You can't Outrun the Truth

Late Nights

"FUCK!"
I jolt awake and hit my head on something.

"What the hell?"

"THREE TIMES LONDON!"

"Shhh, calm down its what?" I look over at the clock. "Two in the morning."

"You punched me. Again!" Mal whispers.

"I don't try to!" Mal takes a deep breath and turns the lamp on. She sits on my bed and looks at me.

"Was it them?"

"Yeah," I look down at my hands and mess with the sheet.

"London, I'm not saying you need to tell someone, but you need to do something. This isn't healthy though. Living with all this trauma."

"Mal, it's not that easy."

"I know. Nothing is easy with you," I look back up and see a bruise forming on her cheekbone.

"Sorry."

"How did you get so good at punching?" She asks.

"Practice."

"Of course," She scoffs. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"My punching practice? Sure I normally-" 

"No London, your nightmare." Mal interrupts.

"Not at all. It's bad enough reliving it, I don't need to talk about it," I say.

"Have you ever talked about it? To anyone at all, doesn't have to be one of us," She whispers.

"I told my cousin" I remind her.

"Did you tell her it was happening or actually talk about the problem?" Mal asks.

"I guess we talked a little," I shrug. I feel tears running down my cheeks and I am quick to wipe them away.

"Did it help?"

"Maybe a little? I don't know" I fall back against the sheets and cover my face.

Mal lays down next to me and sighs. "If you want to talk I'll listen."

"Thank you."

A couple of minutes pass before I finally say something.

TW(talk about abuse and stuff. if you want to skip it's basically Mal and London talking about London's past and bonding at two in the morning.)

"I was born in Eindhoven, we lived there for eight years before moving to Magnolia Delaware. It was like a switch flipped and suddenly everything I did was horrible and they were always mad. I-i didn't know what was happening," My voice started cracking and Mal grabbed my hand. "It started three months after we arrived in the States. I'm not sure why, but I'm fairly certain they moved us across the ocean to make it less obvious they were hurting me."

"It worked because no one has noticed. My cousin only did after I slipped up. And you guys because I didn't lock a door.  I have amazing make-up skills now though. My family is the most important thing to me, even above football, so I'll do anything to keep the rest of my family together. I refuse to be the reason we don't have family gatherings on holidays, or for football matches."

"London, have you ever thought that you may be this important to the rest of your family?" Mal asks.

"It doesn't matter, there are too many people to worry about just me."

"You don't ever worry about yourself though. You deflect every comment or question about you or runoff. You need to worry about yourself, be more selfish because this lifestyle is dangerous."

"I'm not dead yet" I point out.

"Instead you're traumatized and miserable."

"Gee thanks, glad to know I seem miserable," I scoff.

"That's not what I meant," She shoves my shoulder and rolls her eyes. "Just imagine, you tell your family alright. Your parents are sent to jail and you don't have to worry about them. You still have family gatherings for holidays and to watch soccer, only you don't have to be constantly paranoid someone will find out, or worrying about your parents." 


Trigger warning over!


"Maybe, but now I need sleep. It's two-thirty and we have training at eight."

"I forgot about that. Alright, we're continuing this later though."

"Sure thing Mallory" I smirk.

"I hate you London."

"I know."

6:30 A.M.

"Mal we need to cover that." I look at her cheekbone and there's a decent-sized bruise covering it.

"I don't know how to cover bruises!"

"Lucky for you I do. Sit down and sorry in advance, it may hurt a bit when I touch it."

"Wonderful." I grab her makeup and start covering it.

 A few minutes pass while I try and blend it so it looks natural.

"You have an accent, I've never asked you about it before," Mal points out.

"I told you last night, I was born in the Netherlands, lived there since I was eight, visit a lot."

"I know, I just never knew that before," I shrug and finish her makeup.

"I guess it didn't occur to me to address it.

We finish getting ready and are downstairs for breakfast ten minutes later. 

"God, it's so early," Rose complains drinking her coffee.

"It's almost seven" I tell her.

"It's still dark out."

"There's like never sun here Rose, it's always raining" I point out.

"Whatever, my point is I'm exhausted."

"Me too, I was up for half an hour at two in the morning!" Mal says. 

I glare at her and throw a grape at her.

"Hey, no throwing food kids!" Alex says from down the table.

"Sorry Alex, in my defense Mal deserved it."

"How did I deserve it? Please explain."

"You just do," I sigh.

"Good to know you two still love each other, I thought one of you would be dead by now since you've been sharing a room," Andi tell us.

"Yeah, she's only a pain in the ass sixty percent of the time," Mal responds.

"Your a pain seventy percent of the time," I add.

"You two. It's too early for you to already be arguing" Tobin groans from her seat near Alex, Christen, and Megan.

"Sorry! Andi started it!" Mal shouts down the table.

"Me? I said one thing!"

"And it snowballed from there."

"You guys are exhausting" Abby complains. 

This one is a little shorter but I didn't know how to break it off without making it really long. I should  have more consistent updates with school ending so I am hoping to have the next chapter out by at least Saturday.