ESPOIR | ✍︎

Chapter Eight: Pain

Not edited cause I wrote this at 2am

Louis cups my face in his hands, moving it around to get a good look at my stitches.

I whine trying to shove his hands away but he shushes me and lightly touches it with his ring finger.

"Stop," I whine again, shuffling back. "It still hurts."

Suddenly, he brings me in for a bone-crushing hug. He was digging his battered face into my hair, swaying us. Physical contact was rare from Louis, he much rather show affection through actions and stuff.

Very quietly, the quietness I have ever heard my older brother whisper. "I'm scared."

"What?" I voice, playing with the back of his shirt.

Louis has never admitted he was scared, he has never admitted to Mikey that he would back down. My brother was strong. I thought at least.

You can't be scared. I want to scream. We can't both be scared, I thought Louis would always have things figured out.

He steps away, running his bruised hand over his face before taking a deep breath. "It'll be okay," he says, rustling my hair.

I don't smile and push him away like normal, I just sit there and stare up at him, arms hanging at my side helplessly.

He looks away, swallowing harshly. "Don't look at me like that," he mutters.

I sigh, playing with the hanging nail on my thumb. "I'm gonna go take a shower, stay here, okay?"

"Kay'" I mumble turning on my heel and going to sit down on the fluffy bed. It does take me a good second to get there with the ugly black brace preventing any movement.

When I sit down, Louis has already closed the bathroom door behind him. I bite my lip as my face starts to throb, I would ask Louis to get me something but he's gonna be in the bathroom for a while.

He does this a lot, goes into the bathroom and just sits in there. Sometimes I think it was to get a break from me, or sometimes it was Mikey.

I squeeze my hands into fists and then flex my fingers. I stand up abruptly, making my way towards the door. This is new to me--not listening to what Louis said.

Back at home, I would listen out of fear, that if I did something wrong Louis would have to my beatings like always.

My feet pad quietly across the marble floor, sending shivers up my spine. At my old house, we had carpet but it had brown spots everywhere and wasn't fluffy, more just like fabric on the ground, and a lot of spikey stuff would always stick out so you had to be careful where you walked.

When I make it halfway down the stairs I hear voices, making my body freeze up. "You have to get in your mind, when you were twelve you were jerking around with your friends, when Louis was twelve he was taking hits."

I step down the stairs, coming into view. My whole...family is sitting in the living room, eyes on me. I look down at the floor, my hair coming in front of my face as a shield.

"Hey sweetheart," My dad says softly, smiling brightly. I have no idea why he smiles so much, it's just me.

"H-hi," I say, clearing my throat embarrassed when my voice cracks. My whole body starts to sweat and I get dizzy. I should of never came downstairs, what was I thinking?

I stare at the floor, only coming out of my trance when a large figure bends down in front of me. I shuffle back, brining my thumb nail to my mouth.

"Could I have some water," I sputter out, terrified about what was going to come next.

I don't know why I'm testing the waters, ironic cause ya know I'm asking for water. Anyway, if I were back with Mikey and I asked him for water he would probably laugh in my face, then tell me to get it my self. He would also probably kick the back of my knee when I was walking away so I would trip, he used to do that a lot.

He smiles again, like I just told him I won the lottery. "Sure, anything else?"

I shake my head as he rises to his full height, making me shuffle back more.

"Would you like to come sit in the kitchen while I get it for you?" He asks, motioning to the doorway.

I shake my head again, tensing. "I'll just...stay here."

He nods, no discouragement eveudner on his face. "Okay, that's fine. I'll be back in a second."

All my brothers continue to stare at me. I wanna scratch my eyes out and scream, I don't wanna be here. I don't want to be anywhere.

Thankfully, my Dad comes back with a cup of water. He gently hands it to me—keeping distantance.

"Thank you," I mutter, he gives me a nod before looking at the stairs.

"It's getting kind of late," he says, checking his fancy gold watch. "Do you want to go to bed?"

I nod, even though I'm not tired. But I rather be sitting in a locked room then here with everyone staring at me. As I turn around the tears that were sitting in my eyes are now rolling down my cheeks.

Once I reach the top of the stairs I practically run into the bedroom and I quietly shut the down behind me.

My chest feels heavy, like someone is sitting on it. It usually always feels that way, but right now it's worse and on top of that I can feel my hair touching the back of my neck.

I start to sob into my hands. Anger bubbles inside me because I'm crying for no reason—nothing bad happens downstairs, no one hit me, or mocked me, or tried to make me do something I didn't want to. Yet I was still crying. My anger turns into more tears, causing more of a chain reaction.

My hand makes my way to my mouth and I bite down on my pointer finger really hard. My whole body feels like someone is taking my intestines and tangling them all together really tight and all I want to do is get this feeling out of my body.

When that doesn't work, I scratch at my bold collar bone, desperate to stop feeling like this.

When my stepfather was angry he hurt us, when Louis was angry he would pick fights with Mikey—which would usually end in him laying on the floor with some sort of wound, when I was angry I cried and pulled my hair.

All ever people did when they were angry was hurt others or themselves, I didn't want to be an angry person. Yet here I was with so much anger inside me that I felt like I needed to crawl out my skin to escape it.

My brother walks out of the bathroom and towards me, but his voice muffles together. I continue to cry loudly, ignoring his hand in front of my face.

I need this to stop.