Before I Forget

The Sorrows of Young Eli

"Was Sky here?" Mom asked, and Hawk stopped in the middle of his punch-kick-punch routine.

He was in the basement, beating the crap out of a punching bag, and his chest was heaving with deep breaths. He had been so engulfed in his training, that he hadn't even heard Mom approaching. Startled, he turned to face her, sweat dripping down his back.

"Yeah?" he replied, trying to catch his breath. "How did you—?"

Mom looked embarrassed and annoyed. "Because unless you had a sudden inspiration to do laundry, there must be some other reason for your bedsheets to be in the dryer."

If there ever had been a moment in his life when Hawk had hoped for the ground to open up and swallow him, it was this. The condom on the nightstand. Shit! Had he remembered to toss it into the trash? He was pretty sure he had, but fucking Hell, if mom had been to his room and seen that too–

"Please go and make your bed, Eli. And after that we'll have a little chat," Mom said, and turned to walk back up, looking anything but happy.

"Sure," Hawk muttered a response, but gave the punching bag a couple of more fierce kicks, before stopping. His whole body was exhausted, his muscles trembled and ached, and still, it had done little to soothe the ache in his chest, the nauseating fear that still gripped his heart like a band of ice-cold iron.

He had no idea how much time he'd been in the basement. Time lost its meaning when he was training, but now he glanced at his phone and realized it had been hours. And still no texts from Sky.

With a heavy heart, he went upstairs, took the sheets from the dryer, and made his bed. His room was otherwise neat - no Hawk's dead body lying on the floor for mom to find, not even a condom on the nightstand.

Despite everything, he was at least relieved about that. Thank God he had remembered to get rid of it! The missing sheets from his bed were bad enough, but a used condom—

Had mom seen it, Hawk would have been forced to move out. Immediately. Even if he had no fucking place to go. He would have rather slept under the bridge with the homeless people than face his mom again after such a humiliation.

He made a mental note to be extra careful next time and to wash and dry the sheets before mom got home—

He froze mid-thought.

There probably wasn't gonna be a next time. Sky still hadn't written back to him and Hawk was seriously freaking out. He was pretty sure she was breaking up with him. But then there was the other thought, the even worse one.

What if she's done something to herself?

He knew she had tried to kill herself before. And she had been so upset when she had left, her eyes dark and full of tears—

That thought almost sucked the life out of Hawk. He couldn't take it. He quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted Sky.

At least let me know that you r okay

I'm worried

He waited a moment, but - surprise, surprise - no answer came. He wondered if he should call Sky's dad, just in case something was seriously wrong, but then decided not to. He really didn't want to explain to Nicholas what had happened, and also he could get Sky in a lot of trouble if she really was just getting a tattoo because her Dad probably didn't know it. And then she'd be upset about that too. With a long sigh, Hawk pushed the phone back into the pocket of his sweats and shambled his feet downstairs where mom was waiting for him.

They sat in the living room - Hawk on the couch, mom in an armchair nearby. Hawk kept staring at his feet - they were still bare after the workout session, his long toes looked pale against the dark hardwood floor - and he had no wish to look up to meet Mom's eyes, or to have this conversation in the first place.