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

You open your eyes to find him standing there staring down at you, a small smile playing across his lips. You can’t see his eyes because of his dark hair falling in front of his face slightly. It looks like he just had it cut. He stood there, peering down at you from above as you laid upside down on one of the small, connected, yellow slides of the gym. He shifted his weight from foot to foot as he dug his hands further into the pockets of his jeans.

“How are you?” he asks, biting his lip slightly as you just lay there and stare blankly up at him.

“Fine.” You respond, but your voice cracks slightly at the end. It was just then that you remembered that you had been crying earlier, and fairly recently.

“Are you sure?” Damn, he noticed.

He must have seen the tears still fresh on your face and the redness you were sure was still present in your cheeks. You quickly shuffle around until your feet rested in the overgrown patch of grass beneath the slide. You sat perched on the edge of one of the slides and nodded your head as you attempted to discretely wipe away the remnants of tears.

“What are you doing?” he asks rather hesitantly.

“Um…sliding?” you respond, rather at a loss for words. You decide to go for a question. “What are you doing here?”

You look up at him and see that he’s a little surprised, probably at the fact that you sort of initiated a conversation. But you also see that he still has worry hidden behind his eyes. He looks back over his shoulder down the road toward your houses and turns back to you before responding.

“I was just coming back from the store with my family and I saw you walking down the sidewalk.” He explains rather quickly. “You looked lost.”

You hadn’t even noticed any cars passing you on your way over. You wondered if he saw the tears on your face before that too. You look down the road he was just peering at and see how close this gym actually was to your houses. Just a few blocks away really.

“Oh…I was just…”you try to find an explanation “thinking.”

“Oh, I thought that because you were walking around here you stopped by and I wasn’t there.” He says, a blush coloring his cheeks lightly.

“Umm….” You really didn’t know what to say.

“Did you need anything though?” You look up at his face to find him staring at you again with concern. You give him a small smile, hoping that it seemed reassuring.

You shake your head no.

“Because you know where I’m at if you do, Ken.” You freeze at his words.

What?

You look up at him, surprised and full of wonder at his words. No one had called you that in a long time. The name seemed to open up something inside you long forgotten. It felt as if with that one name he again was able to reach out to you and dig deeper into your life and draw you into him with this mysterious force. It was comforting to you and you stared up at him, wondrous of his ability to continuously do that with you.

He finally seemed to realize what he said as his eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry, it just slipped-,”

You stop his words with your hand, shaking your head.

“It’s fine.” You even added a small smile. You looked up at him and he appeared flustered. There was a small tinge of pink to his cheeks as he shuffled his feet. You smirked inwardly and looked back down at your feet.

After minutes of the loud silence, you watch as he walks over and sits at the adjacent yellow slide. You glance at him and he still appeared to be bothered by what happened. Is he actually still worried that he upset you?

“Ya know…” he looks up at you at your words, but you stare past him at the grass taking over the once barren field surrounding the jungle gym. “my sister used to call me that all the time.”

You can see him smile, and it nearly brings one to your lips. Except for the fact that you willingly brought up the past, things felt alright.

“You have a sister? I didn’t know that.” He marvels. You nod your head.

“Is she older than you?” he asks.

“She was.” You trail off, staring again at the ground beneath your feet. The both of you seemed to notice the way your tone suddenly became dismal just as you finished, but only you knew the reason why.

“Was?” he caught on. “What happened?”

He just had to ask. You could almost hear the screeching metal and see it peeling around the corners of the larger truck easily as the collision occurred at the words. You shudder slightly and close your eyes momentarily, biting your lip as the memories flashed quickly before your mind.

“She’s gone.” You say after a long moment of silence. Thankfully he didn’t feel the need to press the issue further, and allowed the silence to pass undisturbed by either of you.

After a long time of simply sitting there, he spoke.

“Do you want to come to my house for dinner?”

Shit! “Umm…why?” You questioned yourself and cringed internally at your stupidity.

You look at him and your statement seemed to have caught him off guard as much as it did you. He just stared at you in amazement and what looked like hurt.

Great job Kendall. You criticize internally. Great going.

“Well, because I never had anyone over for dinner before and…well….” He turned away as his words trailed off.

Just perfect.

“Um…thank you, but…n-, no.” You say after a while.

You sort of expected him to question your answer, but pleaded that he didn’t. You didn’t know what type of thing you would have said if he did. “I don’t know your family”, “your mom doesn’t know me”, “it would be uncomfortable because I’ve never been to another person’s house and me coming back later on than right now would end up in me coming to school covered in bruises again.” None of those seemed right, so you just wished that he wouldn’t say anything to you.

But what he did do was ask the question non-verbally. He looked back up at you and studied your face for a while and you read the question in his eyes. You turned away and saw hurt flash across his face briefly as you did. You just didn’t know how to explain that you can’t.

“Alright.” He responded dejectedly.

Just like you Kendall, screw up everything. The voice taunts.

You don’t bother to silence it. That was really the only invitation you had ever received from someone to eat dinner at their house, and it probably was the only one that you’re ever going to get. But you reasoned with yourself that it was better you didn’t go. His family might notice something, his little brother might notice something, or his family could hate you altogether. Who didn’t?

Another reason you were scared to admit even to yourself was that it meant going back into that house again. You hadn’t been in that house for quite awhile, and even though it still had that security calling out to you, you didn’t want to go back. In fact, the last time you had eaten dinner at someone’s house other than your own was in that house…except it was her house then. You just didn’t want to have to replay those memories as well, all of them were bad.

“Ken?” Gerard called.

You hadn’t even notice that he was now standing and a couple of feet away already. Again, you were so lost in your own head that you must not have noticed him calling your name. Except now you noticed that this time he used your…nickname. It already sounded right coming from his lips, and that fact made you slightly uneasy. Perhaps you were adjusting to him too quickly.

“Yeah?” You remained seated.

“Do you wanna walk back with me?” he asked again.

You considered this. Should you?

You shook your head apologetically. “Sorry…no.”

“Oh…well,” There’s that dejected look again.

You look back down at you feet at the sight, maybe you should have just said yes.

“Ken?” You look up at him again as he calls your name. “Be careful.” He says before he turns slowly and walks away from you.

“Thanks…” you say so softly that he doesn’t even turn to show that he heard you. You think of your father and sigh lightly to yourself.

I’ll need it.