Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much

His silent, obedient nature continues throughout your next few classes. You notice the way he seemed to be getting quieter. He backed off a lot more than he had been pestering you before. It became so much simpler and easier to just pretend that he wasn’t there at all.

You’re now walking down the hallway, head down, eyes to the floor. You watched as all the pairs of feet rushed around you in a hurry to get to the classes they knew they were going to be late for. You don’t even need to look up to know that the art room is coming steadily closer and closer. Doing things became such a habit for you that you could have gone through the entire day blindfolded and it wouldn’t have made a difference at all. You did this every day. You got everywhere at the exact same time you always did, with no changes. Except today you now had a follower.

Gerard kept close at your heels, and you knew it. Every now and then you would see his shoe peak out and jump its way into your peripheral vision. Sometimes, you caught yourself looking for it, just to see if he was actually still bothering. You didn’t spare him a glance or say a single word or even grunt in his direction all day. And he hadn’t tried to make you, save for the first few periods. He kept quiet and kept close behind you, just like always.

The art room door was coming, and by glancing up you noticed the door was closed. Free day, great. you thought to yourself sarcastically. Now he would have all the chances he wanted to hang around you like a starving puppy that was just offered a piece of bread by the little boy in the park. It was really that bad.

You reached out your hand to grab the handle, when suddenly, his was there already turning it. You stopped at this. You hadn’t expected anymore trouble from him for the rest of the day, but now…what do you do.

The options played over in your mind as you stood dumbly in the hallway. Do you just walk through and pretend as if it was open all the time? Or do you act like a complete idiot and pretend that the door was still closed and mime opening it just to save yourself the mental carnage. The latter seemed utterly ridiculous so you were ready to throw it out, but…

You stopped you idiot!

The words finally sunk in just as you realized your actions. He was counting on that and you knew it. Your feet were stuck in the same position because of his actions which meant that he knew you'd noticed him. This was his plan all along, to disrupt yours and break everything that you were trying to achieve.

You looked up at him in awe. A large smirk of success was plastered on his face as he stood proudly holding the door open for the silent freak of nature. He was seemingly polite, but you didn’t buy it. He knew you would do that. He knew that doing just this one thing would make everything difficult enough to make you actually stop and debate with yourself on whether or not just to walk through the damn door.

All of this for what? To embarrass you.

The words rang in your head as you threw your head down and rushed wildly into the room. You heard the door close behind you but you didn’t care about him or anyone else. You just wanted to get to the back of the room where you knew you would be safe enough to do the thing that threatened you still.

You reached your seat and laid your head down onto the top of your folded arms. You didn’t look up, you didn’t move, you just let the silent tears roll down your cheeks. You didn’t even know why you were crying. You just knew that Gerard was currently seated next to you at your back table. You still hated him, only more now. And you hated the door too.

-
The art class was indeed a free period, which meant that she didn’t care one way or another what you did. So you did nothing. Normally your spot would have been reserved at a canvas and easel in the back, but not today. Today you didn’t want anyone to see your face anymore so you kept your head on your arms and waited for the tears to stop. Then you sat until you knew it was safe enough that your eyes wouldn’t be red enough for anyone to notice. After that, you just sat there with your head down, pretending to be asleep.

Michaels left you alone thankfully. She must have notice how badly you looked like you needed sleep. The dark circles underneath your eyes never went away, and your aching muscles never got the time to rejuvenate because they would end up in the same state they were in the night before with the help of your father. You felt weak and tired all the time, but that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. You felt like you’d always be weak.

After class you rushed out without a word or a glance in any direction. You doubted if Gerard even had time to see you hunching out the door into the hallway among the swelling masses of high schoolers. You went straight for the door.

The swing set was where you were headed for. It was the only place you could think of. You knew that your dad was there now, and you knew he’d be drinking, and you knew he’d be waiting for you. You just didn’t want to get back into that weekday habit of school, then beatings, then restless sleep, then starting all over. You at least wanted some time to yourself so that you could at least think a little bit about what you’re going to do.

There was only one left intact when you arrived. It was the only place where you ever found yourself being left alone and you cherished it. The swing creaked as you sat and threw your bag next to you. It was then that you let all your ailments come swooping down on you in one gust of pessimistic energy. Your shoulder ached and your head pounded and throbbed. The bruises seemed to be outlined through your shirt and sweater, and you knew exactly where everything hurt on your body, but as usual, you couldn’t do anything about any of it. You kicked off lightly into the soil, giving yourself enough of a boost to swing lightly forward and back. You rested your left side against the swing and brought the side of your head against the chains. You closed your eyes and tried breathing in deeply.

“Hey.” A voice sounded to your right.

Your eyes snapped open and your head spun around so fast your neck hurt. You had to remember to not do that again. The pain quickly dissipated as you remembered why it was that you had to look over your shoulder so quickly. But you barely turned your head before he stepped into your line of vision.

Gerard, your own personal devil’s advocate.

You attempted a grimace, but you’d never done one before so you just sat and stared up at him.

“Look, I-,” he stammered and looked around the park, checking to see if there was anyone else around. For a second, the memory of him poking your wounds came back and you became slightly worried if he was going to attack you. Even if he did you wouldn’t have moved. You would have just fallen into the same routine that you did with your father.

“I’m sorry.” The words startled you as they reached your ears.

Sorry for what? You wanted to ask, but your throat couldn’t form the words.

“Sorry for earlier, I just didn’t know what was going on. I-, You-, …” He releases a lungful of air before looking you directly into your eyes. “Are you okay?”

You’ve never allowed yourself to look directly into his eyes before now. Only brief glances hinted the color of them. Now you see the light brown caramel color, with the brightest hint of green that you’d ever seen embedded around the center. The darkness outside did nothing to cover up what you’re seeing, you were at a loss for words…even mental ones.

But the one thing that really surprised you about his eyes, was the fact that you could see no hate, no lies, no animosity…just sincerity. His eyes displayed a real look of compassion that you hadn’t see in anyone for years. You became so used to the glares and dark, soulless eyes of your father that you thought all caring emotion shown to you was fake. You even convinced yourself that it was. But here, there was something there that made you have no doubt that these feelings he was showing with his stare were all but fake. You stared dumbly at the caring in his eyes with nothing to do but marvel at the display. Just this simple thing nearly brought you to tears.

“I’m fine.” You spoke for the first time in a long time.

Your words made him smile gleefully. His lips thinned as his cheeks rose up to meet his eyes. The edges of those hazel orbs crinkled as he looked directly at you, not hiding any of his happiness at your response. You scanned over his pale face. It was healthy, but slightly hollow near the cheeks. You followed the porcelain features up past his eyes where his brow was lost beneath a matt of messy black hair. You studied him for a period, and then realized that he was the first person you actually looked at in years. Everyone else had all been passing glances, or their glares and scoffs made you turn quickly away. He just let you stare at him as his grin spread so wide he bared his teeth at you.

You looked down at your lap then. You felt the slight sting of the heat running up to your cheeks, making them tingle lightly at the warmth. You were blushing. You were blushing and you had no clue why. This was really the first smile you’d gotten in three years.

The thought alone left you blank and expressionless as you picked aimlessly at your fingernails. That was enough to explain the blush, but what about the nervous feeling rummaging its way around inside the pits of your stomach? What did you have to be nervous about?

The silence breaks your zoning and you look back up at him, to see that his face had fallen slightly. His eyes still retained some of the glee, but the rest of his face showed…worry? You couldn’t be too sure.

“Are you sure?” He asked, referring back to his previous inquiries.

You nodded. He responded, “because you didn’t look too good a couple of days ago.”

He dropped his tone at the end as soon as you looked back down to your hands and chewed nervously on your lip ring. Even though you suddenly decided to let him in for a reason you yourself hadn’t even determined, you couldn’t let him know about what your father did.

“Kendall?” he repeated after a while of you not responding. “Are you sure you’re okay? Those guys got pretty rough and the damage seemed to be pretty bad.”

“Don’t push it…” you spoke so softly that you weren’t sure if he heard it, but you still continued. “Please.”

You look up and feel small tears beginning to pool at the edges of your eyes, but you wouldn’t let them out. No matter what you saw in his face, you wouldn’t let them out. You glance up to see sorrow written on his face as he nods his head in compliance.

Good….

Thank you.