Hey Punk, Keep This a Secret

Shower Thoughts (Part 2): Devin Milan

 Landon and Taylor aren't home right now, so I figured it would be a good time to finish this story:

I'll quickly sum up the rest of my fight with Damien (in an effort to avoid another mental breakdown). We wrestled each other until he finally got his hands off me. Then I grabbed my journal off of my desk and ran.

If my parents would have seen me, they would have grabbed me by my neck and screamed down my ears. I was so terrified, my ears were ringing just from thinking about it. I was going so fast. I didn't want to get caught. I was skipping steps and tripping on my feet. It was really loud when I pushed through the front door. I was lucky they didn't find me.

I ran until I saw the house on top of the hill (which is where I am now). It was the most secluded of all the places in town. So I figured it was the safest from my family too.

I ran towards it like my life depended on it (because it did). The whole bottom half of my pants ended up soaked because I didn't look to avoid the puddles. It was raining really hard. Then I slipped and fell on my face when I reached the top of the hill.

My legs were so tired that I thought they'd fall off. I couldn't get up off the ground no matter how hard I tried. I was too weak. I ended up sliding down the hill again every time. I was so scared that I'd be found before I could get up. I forced myself to scream. I had to hope that someone in that house would wake up and find me.

Lucky me, it was only a few moments before Landon came running out the door. I lifted my arm to help him find me. I would have yelled instead, but I couldn't keep fighting my voice to keep screaming. It hurt too badly. When he saw my hand, he ran over to help me.

"Come on, kid, grab my hand," I think is what he said. He tried helping me pull myself up, but I was so tired that even that didn't work. So he ended up carrying me inside. I think that he said I was rather light and asked me my age. I obviously couldn't answer him then. But I'm 14 and I weigh about 85 pounds. Just in case he finds this someday and he snoops.

We sat on the porch for a while because I wouldn't stop crying and he didn't want to wake up his wife. He helped me calm down before finally taking me inside. It was really cold out and being wet didn't really help. He told me we would crash downstairs. This kind of scared me at first. Thank god he had a nice basement. And a warm one too.

Skip a little bit, and Landon started telling me to take a shower. He said that it would help to clean myself. He also said that a hot shower would warm me up after being out in the cold rain. But I kept refusing over and over again. Normally anyone would love a hot shower right after being in that storm. But the last thing I wanted after being touched by my brother was to take off the clothes that I felt like they were protecting me.

Eventually I had to give in and take a shower like he said. He said that he'd let me borrow a t-shirt and pants that he saved from his teenage years. Apparently they were "too cool to get rid of" even though he was practically twice the size of them now. I took the offer (of course) because I didn't really have another choice.

I brought myself to get into the shower eventually. It wasn't relaxing. I wanted to cover every part of myself. I wanted to scrub everything that remained of Damien's hands off of my skin until it burned. I would be trying to scrub off the feeling of being touched only to find that feeling somewhere else later. It was miserable.

Once I was done I put the dry clothes on as fast as possible. The shirt was a little too big. Perfect. And I took the belt from my other pants and used it to make the dry pants so tight around my waste that nothing else could possibly fit inside.

I think Landon might have kept the shirts for a good reason. I looked at the design on the one I was wearing and I noticed that it was from an old band. I figured that Landon might have listened to that band when he was a high schooler. But I never heard of Homeward Consulting. I just knew that the design was really cool.

When I came out of the bathroom Landon told me to hang my wet clothes on the hook behind the door. I did that. Then we sat on the couch together and watched TV until I fell asleep. I don't think Landon fell asleep again that night. He looked exhausted the next morning.

I'll save that part for another time. I don't want to get distressed again while Chance is here.

Devin