Among Us (boyxboy) [ON HOLD]

Chapter 52 - A Place To Go

I'm sorry. I know I say that so many times, but I really am. I've heard what happened when ... when I left. You got the key and went to my house didn't you? But you shouldn't have stayed. Not like this, not as if you were clinging on to something long gone. Not like this, Duncan. Now they don't see the real problem. And no one knows what really happened a year ago, so no one will realise what's really wrong. And it's my fault, all of it. I wanted to help you. I was selfish, I thought I'd be enough.

And your room. It scares me Duncan. I want you to be there when I come back. I want you to still be Duncan when I come back. Please don't ruin yourself when you can be so much more. I know you're strong. We both do. So please, just hold on until I can come back.

Don't let anyone or anything break you.

My throat hurt as I screamed into my pillow, again. My shaking hands were clinging to my hair, pulling strands out and just hurting me even more. The sheer effort it took to not just hurt myself worse was overwhelming. I felt dizzy and lightheaded but I didn't stop. I kept screaming.

I knew behaving like this wouldn't help my case. I knew that the calm and collected me I tried to show everyone was just an empty facade most people could see right through. But I was trying. I was trying so hard to get just a little bit of freedom back, to just not break completely.

Sometimes, I couldn't hold it in. Sometimes, screaming into my pillow at six in the morning was the only way to cope. Sometimes, there was no way for me to care who heard. Sometimes was now.

I left my freshly painted room at half past eight, washed my face in an effort to erase any marks on it, but failing miserably anyway. Now, my pale complexion together with the dark, heavy circles under my eyes, my colourless lips and the thin, red lines in the whites of my eyes made me look like an addict.

As much as I tried to really care, I just couldn't.

After a silent breakfast with my mother and a reminder to be careful, I left the house, only to be greeted with a smiling Oliver on my doorstep.

It was Saturday today. And Saturday meant that I had my weekly 'outing' with Oliver. What it really meant was that my mother forced me to socialise with someone she thought not disturbing to any plans she might have with me.

Despite all this, it still always felt good to see him. After his time in the hospital, and a lot of urging on the hospital staff's side, he had decided to leave his father. So with the help of authorities he now had his own flat. It wasn't much and barely anything anyone would consider big enough to live in but he was happy. It was also only temporary, until everything with his father had been sorted out.

He looked better than I had seen him in the last year and in some corner of my heart it made me happy, if only for a short time.

I smiled and walked up to him, quickly hugging him. He hugged me back, his arms firmly grasping the back of my shirt, squeezing me slightly. We were both broken and neither of us could really help the other because of it but he always tried anyway. He always tried to make me feel like someone was there and for that I was infinitely grateful.

"Coffee?" He asked with a small, honest smile.

"Sure"

Coffee was what we did usually. One of the rules my mother had laid down about these meetings was that they had to be in public spaces. And because neither of us really wanted to do things like bowling or cinema, we always went to a coffee shop. There, we could talk and talking was all that really made sense at the moment. At least with Oliver, I could be somewhat honest.