Five Weeks to Forever [BxB] (WILL NEVER BE FINISHED)

Chapter 11.

One time, when I was seven, I fell down the stairs of the backyard porch and landed flat on my face onto a concrete slab.

I don't remember it very well, just a blinding pain and my mother, who had been watching me from inside the kitchen through the window, rushing out towards me with a shrill scream.

She feared the worst- I mean, I can't blame her, I fell down an entire flight of stairs for crying out loud- and thought she'd have to take me to the ER to get stitches or to fix my crooked nose.

But low and behold, by some divine intervention, I was completely fine, sans a few cuts and scrapes. So, she took me inside, sat me up on top of the table where we ate dinner, and carefully washed my cuts with rubbing alcohol before sticking Winnie the Pooh bandaids on top.

It's a memory I hold fondly. It happened only a few weeks after the whole.. Thing with my dad, and I had never seen my mom so distraught and sticken in all my life. That small moment where we were able to be together again, to talk and act like things were normal?

It meant a lot to me as a kid. I think after everything that had happened, I needed that bit of normalcy in my life to ground me. To remind me that everything would eventually be okay.

And now, as I sat on the kitchen table once again, eleven years later, I think I needed to have it again.

Either way, I sure was getting a strong sense of deja vu.

I tried not to wince as my mother lightly brushed a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide over the large gash that sat above my right eye. Said eye, which was swollen shut, now had a frozen bag of peas pressed against it, water from its slow defrost dripping against my thigh.

I swallowed thickly, watching through my one good eye as my mother leaned back, inspecting her work, sighing and grabbing another clean cotton ball to continue fixing me up.

"So," She said as she did, "When are you going to tell me what happened?"

I frowned, lowering my eyes down to my feet, rubbing them against the bruises that lined my ankles and calves, probably a product of being forcefully dragged along the floor like a ragdoll.

I hadn't told my mom yet what exactly had happened. I didn't need to.

The last thing I remembered was Rocko delivering what had to have been the punch of the century to my face. Everything after that was a blur. I'd woken up, dumped in a pile of bushes a couple of blocks away from the house, feeling like I'd been run over by a semi truck and shoved through a trash compactor.

The bus stopped running after twelve A.M, and at the time, it was nearing two. So I ended up having to limp my way home, holding back tears every time I stumbled on a pebble or brushed up against a tree branch.

When I finally made it home, I had practically crawled my way inside, battered and bruised, probably looking like I was two steps from death, ready to crawl into my bed and sob my eyes out like a middle school girl after getting rejected by her crush.

The only problem was that I had expected my mom to be asleep. We still hadn't talked since our huge argument, and frankly, I didn't want to face her, not in the state I was in.

It was just my luck, then, that she was sitting on the sofa, watching one of those reality T.V scandal shows.

"I don't want to talk about it." I responded finally, my voice hoarse and raw. I swung my legs loosely, my toes didn't quite touch the rug beneath it so my toes were slowly starting to become numb.

"So my son comes home, covered in bruises and a nasty shiner, and I'm just supposed to, what?" She popped a hand on the top of the table, shrugging her shoulders. "Be okay with that? Not question it?"

"Mom-" I started, too tired and worn out to deal with this right now.

"This is assault, Elliot." She stressed, putting away the hydrogen peroxide back into the first aid kit she'd dragged out of the cabinet under the sink. I didn't even know we had a first aid kit, she had to blow dust off of it before she opened it. "I know that- bullying happens at your school, but that's different. That's normal. This," She waved a hand around, gesturing to me. "Isn't."

Bullying? Normal? Jesus, what world was this woman living in? Although, I suppose I can't really blame her for thinking that, I usually kept her in the dark about what really happened to me at school.

I mean, who wants to tell their mom some three hundred pound greaseball dumped them into one of the trash cans head first?

"You should file a police report," She continued on her rant, and I tried to tune out the sound of her voice the best I could. "Or- or at least talk to their parents. Get them to apologize. I don't know, something."

"Mom. I'm fine. Really."

"This is not fine!" She stressed, plucking the first aid kit off the table and walking back over to the cabinet below the sink. She threw it back in there with more force than necessary, in my opinion, causing it to make a loud clanging sound as it banged against all the other shit that was down there. She didn't even flinch, though, as she turned her gaze back towards me, her eyebrows furrowed in frustration.

"I know it's not," I cut her off before she could begin another angry spiel, "I know. Please, mom, I'm just really fucking tired. It's three in the morning. I have stuff I have to work on tomorrow. I want to go to bed."