We've Got a Big Mess on Our Hands

"Oh shit,” I uttered with shocked eyes.

“Language,” Mrs Parkson scolded causing a groan to emit from my lips. Brendon laughed to himself softly before Mr Hild spoke to him.

“Who are you?”

“Oh um, I’m Brendon, one of William’s friends,” He explained slightly taken back by Mr Hild’s sharp tone.

I walked into my temporary bedroom with Mrs Parkson behind me whilst Mr Hild had set off to find William so that he could question him as she was doing with me.

“Why is there a bed made up on the floor?” She asked confused and sat on the edge of my bed with me.

“Brendon and I are sharing a room as there weren’t enough beds in the house,” I explained with a shrug but Mrs Parkson frowned.

“That can’t be healthy for a girl of your age.”

“Oh don’t worry about it, they’re all great guys anyway,” I tried to convince her. The thing I didn’t want her and Mr Hild to do was to find faults with this whole arrangement and then send me home to the guy that was soon to be a father figure to me. She asked me a few questions on how everything was going, how everything with school was before disappearing as soon as she’d come, dragging Mr Hild with her. They said they’d ring in a few days to tell us if they’d decided to let me stay here or not. Hopefully their verdict would be to let me stay.

I walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped loosely around my body. William had shouted up saying that he and the guys had gone for takeaway during my shower so when I walked into my room to see Brendon lying on my bed reading, I jumped in surprise.

“Ah shit!” I yelled out, grabbing my towel and wrapping it tighter around my body.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Brendon laughed, chuckling to himself. I rolled my eyes at him.

“You just scared me, I thought you were going to get takeaway?” I asked confused and sat on the end of the bed, making sure I was covered appropriately.

“I was but then I thought I’d stay back and stay with yo- oh my god!” I looked at him confused as he cut himself off mid sentence. Following the direction of his widened eyes, my heartbeat sped up.

“Oh shit,” I whispered as he dropped his book and crawled towards me on the bed.

“How long?” He asked in shock.

“A couple of years,” I whispered ashamed as he traced his fingers down my scar ridden arm.

“Why would you even do that to yourself?” He asked, his tone changing to one of slight anger.

“Don’t use that tone with me Brendon, you hardly know me,” I hissed, standing up, grabbing my pyjamas and going back into the bathroom. I got changed and applied a layer of foundation to each of my arms before going back into my room sighing to find Brendon was still waiting for me on my bed. He patted the spot in front of him where he was sat cross-legged.

“Want to talk about it? It helps, Ryan used to cut and he found talking to us helped him,” He spoke softly once I’d sat in front of him.

“It’s complicated,” I whispered, looking down at my hands that he’d taken into his own caringly.

“Is it the same reason as to why you punched the wall yesterday?” I nodded slightly. “If you tell me, I might be able to help.”

“I have a bad home life,” I uttered quietly.

“How?” He asked, tilting my head up to look at him.

“Mum has,” I started but then Alex’s words ran through my head, “No, it doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t believe me.”

“I’ll believe anything you say Beth, I can help, I promise,” Brendon said and looked into my eyes.

“When I was four, my dad was killed in a boating accident leaving just me and my mum. We were getting along fine until she met this guy, Alex, a couple of years ago. He was okay at the beginning, seemed nice enough but then he started coming around more and more often, even when my mum was out,” I took a deep breath and he squeezed my hand reassuringly. “He began coming up to my room, just talking at first, and then he’d start kissing me,” Brendon’s grip tightened on my hand, “It went further and he got more and more violent due to my resistance.”

“I’m so sorry,” Brendon uttered, pulling me into a bone-crushing hug.