The Sight of Sound

Chapter 4: My Little Chat...

I'm going to keep this brief. Here's an  update. Just enjoy people! :-)

Bailey's perspective

Nathan's aunt was so nice. Her jolly manner almost accounted for the pain I was experiencing. She was called Holly and drove a weathered, silver Ford Focus. I arrived home just a minute and a half after school had ended. I staggered upstairs with the assistance of my personal angel. I collapsed onto my bed having exerted all of my effort, however little there was of it. And it was hard not only because of that, I may have been seeing differently for 3 or so years but that didn't mean it was easy for me without sight. I heard a bath running in my en suite which would explain Nathan's sudden absence. I breathed heavily for a minute or so to catch my seriously-stunted breath.

"Joey, what the FUCK is this?!" came a voice from the next room, in the bathroom that couldn't decide whether it was shouting and angry or timid and scared. The volume heavily indicated the former. I assumed that Nathan had found my  razor collection which I mustn't've put away when I started to clean it. "Bailey," the voice repeated, gently and now right next to his ear, "please, let me help you. I don't want you to do this again."

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE NATHAN! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I'M JUST FUCKED UP? I don't see why anyone likes me. I mean sure my dad's family but you... you just-" I was cut off by Nathan.

"I thought I told you not to say that because... because it's not true. And I love you."

Shit. I had no idea what to do. I now had everything I needed to be happy. So naturally I went and fucked it up: "NO! Please, Nathan. I'm really unstable. You know what? You're just as FUCKING bad as everyone else in this FUCKING town. You're not free to just play with my emotions. I may not be able to anything normally, but I can now because this is my house and you need to leave."

"Please...Bailando

I didn't let him finish and continued to be a complete dick, "Don't call me that. Just leave. You know the way out."

"If you're gonna be like that then fine. But I won't let you play the victim any longer. I'm taking your razors."

"Please, they help the pain!" But it was no use as he was gone and I was preaching to an empty pulpit. Then all the shit that day caught up to me. I had given up running and I just sat and cried myself into a pit of self-hatred.

XXX

It was 7pm when my dad, Paul, got home from work. I was lucky, seeing as he sometimes only got home at 9:30; and I really needed him to be there in the light of my glasses situation.

"BAILEY!" Dad shouted, probably expecting me to be upstairs with loud headphones in, or something. My timid and close-by 'Hey,' rather startled him.

"How was your day? Worked hard?"

"OK, I suppose. Um-" I started, crafting an elaborate lie to explain an alternate way of my glasses breaking. I didn't want to tell him the truth. He knew nothing. Well, except that I was gay but I'd given up trying to hide that long ago. But he didn't know about the bullying, my rather dire friend situation and what I periodically did to myself. I couldn't tell him because after the crash... let's just say while I had a largely physical problem, he had a lot of grief going on in his head. He blamed himself but no-one else did; especially not me.

"That's nice, sweetie," he resumed, "I started a HUGE project at work today. I really shouldn't tell you, TOP SECRET and all that, but... We, I mean me and the lads-".

"Dad!" he seemed surprised. It wasn't really like me to be rude. I know it's stupid but I slightly feel like I should be kind and accepting seeing as the fates had spared me. Anyway, Dad snapped his head towards me, not rude, just concerned and startled to be so abruptly snatched from his recollection of the day's events he was surely picturing in front of him as he rid himself of his coat and bags. When he turned, he actually looked at me, and saw my headset was not on my head, like normal. Next he noticed where it actually was, i.e. on our small, oak coffee table, split in two, with a myriad of wires sprouting from it.

"Oh no, what happened? Did someone do this to you?" I was taken aback as to how he could've known and made no attempt to hide it from him with my face. My stuttered 'N-no, I fell,' must've come a little too late as he responded in the way I never wanted him to: "I know that that isn't true. I'm your father, I can tell when something's wrong with my own and my only son. Come on, if you head up and start getting ready for bed. I can see you've had a long day. I'll bring you something up to drink. We can talk everything over in the morning but meanwhile I'll try and sort it out for school tomorrow. Call the office..." He continued to ramble on, making a plan of action more for himself than me. That was until I had my say on the matter.

"No, please, don't do anything about the situation. I'll sort it by myself. Being a 'daddy's boy' won't help," I muttered the last sentence to myself. My dad may have known but he didn't have to know the full gravitas.

"Oh, so there's a situation now is there?" He replied jokingly, trying to and successfully lightening the mood. "Right, Bails, up you go to bed. Just leave your headset on the table and I'll sort it."

"Thanks, Dad. Love you," I said with a peck on his cheek and with my hands aid, carefully headed upstairs.

HEY GUYS! I really hoped you enjoyed that. Was that OK? I wasn't too pleased but meh. If it wasn't amazing the next few chapters have lots in stall... Enjoy life beautiful readers!