100% SURE »H.S

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

Dedicated to @cali_13 thank you for the votes :)

BRYN

"You know, what would you say if I asked you out?" Flynn asked, breaking the silence.

Bryn stopped dead in her tracks and looked at him incredulously, pretty sure that she had heard him wrong. She said something real intelligent like, "Huh?"

Flynn gave her a shy smile that made her heart do backflips. "Umm, I'm wondering that if I asked you out, would you say yes?"

She blinked a few more times and refrained from pinching herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. "Probably," she said off-handedly, just to tease him.

Flynn's face kind of a fell, a flicker of disappointment coursed through his green eyes before Bryn burst out laughing. "I'm just kidding, of course I would, Seashell hair!"

He smiled so big it looked like his face would split in two before it fell slightly and he sighed before rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I-I just wanted to say that I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there. I know that's selfish of me, but I'm still coming to terms with the fact that someone can care about me. The fact that it's you is even harder to wrap my mind around," he said, his voice despondent in tone.

"What?" Bryn asked, and he shook his head.

"This isn't fair to you. You've told me so many things about you, but you still don't know much, if at all about me," he said sadly, and Bryn shrugged.

"I always figured that you would tell me when you trusted me. Besides, I don't want to make you share anything that you don't feel comfortable with," she said, and he gave her a small smile before going silent.

"I was abused as a child," Flynn said randomly, and Bryn stopped suddenly, feeling thoroughly disoriented.

"What?!" She demanded. Bryn had kind of guessed, but she never really wanted to believe it.

Flynn cleared his throat. "One night, he spent two hours hurting me before moving to my mom. I never knew exactly what he did that night, but all I knew was that after he left, she just wouldn't stop crying. Mom cried after he visited, but it was never so bad that she didn't stop after an hour or two. Then after about six hours, she suddenly quieted down, and once I felt strong enough to go outside, I went into the living room. She was twirling off the ceiling fan, her neck snapped in two," he said, his voice choking, his head turned resolutely in the other direction.

Bryn stared at him in shock. His lean frame began shuddering, and it took her a second to realize that he was sobbing. Without thinking, Bryn wrapped her arms around him, and hugged him from behind, trying to absorb the racks of pain that coursed through his body. She propped her chin on his shoulder so that she could talk to him.

"Shh, it's alright, Flynn. Things will get better, I swear," she said, not really knowing what to say.

"B-But it won't! God, don't you understand, Bryn? It never gets better! This is how it will always be for me. I escaped that monster and my tormented, half-insane mother, but for what? Now, I live in a building that could collapse at any moment, going to a school where everybody hates me. I can see it in their eyes, the way they wish that I didn't exist. Sometimes, when it gets so dark at night that you can't see your hands in front of you, I kind of wish that I didn't exist, too, because then that way, no one would have anything to hate," he choked out.

How could she tell him that things were going to be alright when she already had one foot in her grave? What could she possibly tell a guy like him that had never known anything other than suffering and pain all his life?