The Boy Who Cried Help

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Aiden's POV

"Well it's sort of complicated," Paul said looking in the other direction. Before he could say anymore, the bell rang. Well this definitely wasn't over. During the rest of the day, Paul and I didn't get a chance to talk. It's really weird for me to have something else on my mind other than Algebraic equations and how many more push-ups I plan to do.

I could tell that whatever Paul was going to tell me was hard for him to talk about so I wasn't going to force it out of him. If anyone even had an inkling about what happened three years ago I would have a hard time talking about it if I could even talk about it at all.

I know there are worse things that happen in the world. People are murdered, blackmailed, abused, the list goes on and on but somehow that really doesn't make me feel any better. It's like I'm trying to be grateful for the blessings I have but whenever my mind wanders back to that night, I freak out and become the scared and untainted little boy I was back then.

School finally ended and I was walking to my locker throwing everything I didn't need for my homework in there when someone cleared their voice beside me. I jumped a little because I was surprised. I closed my locker and saw that it was Scarlett. "I know that we already started working on out project but I really want to finish it to get it over with. I'm a little OCD like that." I nodded. "Okay, when do you want to finish it?" I asked my mind still on what Paul was going to tell me.

"How about today?" she asked and I was about to say no but I re-thought about it. The faster we get this project done, the faster I don't have to talk to her and I can go back to being invisible for the rest of my senior year. "Sure," I ended up saying. I guess I'll have to talk to Paul later.

We decided that I would come over to her house straight from school and spend a few hours trying to finish it. Since we did most of it when I was over before, hopefully, it won't even take that long. The rest of the day went by pretty fast and soon I was on my way to Scarlett's house. I hadn't seen Paul on my way out so I figure I will talk to him tomorrow.

When I knocked on her door, she answered and led me to her room. She got out the supplies for working when suddenly music blasts. "There is a problem here with our society, the absence of my tears is my sobriety..." I cracked a smile because The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus is one of my favorite bands. Apparently that song is her phone ring tone and she picked up saying "Hello."

I was paying attention to the project but that doesn't mean I didn't hear the conversation. There was a pause before Scarlett made a face and then sighed asking "You're coming tomorrow?" She closed her eyes looking stressed and grimaced. "Yeah, okay," she said in a fake happy voice. "I'll see you soon." She hung up and then looked at me.

"My aunt's coming to town tomorrow and I have to clean the house." "Okay," I said. "So we're going to have to finish this project later. God, I don't even know why cleaning the house matters in the least," she said starting to vent. "I mean when you do what she does for a living, she should be used to uncleanliness." Before I could inquire about her aunt's occupation, she started to clean up some of the supplies from the project.

I followed suit and soon we were done. "I'll let you know when I'm free again but knowing her, it won't be for a while." Wow, she must really not like her aunt. I left soon after that but instead of going home, I drove around for a little bit. Soon I was in the neighborhood of Matthew's house and I was tempted to go and visit him when I saw someone walked ahead. As I got closer, I saw that it was Paul.

I got close enough to where I could talk to him and called out his name. He turned around and I stopped my car. He came over to it and I unlocked the door. Once he closed it, it was silent. It seemed like hours that we sat there in my car and I could feel the weight of his secret taking up all the oxygen in the car. There was the same eerily coldness in him that I felt in Matthew's house the day I dropped him off.

When Paul finally looked at me he didn't speak, he just raised his shirt. A gasp escaped my mouth as saw how incredibly beaten and bruised he was. There were slashes all across his chest along with what looked like burn marks etched into his sides. There were cuts and bruises everywhere on top of scars that didn't look quite healed themselves.

When I made eye contact with Paul I whispered, "What the hell happened?"