Stitches ~ Scömìche

I'm Shaking

After therapy, Scott seemed to be increasing in health. After therapy, Mitch seemed to be decreasing in health, but he did his best not to keep it from Scott. He didn't want Scott to know the dark things that was going through his head. He wanted Scott to think that everything was okay, that everything was like it should be. Like he was okay. Like he was... normal. But he knew he wasn't, he knew that there was something very very wrong with him and he doubted the a thousand years of therapy would fix what Abe did to his mind. 

His mind was a mess, to put it simply. One day he felt safe inside Scott's arms, the other day he would be shaking in fear, afraid that the stranger across the street was going to come over to rape him. His hands shook whenever a stranger's eyes laid upon him. Cement triggered him. Metal bed-frames. Rope. Belts. He couldn't expose his back, afraid that any moment someone would jump up behind him and he could be back in Abe's care. 

He lived his life in anxiety. He couldn't cook for his hands would shake to much to even stir the pot. He would burst into tears whenever he messed something up and shield his face as if waiting for a blow. Scott always would cry when he did this, and that would cause Mitch to cry even harder and then Scott to eventually leave the apartment. Mitch didn't know why he expected Scott to hit him, he knew Scott would never, but when a mistake was made Scott was no longer, but Abe, holding a belt and ready to strike him. 

He refused to sing. Something that once brought him so much joy, but singing brought up memories of Abe, memories he wished to never relive. But in his dreams they haunted him. Abe's face would swim in and out, hurting him, caressing him... He once woke up with his hands locked around Scott's neck. His dream self had believed he was strangling Abe. From then on Mitch slept in the guest room and cried himself to sleep every night. 

He could barely look Scott in the eye, afraid that it wouldn't be Scott standing there anymore but Abe. He thought Scott blamed him for everything. Their light bulbs bursting, the creaky door to the bathroom, the scratched paint on the wall. 

Mitch was afraid. He was afraid of everything. And he thought that there was no way of untangling his brain from the mess Abe made it into. And perhaps, he was right.