pole. The bottle dropped from unresponsive fingers, its shattered fragments sparkling in the sun. An answering echo to their world of lost dreams.
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