He's Young - Sevasey FanFic

Chapter 12

Kelly got back to the apartment to find Shay, Brett and Matt sitting around the dining room table with food.

"Good, I didn't waste money on buying you food," Shay said, getting up from her seat and grabbing Kelly's plate from the oven and then placing it at the only spot left, which was between Shay and Matt. "Had to drag this one away from staring at his screen," she not-so-much whispered and pointed her thumb at Matt.

"I'm eager," he said with a shrug.

"You wrote a program to help you sort out the frames, and now you wait. You staring at it will not make it go faster, so sit, eat, and enjoy a meal with us," Brett said firmly, and Matt raised his hands in defence.

Everyone in the room much needed the meal. Although Matt was the only one in the middle of a sticky situation, the other three were very worried about him. The entire case has caused stress for all of them, so sitting around a table enjoying a meal like they usually would, was needed. They joked around and laughed, and it was nice. Matt mostly kept quiet and listened to the other three bicker but would pipe in now and then.

After dinner, Matt went back to his laptop, watched his program do its thing, and anxiously waited for the results. He knew that it would take a while, and not to mention that afterwards, he would need to write another program to narrow it down even more and then go through each frame, inspecting each centimetre of it with a fine comb. He only hopes that it isn't too late by the time he finally receives the message.

Matt can feel his mask slipping. His perfectly crafted mask shows everyone he is fine and not to worry about him because he is okay. He needs to find his dad and end this, but he can't do that if he lets his emotions get in the way. He pushed all feelings, nerves, and fears as deep as he could so he could work but realized that he couldn't hold it up for longer than a day. He wishes he could go out for a run, but that's not a possibility with his boot. That was his only outlet. Running. Now without that, he doesn't know what to do with himself.

He spent his entire life telling himself he is fine and that what he is going through is normal, and it was easier when his sister was still alive and while he was still living in that life, but now that he is out, he still feels suffocated. He doesn't understand why. He should feel free and relaxed now that he doesn't live with an abusive, controlled, drunk but he doesn't. He is just as scared as he was back then. He can feel his emotions claw up at him and can feel it wanting to swallow him whole. Seeing his dad again, even if it was someone posing like him, still dragged up so many memories he spent so much time pushing down. Now working on the case and being forced to think like him to find him is making everything slip through the cracks of the wall he built in his head.

That is why he hated talking to people about it. Once you talk, you bring everything to the surface, and he doesn't understand how talking can help rebuild or repair such damage. Bringing everything to the surface would make everything so much real that he doesn't want to relive that. He doesn't want to relive the abuse. He already knows what happened and how it happened and how it felt. Why would he want to relive it? To him, talking to someone about it is reliving it.

Sometimes he can feel the ghost of his father's hand or mother's hand or the whip. The scars covering his body would tingle at times as if reminding Matt that they are still there and why they are there. He can still hear the shouting, bottle-throwing, and smashing of furniture. He can still hear the gunshot, feel the blood, and feel her weight and how cold she became. He could still see the stern look in his mother's eyes and hear his father shouting not because she killed Christie but because she tried to kill him. He can still hear the sirens and see the police break up the fight between his parents. He can still see the paramedics rushing to Christie and himself and trying to revive her, but nothing worked. He could still hear his shouts and cries for Christie not to leave him and feel the arms of the police holding him back.