Living with Hope ✓ [ boyxboy ] [ Completed ]

21

Ivan Petrov

This isn't your first day in school, I tell myself for the hundredth time this morning.

Then why does it feel like one? I shoot back to myself.

Because this is the first time you're going to school after coming out, I reason in my head.

Ah, a part of me I didn't know existed says. But 'you' didn't come out, did you?

Can we stop? I scold the gazillion voices in my head that have enough opinions to brainwash twitter.

"Stop what?" Hope asks, coming out of the shower with only a towel covering his lower half and absolutely nothing covering his upper half.

Why? All my inside voices chorus. If there is one thing that gets all of them united, it's Hope. Either we're all furious at him or completely smitten about him. But Hope unites all of my insides, that's the point.

I didn't realize I'd said that aloud, I think.

"Well you did." Hope slips on a shirt. I turn around when he picks up his jeans. "I'm wearing my boxers, it's okay."

I stare at the wall. "You're saying it's okay for me to look at you with just your boxers?"

He doesn't respond. He slips his bag on one shoulder and mine on the other, and motions towards the door. "All set for school?"

"No," I grumble, taking my backpack from him. He shakes his head and looks pointedly at my fractured hand. I grumble even more.

He chuckles as we head downstairs. "Dad wanted to talk to you. He's in the kitchen."

I nod wordlessly. Richard's been wanting to talk to me since I got discharged from the hospital.

"And I'll go call Bas for breakfast. Wish me luck."

"Why luck?" I ask him. "You guys get along rather well, don't you?"

"That's only when you're around," he admits. "There isn't really a fight or anything. We're just not very fond of each other. Or at least he isn't. I just follow his suit."

I don't think it's my place to poke my nose into whatever the brothers have between them. So I leave Hope at Sebastian's door and head downstairs.

Dr. Richard Hope is sitting against the kitchen table with a toast in his hand. Emelia is applying some marmalade on another slice of bread. They ask me to choose between toast and cereal. I choose the latter.

As I pour some milk into my cereal, Robert rises, a plate of toast in hand. He motions me to follow him to the dining table. He takes his seat at the head of the table and right next to him on one of the sides, my breakfast in front of me.

"How's the physiotherapy going?" he asks like any father would as his son.

"I've had a couple of sessions so far. They're alright? Like any physio session would be, actually. Painful but I end up feeling better in the end, so it's worth it."

He nods. "I've been meaning to ask you something, and I know you aren't obliged to answer me, but it would really help me if you did."

When I nod, he says, "When Lex brought you to the hospital, you were bruised and bloody. Beaten up. It worried me, but not as much as what I came to know later. We were preparing you for an x-ray scan, when I realized some of the scars on your torso... they weren't fresh."

I gulped. Richard looks at me curiously, his face filled with concern. "That wasn't the first time those boys were attacking you, was it?"

I avert my eyes. "They haven't injured me that way before."