Leo's POV
I sat in the middle of the bed with three plates of food in front of me. The ham and cheese sandwich looked good, but the four-cheese macaroni with bacon smelled delicious. Tacos were a selfish choice. I knew it wasn't something King would pick alone, yet I couldn't help myself from ordering them when I saw the menu.
"What's going on here?"
I nearly jumped off the bed, looking up to find King staring at me with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the door frame. "Talk about giving someone a heart attack. I didn't hear you come in."
"Clearly. Your mind was elsewhere." King chuckled as he started walking to the edge of the bed. "What are you thinking so hard about?"
I smiled, feeling my cheeks darken. "I don't know which one is better. They all sounded delicious on the lunch menu, and I couldn't decide, so I got all three. Come over here and taste them. Tell me which one you like the best."
King started laughing as he walked around the side of the bed. He seemed to be in a good mood. I couldn't help but wonder if he told his dad about us yet or if he decided to wait until next time. I didn't want to ask, though. It felt like something I should wait until he brought it up first.
"You're something else," King shook his head as he carefully sat beside me. What do we have here?"
I fed King a bit of each one, but in the end, the mac with bacon was the winner, so I passed him the plate while I enjoyed my tacos, and we split the sandwich in half as we watched a show on TV.
"How was the reading?" King asked once we finished.
"Good. I got a few chapters in after I unpacked our bags. I hope you don't mind."
"Why would I mind? Thanks for doing that. How are you feeling? Still pretty sore?" He asked, nudging his head into the crock of my shoulder.
"A little, but I'm okay. How did it go with your dad?"
"Really good actually... well, besides this." He dug into his hoody pocket and pulled out a folded paper. He handed it to me.
I took it, flipping it over in my hand, but I couldn't see any writing on the outside. "What is it, or are you waiting for me to guess?"
"As fun as it would be to watch you try to figure it out," he said, lifting his head to sit up against the headboard. "I need your help figuring out what to do with it."
I looked at him, puzzled. "Of course. Who is it from? What does it say? Should I read it first?"
"I don't want to read it or know what's in there. I just want to know what to do with it. My dad said it was from my mom."
My eyes widened as I stared at it. "Your mom wrote this to you?"
"Yeah. My dad told me she's in rehab again, and they have you write letters to people you've wronged while on drugs. It's one of the steps, and if you do that, you can move on to the next step or whatever." I could hear King's eye roll as he talked. "I don't care to read it. Too much was done, and I'll never get that time I lost with my dad, so I don't know if it's worth wasting more of my time reading a shitting apology she has to write."
"Oh," I said, trying to get all that in. "Has she ever sent one to you before?"
"Not that I know of. This one is the first."
"Okay," I looked at it briefly before scooting away from King. "I... I don't think I'm the right person to ask that right now," I admitted, standing from the bed.
"Then I'll just burn it," King said, tossing the letter on the floor as if it was trash. "Not a big deal."
I scuffed, narrowing my eyes at King as his smile dropped. "All I'm gonna say is that if it were from my mother, I would read it, not be so careless of the time she spent writing it for you."
King sighed, his shocked eyes softened as he looked at the paper. "If it were your mom, I would understand your want to read it, but you need to understand that my mom wasn't like yours. She never wanted me before, and I'm sure she just wrote it for her own selfish reasons."
"I do understand that, but-,"
"But nothing. I'm not reading it because I don't want to hear it. You don't understand what that woman did to me. She took everything from me, and I was just a clueless kid at the time, but she used me like I was nothing and tossed me away when she found out all the responsibilities that came with having an eight-year-old boy."
Wrapping my arms around myself, I looked at the floor. "This is why I said I wasn't the right person to talk to about this. I know she wasn't a good mom, but..." I tightened my fingers around my arms, "What if she did change?"
"It isn't going to make up for everything she did. My childhood was ruined because my dad refused to support her drug addiction. I watched her punch herself in a rage, blackening her eyes, and pinch herself so hard it left black bruises. I watched as she yelled for my dad to get off her when he was on the other side of the room, too stunned by her sudden actions just as I was. Then I had to watch her snort her drugs, shoot up, throw up, pass out, and nearly fuck guys in front of me until she left one day and never came back. By the time CPS showed up, I was starving. I didn't have school breakfast or lunch to go to because she never signed me up for school. I thought she was dead for years after that. No one knew where she was, and over time, I made peace with believing that. She can't just come back into my life after ten years and expect a page apology would fix it." King stood from the bed and walked over to the window. His breathing looked labored as his shoulders tensed.
I didn't know what to do as I stood there, watching him. Thoughts of King as a child, alone, in some house waiting for her to come back day after day filled my mind. "I'm sorry," I mumbled, wanting to step closer to comfort him, but my legs felt frozen to the floor.
King turned toward me slowly. "It's not your fault. You have nothing to apologize for. I'm sorry for snapping. I just don't want to be disappointed again by her, and I have this feeling in my gut that's what will happen if I give in by reading that. She has always been nothing but toxic in my life and had plenty of chances to change for her son, but she didn't. I know I wasn't the reason she got clean, so why should that give her the right to be in my life now?"
Looking into King's green eyes, I could see the hurt in them as we stood in silence. "If that's how you feel, you should do what you think is best for yourself. It's just a sensitive subject for me right now. I shouldn't push for you to do something you don't want to do. It's selfish of me."
King's hands rushed around the sides of my neck. "You are the most selfless person I know, and I also know you want to see the best in others, but some people don't have it, or they don't deserve it." He leaned down, kissing my lips a few times before stepping back again. "Also, my dad wants to meet my boyfriend during my next visit."
My heart jumped into my throat as my mouth dropped open. "What? He... he wants to meet me? What did he say? What did you tell him?" I asked, fighting the urge to pick at my fingers.
"That I'm in love with you and I'm happy as fuck to call you my boyfriend. He wants me to be happy, so he is fine with it. So will you come with me to meet him?"
King's face was beaming once again and I knew I couldn't deny him or his dad, but my stomach was filled with knocks as I gave him the best smile my nervousness would allow. "Yeah. I'll go with you," I answered around the lump in my throat.
I could do this. Meet his dad as King's boyfriend, not as a friend. I had nothing to be afraid of. King said he was accepting of our relationship and I trusted King.
**********
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The Brightest Star
RomanceEveryone was charmed by Leo's bright smile but behind it all, he could barely keep it together inside. From taking care of his sick mother to suffering mental and physical abuse from his father to keeping up his perfect grades in school. King was th...