things i can't (l.s)

Chapter 23

Author's Note:
HI GUYS PLS DONT HATE ME FOR NOT UPDATING IM MENTALLY ILL LOLOLOL!!! i love you guys, your comments make me laugh + feel appreciated so thank you!! enjoy this chapter, but do be warned as usual that it could be triggering!! stay safe out there loves. x
Ashlee
*Harry's POV: *

Pulling up to school, I huff a big sigh of relief that I'm out of the trauma wasteland that is my house, yet my brows furrow. I begin to wonder to myself what types of things that greasy, absolute rubbish of a man, Scott has done in the past because I know I can't be the only one who he's acted upon in this way. Didn't Scott say he had a son? I can only imagine the type of relationship he had with his son and what made everything end up the way it is.

*End of Harry's POV*

~

*Unnamed POV:*

*Flashback- Sunday morning, January 2003*

"Wake up, wake up!" My sister shakes my sleeping body awake.

No, this again?

"W-what's goin' on?" Faint screams of my mother come waving into the bedroom from downstairs and my ears bark up. 

"It's Daddy again, he's hurting mommy again please, brother!"

"Stay in here!" I demanded as my sister took refuge beneath the covers of my bed.

The blood rushing throughout my body went everywhere but my head and I felt the faintness almost take over me as I sprinted through the hallway and down the raggedy staircase. That was until I finally reached the bathroom where my father stood with my mother in his grip, tightening his hand around her neck as she begged for breath- her screams falling shorter each time she attempted. Making my presence known, I flung my small body onto him, hitting him and trying to get his grip to loosen on my precious mother.

*End of POV*

~

*Harry's POV: *

My palms begin to sweat as I walk through the halls because although I escaped home for the time being, I now have to deal with the predators of the school- more or less Zayn and his pack of hellhounds. Head down, cuts burning underneath my sweater, and fingers pressed against my cracked lips, I strolled down the hall. I decide to shoot Lou a good morning text just to make sure he thinks I'm okay. I really don't want him to know what happened with Scott because as much as I don't want to bottle it up, I know that he can't fix me or the situations I'm placed in. Plus, as soon as he finds out, that'll just be another thing wrong with me- another thing that makes people want to avoid me. I think I'll just do my best to avoid him today, just so I have more time to process shit. It feels like I'm always just fucking processing all the bad days, because almost every day is a bad day in one way or another.

As I walked to first period, I made sure to step inside each of the tiles on the floor an equal number of times before approaching the classroom.

"One, two, three, step over the line. One, two, three, step," I murmur to myself.

On days where the anxiety is so bad, some of the OCD tendencies that I usually suppress come out, making me take more time on the rituals and compulsions throughout my day, and they can become exhausting. I'm going to have to try my best to keep the rituals at bay today, I think. It sucks having to try and mask myself, especially on days where I'm struggling most. But if I don't, it just causes more problems for me because everyone thinks I'm a fucking disease already, so I can't add to the stigma. After entering the classroom, I sat down and got the assignments out that I had somehow managed to do. I honestly don't know how I have time or the mental capacity to do some of these assignments anymore, it feels like I'm just going through the motions as some sort of zombie. I never feel fully there, fully present. Some days though, I can literally feel the clouds fog up my mind- like the trauma creeps up so hard that disassociating away from the present moment is the only option. So as my teacher went on, my mind went blank and the period went by without me learning much of anything.