Finding Home || bxb

11

"How are you doing?" Dahlia asked as she ran her finger softly across my bruised eye.

It had been about a week since the incident and I hadn't been to college at all as I'd been trying to recover. My ribs were definitely bruised but a few more weeks and they will have healed on their own.

I shrugged and told her I could be a lot better. The attack had made me close in on myself a little. Dahlia and Charlie had tried to keep me company but I wasn't talking as much. I was trying to let my walls down a little again though. But I didn't understand what people had against other people and their walls. Some of us were just trying to protect whatever is left of us after whatever happened to put those walls up in the first place.

"You know Roman found me in college today. Asked about you," she said. Roman had messaged me a couple times but I didn't really have the heart to reply. It was people like Henry which made me realise I couldn't have nice things, nice people, because there's always bad people out to make me miserable for all the happiness some could bring me.

"What did you tell him?" I asked.

"Nothing. I just said that you were going through something. He wanted to know if it was something he did. He's just confused Alden," Dahlia explained. "I think you should talk to him."

I scoffed. "He's better off without me."

"You know, I'm one hundred percent, no, a thousand percent certain you probably thought the same when I first tried to be your friend. I can promise you were wrong then just like you're wrong now. I mean I have no idea what I would have done without my best friend to get me through college, even if I can't talk about girls with him."

I smiled at that. "You still talk about girls with me."

"Yeah well, you always respond with 'yeah I can see how she could be pretty' and all that bullshit."

"It's not like I can talk about guys with you."

"Well, I know someone you could talk about guys and gay shit with," she said as she got closer. "Roman."

"I'll think about it," came my reply knowing full well that I won't.

"Alden," she said softly. "Don't you get that this is what people like Henry want?" I might not have told the Colloways who had hurt me but one look from Dahlia when she finally came round to see me the first time after the incident, and I'd spilled the whole thing in excruciating detail.

I didn't enjoy keeping things to myself. It was hard not to have anyone to talk to sometimes. But it wasn't even that I didn't have anyone to talk to. It was that I didn't want to burden anyone with all of my bullshit. People were better off not knowing how haunted I was by my parents' death; the things that had happened to me in certain foster homes; the stupid and dangerous relationships I put myself in just because I wanted to feel loved.

I didn't want to upset people that cared about me and I didn't want pity either. My life was my life and that's just how it was. Nothing anyone could do or say could change the stuff I've been through so I didn't think there was any point in spilling all my secrets.

"What do you mean?" I asked Dahlia.

"People like Henry, they...they want this," she said gesturing at me with her hands dramatically. "They want people to give up. To just be in pain and be alone. Don't let what they did to you make you scared again. Don't let them win Alden."

As I contemplated what she said, I played with the stuffed lamb in my lap. My parents had given him to me after they took me to a farm to go strawberry picking one summer. I couldn't think of a name, so my father suggested 'Lambert' and I thought it was the best name I'd ever heard. I always had him with me when I was particularly struggling through my feelings.