Bitter & Sweet

12. Wounded Hearts

I hadn't closed an eye ever since I got home.
My phone is resting on my stomach as I'm laying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Teo never answered my text messages. I am overwhelmed with worry, unsure if he's okay.
I try to convince myself that his dad wouldn't beat him again, but fail.

Teo

My heart is in my throat as I enter the house.
I carefully turn the front door knob and the door creaks as I open it and walk through.
It's dark, and relief washes over me as I realize that my dad might be asleep.

I pick up my suitcase so it won't make any noise when I walk to my room.
Just then as I lift a foot, I hear my dad's voice.
I put the suitcase back down. I can hear my own heartbeat drumming in my ears.

"Where the fuck have you been son?!" My dad exclaims, suddenly in front of me.
"I was staying with a friend," I say, my voice barely above whisper.
"Speak up, I can't hear you." My dad is slurring his words. He's drunk.
"I was—" his fist meets my face before I can finish my sentence.
The force of it is so great that I immediately fall to the floor.

I already know what's about to happen next, so I brace myself and try to think about anything but the excruciating pain.
My dad has never pulled himself out of a beating.
He'd stop just in time before he'd kill me, I remember at one point wishing he didn't. That he'd just have the guts to fucking kill me already.
Now it's different. I actually feel like my life is worth living again.

I grunt loudly as he starts kicking me in the ribs, my stomach, my face.
At one point I pass out, right after his left hand that still has his wedding ring around his finger, crashes into the side of my face.
Everything turns dark. At first I could still feel him beating me, until there was nothing.

You're weak.

It's all I think in the back of my mind.
Over and over and over again.
When I was sixteen, I actually tried to fight back. I had so much rage in my heart because of him. I'd always get into fights at school, I was always angry.
It took me a long time to get over that anger.

It was around that time when I met Aaron.
Almost all of my anger fell away after that, because I finally had someone I could talk to.

Eleanor

Teo doesn't show up for school the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that.
Carl and Hazel asked about him so I told them he was sick at home, which is also what I told our science teacher.

Nobody has heard from him.
At the end of another school day, I call Teo again. The line goes straight to voicemail and I sigh as I lay down on my bed.

I've never been this worried about someone before. What if his dad killed him? I shake my head, mentally slapping myself for even thinking it.
My stomach grumbles. I've been so worried these past three days that I've hardly eaten anything.

My mom has been too occupied with Anthony to even notice. If I'm honest, it kinda hurts, seeing your mother too caught up with her boyfriend to notice her daughter isn't eating.

After a long while of laying in bed, staring at Teo's phone number, I get up.
I quickly put on a hoodie and climb through the window of my bedroom.
I carefully slide down the water pipe and land on my feet. I go through the back door of the garage and take out my old bike.

And with just my socks on, I head to Teo's.

I leave my bike at the nearest bus stop from Teo's house so his dad won't see it and know that I'm there.