SWAPPED

Hugs

ENZOS POV:

That punch felt familiar and god did I not miss it. Alora and her brother are in another room now, yelling at each other. I mean it makes sense. If I caught my younger sister in bed with the one person that I always had to protect her against, I'd be pissed too.

About that, I really just hooked up with Alora fucking Ramirez. I never thought those combination of words would ever exist in a sentence together.

...

There really is something wrong with me, a girl lets me in her house, takes care of me, gives me a place to sleep, and what do I do? Take away her innocence. God knows what I might've done if her brother hadn't come in. I'm actually quite glad he did, that punch knocked some sense into me.

I know it was wrong of me to go that far with her but no matter how hard I try to deny it, she's fucking beautiful.

From the first time I saw her in my geometry class, she's almost like a magnet, everyone's eyes stuck to her. And it's not like she rolled her skirt halfway up her ass or unbuttoned her shirt so much that her tits were spilling out of it, her face was just genuinely that attractive. And then she began talking to this girl next to her with the softest voice you'll ever hear. She laughed the cutest laugh ever heard on this Earth. I knew I liked her from that very moment.

Of course all these years I replaced it with random excuses but tonight I finally realized why I did everything I did to her.

The only problem is that I realized it too late, I've already messed up. I probably would have had a better chance if on that first day I just went up to her and talked to her. But my lame ass was scared of rejection. My parents had already rejected me and if someone like her were to too, I don't know what I'd do with myself.

So I just automatically gave her a reason not to like me instead of giving her the option to not like me for who I truly am.

I should leave.

While her and her brother are in the room across the hall from hers, I quietly leave through the back door.

Maybe I can still come back to my house without my parents noticing. I look at my watch and notice that it's 1 AM, they're probably asleep.

It takes me 30 minutes to walk to my house but when I finally get there, I hop over the gates and make my way to the backyard door. As soon as I slide it open, alarms ring. I forgot about those.

I just head to the kitchen to accept my fate. My mother looks down from the 2nd floor, "Enzo? Is that you?" She comes down our grand staircase and turns on the kitchen light and I look down, putting on my hood to hide my face while leaning against the island counter.

My mother faces me and asks again, "Enzo? What's wrong?". She tries to crouch down and look up to see my face but I turn my head away and take a few steps towards the nearby sink away from her.

"Look at me right now." My mother raises her voice. I take a deep breath and turn towards her. I should've just slept outside, but now instead I get to be a bigger disappointment. "Oh my god." She covers her mouth as her eyes scan the patched up cuts and bruises forming around my face. I look down again because of embarrassment.

It makes me think about how many times I put other kids from fights in this situation. Stupid fucking fights over nothing.

I feel arms wrap around me, I flinch. This is the first time I have ever received a hug from my mother ever since the 4th grade. I don't know what to do, I don't know where to put my hands, I don't know what to say. All I do is just simply freeze. That is for a few seconds until I feel something inside me sink, until I feel some sort of lump in my throat. Before I knew it I felt a tear rim my eye and saw it hit the floor. When I breathed in through my nose, it made a runny noise.

She pulled away, her left hand cupped my face as she rubbed her thumb over one of the bandages Alora had put on my cheek, "What happened to my son's handsome face..." She said quietly to herself. That sentence was like a rock thrown at a glass with former cracks, ready to collapse with just the slightest gust of wind.

I don't know what came over me but in just a moment I began to cry, hard.

My mother wrapped her arms around me once again except this time I didn't freeze, I hugged her back. I buried my face in her shoulder and she began caressing the back of my hair, whispering quietly to me, "It's okay, you're okay."

I know that the only reason this is happening is because Alora and I had switched lives. I know that this isn't the type of person my mother is now. I know she hasn't thought about me in this manner in many years.

But all I can do now is enjoy this moment by pretending it is real. One day it'll go away, but while it's still here, I want to drown myself in my delusions.

"You must be tired, get some rest and I'll see you in the morning." She patted my back and then directed me up the stairs.

I climb up the stairs and head to my room, usually my room in disorganized but for these past few months, with my parents home, my bed has been made, my clothes are folded and put away, and even my floor is well vacuumed. I slump onto my bed and sink into the covers.

Alora was right when she said I was just an idiot who doesn't get enough attention from my parents. But even now that I do, nothing has changed, a part of me still feels empty.

I can't sleep, I reach over for my phone and open up instagram, I used to have so many followers but now I have just 57, mostly family members who I didn't even know existed.

I'm not sure why but I begin to search up Alora Ramirez on the search bar and I find it. She has 1,378 followers but only 1 post from, September 6 of this school year. It's a picture of a book dedication that reads,

To the readers who look up at the stars and wish.

It's from the same night we swapped.