The Boy Next Door Owes Me Oreos.

The Boy Next Door Owes Me Oreos.(21)

Immediately I let out a gut wrenching scream that rang in my ears, making the intruder jerk his head up and my scream was cut short.
    “Abel?!” I gasped, and not a second later felt my door being opened.
    “HONEY?!” My Dad yelled as I slammed the door shut in his face.
    “Ugh! Sorry Dad! I’m. I’m naked!” I yelled through the door, with my back pressed against it so hard I feared I was going to fall through it.
    “Why did you scream? What’s wrong?” My Dad continued shouting questions, but all I could do was stare at Abel’s swelling eye. I didn’t know how to react as I stared at him. His good eye widened, wordlessly pleading for me to answer my Dad.
    “Uh. Spider! I stepped on him though, I’m safe.” I laughed breathlessly. “Thanks for looking out for me Dad! I love you!”
    “…Alright honey. If you need me, you know where I am.” I smiled half heartedly at his caring words, but it didn’t have a good effect on me as I stared at Abel. Slowly I put my finger to my mouth, telling Abel to stay quiet as I listened for my Dads retreating footsteps. Moments later I let out the breath, and lifted myself from the door.
    Seconds passed in complete silence as I mindlessly clutched my towel closer to me. The fact that under that towel I was naked was utterly forgotten as I looked at Abel’s face. His tanned skin was bloody and bruised, his right eye was swelling to the point where it would barely open, his lip was swollen and cracked with blood trailing down his chin. His loose shirt didn’t hide the appearing bruise that looked like a hand that has gripped his collarbone tightly. As I took in his appearance I could barely breathe, tears producing in my eyes.
    “Abel?” I breathed, unsure what else I should be doing. He couldn’t meet my eyes as he stared at my plush cream colored carpet. His hair fell in his face, and when I took a step closer he flinched. My bright light overhead hid nothing as I continued my approach.
    “No.” He said weakly as I got less than an arms length away.
    “Abel, what happened to you?” Silence passed quickly. “Who did this?” I asked sternly but he said nothing. “Abel…” I said weakly, reaching my hand out to brush the hair out of his face. Instantly Abel grabbed my wrist tightly, making my gasp. “Did Chase and his goons do this to you?! Because I swear to go if they did-”
    “No.” Abel said as if it were obvious and lifted his head up to stare at me. “No.” He laughed slightly and humorlessly.
    “I don’t understand Abel… My Dads a doctor!” I came up with suddenly thinking that would change everything. “He could help! Let me.” As I turned around to race out of my bedroom to go get my Dad, Abel grabbed my wrist and spun me back around to face him.
    “No.” Abel said sternly staring me in the eyes.
    “But…” I let go of my towel thoughtlessly with one hand and brought it close to his face. He closed his eyes, the little color that was in his face draining quickly. I never touched him, I just let my face hover delicately over his bruised face. There was nothing I could say, nothing he wanted to hear.
    “Maybe you should get some clothes on…” Abel said opening his eye slowly. It was then that I noticed how low my towel was hanging on my chest.
    “ACK!” I jumped away from him, bringing my towel closer to me. “Ugh! Turn around! Close your eyes! Don’t look at me!” I panicked turning him around myself by his shoulders. Quickly I jumped into my closet, thankful for the light inside of there and dressed in the first thing I found. The grey shorts were a little too tight and the tank top went down a little too low, but it didn’t matter. This was Abel and he clearly had bigger things he should be worrying about then how much skin I was showing.
    When I left he was still standing in front of my window.
    “Abel…” I let his name hang in the balance of the silence. “Are you going to tell me what happened? Who did this to you?” Before Abel answered me, he went to brush the hair out of his face himself and ended up wincing in pain. “Hold that thought.” I held my hands up before rushing out of my bedroom, closing my door behind me silently. Both of my parents had gone upstairs to watch TV in their bedroom, so I wrangled up everything I thought would be important, including frozen pees and the small first aid kid my mom purchased for ‘just in case’s.
    In my bathroom I grabbed a handful of face cloths and wet a couple of them, I was about to enter my room again when I realized his clothing was also bloody and dirty. Quickly, not wanting to leave him in my room for too long alone I went into our spare bedroom where my Mom packed away all our winter clothing and went through my Dads tuber ware until I found a thick pair of sweatpants and rushed back to my bedroom before a parent saw what I was gathering.
    Abel hadn’t moved from his stance in front of my window. “I need you to take your pants off.” I instructed an Abel just looked at me in a panicked state. “Woah! I’ll turn around, I got you other pants. You’ll probably be hot but I can turn the AC up.”
    Ten minutes later I was dabbing alcohol into Abel’s open wounds, waiting for the right moment to strike.
    Before I started probing Abel for answers he spoke.
    “Don’t ask okay? Nothing good happens when people ask…” He trailed off, wincing as I applied more alcohol to his swollen cheek. The AC wasn’t cooling my room off fast enough for him to be comfortable, so he was shirtless. I remembered at the pool party how he refused to take his shirt off, I knew now it back because he was riddled with bruises. Blotches of black and blues covered every inch on his midsection, old and new ones blending in to one another. I couldn’t bring myself to look at them, knowing if I did I would break down into tears.
    “I can’t…” I breathed. “I can’t know you look like this and not know why.” I admitted breaking the barely manageable eye contact I had with him. It was hard to look at him as is, and with all the questions swirling in my head it was only a mater of time before I broke down.
    “Chase-” Abel began but I immediately cut him off.
    “Don’t lie to me.” I insisted intensely. “I know this wasn’t him.” Abel just stared at me unsure how to continue. “I know that Chase is a jerk, but I know that he isn’t capable of something like this. You need to tell me the truth.” By then his face was all cleaned, it wasn’t presentable, his eye was swollen along with his lip but the blood that had dried was washed away. “Abel… you know you can trust me. You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t.” Knowing the truth behind my words, I forced Abel to look me in the eyes, managing to hold it for longer than five seconds.
    “I had no where to go.” He whimpered, and I had never seen a man so close to tears. Without thinking I wrapped my arms around him, not tightening my grip for fear of hurting him. Abel just stayed limp in my arms, not willing to return the hug. “My Mom… she.” He gasped, his torso was shaking as if he was having a hard time breathing but I didn’t move my arms. “She broke a dish, and I knew he was going to hit her, so I said it was my fault. It was mine… I startled her.” I could feel slowly his hands going around my waist. “I shouldn’t have snuck up on her, it was an accident.” Abel’s voice sounded strained with pain, and I felt his fingers curl into my lose shirt.
    “I know… I know.” I soothed, unsure how I should approach the subject. “Your Dad abuses you doesn’t he? And your Mom?” I asked, making sure I was getting the whole picture.
    “No!” Abel nearly shouted, or at least it sounded like it by how quiet we were being to make sure my parents wouldn’t wake up. “My Father would never, he. That man is NOT my Father.” He explained fiercely as he threw his head up from where he had rested it on my shoulder. 
    “Okay! Okay I didn’t know. Tell me, tell me because until then I’m only going to make judgments.” I explained and Abel nodded weakly.
    “My Dad would never hit me, he lives in Atlanta. When my parents got divorced my Mom quickly needed someone… and she settled for dirt.” He practically spat the last part of the sentence. “They decided to move to Florida, and I couldn’t leave her.” Abel suddenly stared intently into my eyes. “I couldn’t leave my Mom with him, he would kill her.” His eyes watered, his blue eyes were deep with remorse and worry.
    “You did the right thing.” I insisted. “I know you did, if would have hurt your Mom if you decided to stay with your Dad. It would have.” There was a lump in my throat making it impossible to form normal sentences.
    Abel nodded numbly. “It would have…” He repeated me mindlessly. “But now I live in fear, terrified along with my Mom whenever he gets home. It wasn’t this bad at first, he just insisted ridiculous things. His hangers needed to be an inch apart, and everything down to his boxers needed to be ironed. Some nights, after a long hard day of work he would walk around the house with a white glove and run his fingers along everything inspecting for dust. The first time he hit her it was because he found dirt in the chimney.” Abel rambled a word a second and I was dumbfounded, I had never heard so many words come out of his mouth. “A week before that, he had brought home a kitten to celebrate the first day they ever met, and that night he drown it the toilet.” My heart fell to my crossed knees, and never returned to its rightful spot in my chest. I felt hollow as I watched the color drain from Abel’s face. Tears welled up in my eyes, and even though I was trying to hard not to cry, I couldn’t hold back the tears.
    “Oh my God.” I moaned, my hands were shaking as I brought the wet face cloth back to his face pointlessly, everything that could come off was off. The only thing that was left was the things that couldn’t easily be washed away… “Abel.” I cried, “I’m so sorry.”
    “Don’t be, it wont be like this for long. When I turn eighteen… we wont have to live this anymore.” Abel insisted, and I nodded in reassurance. “I just knew if I went there after I ran out that it would continue right where I left off, I shouldn’t have come here though I just didn’t know where else to go.”
    “No Abel. You should have come here sooner. Anytime this happens, come to me. I want you to come here.” I explained to him, willing myself to stop crying. I could tell it was making Abel uncomfortable. “How about this,” I laughed humorlessly “I’m going to go downstairs, and wrangle up everything edible and come back up here so we can spend the night watching stupid movies on Netflix before we fall asleep.”
    I knew watching the first episode of Skins the UK version wasn’t going to be enough to take his mind off of everything that was going on at his house but I couldn’t handle listening to his stories. I wanted to, I wanted him to cry on my shoulder and tell me everything but I was the only one crying. I couldn’t continue listening because if I did I would do something about it. If it wasn’t my parents I went to, to cry and tell them everything, I would go over to his house with a baseball bat myself.
    It took awhile for Abel to feel comfortable laying it bed with me, but soon we were laughing lightly to the sexual situations playing out on the TV. Together, yet separately we were stewing over the mutual knowledge we now shared, I could tell Abel wasn’t used to it but somehow I was going to make him trust me. Along with that, I was going to somehow make this better.
    At the moment, I just didn’t know how. 

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