Scars Don't Heal When You Keep Cutting

I feel on top of the fucking world after being able to achieve such an accomplishment as this. His smile makes mine widen.

“What ever made you think your smile was ugly? It’s fucking adorable!” I giggle, causing him to blush.

“Well, you won’t see it anymore! I’ll hide it!” he tries to defend himself. I chuckle at him.

“Why do you think it’s ugly?” I ask him, only getting a shrug in return.

“Eh… Some asshole in school did something...”

“Care to enlighten me?”

He shrugs again and looks down at his hands in his lap.

“It was two years ago, around when the bullying first started.” I nod my head, telling him to continue.

He starts fidgeting nervously. “Do I have to tell you?”

I smile sadly at him. “I prefer you to so I can help you, Benny-boy.”

“I was...uh...hanging out with my…boyfriend and his friend-”

“Wait, boyfriend?!” I cut him off, feeling bad after I do. I guess I’m just not really a good listener, then. I’ll try to work on that. He nods shyly at my question before continuing.

“Anyways, his friend didn’t like me so much…” he continues as he starts playing with his hands. “He kept telling me how weird I looked. He ended up changing the topic to how ugly my smile was, and my boyfriend didn’t do anything. He only laughed, so I figured that it was ugly.”

“You know that they’re full of bullshit, right?” I ask him. He shrugs again.

“Who are they, anyways? Do they go to our school?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it.” I sigh, knowing that I probably won’t get anything else out of him on this topic. I try again.

“So, how many boyfriends have you had?” I ask.

“Uh…” he murmurs as he thinks. “I think...maybe three?”

“When?” I ask him, now very curious.

“I had my first one in 5th grade, my second in 8th, and the third in 10th.”

“I’m straight up about to get into your love life,” I chuckle, and he looks a bit amused himself. “Can you tell me about them?”

“The one from 5th grade’s name was Chance.” He starts. “How we met was weird. It was at recess, and I was playing on the slide with two other friends. We thought it’d be fun if we all went down the slide next to each other, and I fell over the side. I fell on someone, who happened to be Chance.”

I chuckle at him. “Love at first fall,” I mock him.

“Whatever, Danny!” he says as he rolls his eyes. “Chance was a good boyfriend, actually, for a fifth grader. We only broke up because he had to move to Paris.”

“Sorry, mate.”

“No worries. My 8th grade boyfriend was Xavier. I met him in a pretty weird way, too. I wasn’t paying attention when I was walking to the store and ran into a lamp post.”

I managed to hold back my laugh that time, somehow. The thought was just so funny.

“Xavier happened to be walking by and saw it, and laughed, of course. But he did ask if I was okay. We talked for a bit, and boom, we’re friends.”

“What’d you guys talk about?”

“We talked about how clumsy we were. We’re both extremely clumsy. We told each other our embarrassing clumsy moments!” I smile and nod, telling him to continue.

I’m expecting him to tell me some at some point.

“We started dating a few months later. Everything was great at first, but then he started spending less time with me and coming up with a stupid excuse, which was always ‘oh, I gotta go to the bathroom’ or some shit like that.”

I can’t help but giggle at the voice he put on to mock Xavier’s.

“I knew something was up and started investigating like the awesome ninja you say I am.”

I smirk as I remember calling him a ninja on Monday.

Throwback, huh?

“Turns out he was dating a girl behind my back.”

“That’s fucked up,” I say, glaring at nothing in particular. Why would someone cheat on Ben, the definition of perfection? Fuck, why would someone cheat in the first place?

“Yeah, but not as fucked up as the boy I dated in tenth.”

Oh boy.

“We met kinda like the way we both met, we had the opportunity to work with a partner. Only difference, I went up to him and asked.”

I have to admit that that bit of information surprised me a bit. Ben actually approaching someone? I can imagine Ben walking into a lamp post but willingly participating in any form of social interaction with a stranger? Maybe this ex-boyfriend of his has something to do with this, I can’t help but think.

“Yeah. And another difference, he kept flirting with me.

“Obviously, we ended up going out. Except he didn’t want anyone to know about us. Apparently, no one knew he was gay and he liked it that way. After a few months, people got suspicious. And I’m telling you, everyone was homophobic then. So he broke up with me and went and got a girlfriend so no one would find out.

“He straight-up turned against me, too. He’s the one who told everyone I was gay, so they started bullying me. He joined in too so he could protect his fucking reputation. I was okay with people calling me gay and shit like that, I mean, why would that offend me? But after a while he took it too far and told everyone all of my secrets, so that’s how everyone started calling me a freak.

“It’s kinda why I don’t let people in, too. I trusted him but what did my trust mean to him? Fucking nothing.”

Bye the time he finished, I was speechless. I speak up after letting everything sink in.

“Do I know these secrets?”

“No, no you don’t. And I don’t want you to know. I don’t want you to leave me.”

“Benji, I told you. I’d never leave you,” I assure him. “I want you to trust me.”

“I do trust you, just not with these secrets. I’m sorry, Danny.” I sigh and nod, understanding why. He trusted his dick of a boyfriend and look what he did. His peers have been making fun of him for two years because he trusted him.

“Hey, but what if I find out one day?” I ask him. He shrugs.

“We’ll just have to find out if or when that day comes,” he says.

“Yeah. Wanna go see what’s for dinner?” He shakes his head no.

“I’m not really hungry,” he answers me. “I’m about to take a nap, though.”

“Okay, I will too,” I say as I kick my boots off before laying down on the bed, Ben following. “My mom or dad should wake us for dinner.”

“I like your parents. They’re nice,” he tells me as he scoots closer and snuggles into my side. I smile as I gently wrap an arm around him.

“They like you too.”

“I know,” he says as he closes his eyes. Only a few seconds later, soft snoring is heard coming from the small boy laying next to me. Poor thing, he must’ve been really tired. I can see that he goes through a lot, but he doesn’t have to go through it alone anymore, never again.

With that in mind, I drift off to sleep.