Angry | NatePat

three

TW: depictions of abuse, strong language. skip to the second line for the rest of the chapter.

Step, two, three, four. Step, two, three, four.

Matthew counted his steps as he walked back home. It calmed down his breathing, assured himself that he was grounded and all the way here instead of drifting off into a state of horrible fear. There was still a nagging horror in his mind, he felt like he just might fall apart at any given moment if he couldn't get a handle on himself. It was scary, like he could easily be broken out of his pattern of counting and would be reminded of what he was coming back home to and then he would just break down crying in the middle of the road.

His eyes had already clouded with tears, the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders made shivers run down his bruised body. He felt cold and alone, despite all the people passing by that were bumping into him and making him flinch. In this busy city near his home, there would always be someone there but they were never there for him. Those people passing by were on their way back to families or friends, back to loving arms.

Or maybe they weren't, maybe those people were just like him. He couldn't just go and assume that he was the only person dealing with this, many do, but at this given moment right here and right now, he felt like a suffering soul in the midst of joy. Happy chatter around him didn't ease his nerves as the seconds ticking by on his watch echoed loudly in his mind. He had three minutes to get home before he'd be greeted by a welcoming fist to his jaw. Actually, that was his typical greeting regardless of if he got back on time or not.

It was no secret to him that his parents hated him. Hell, they'd made it known to him every day of his god damn life. They gave him just enough to live, but would typically throw on a sweet smile whenever their friends were over. He was able to get the moderately pricey clothes so others wouldn't have to see the bruises that were splattered over his body like blotches of purple, blue, and yellow paint. God, what Matthew wouldn't have given for someone to see the bruises and do something about it.

Now he wasn't sure what to do. Nate knew about the bruises, Mr. Fredrick knew about the bruises, but he made them not tell. As much as he despised his home life and his birth parents with every fiber of his being, he was so scared of losing them. He didn't want to be alone, he didn't want to have to get a job and pay for an apartment himself because God knows that Matthew wouldn't let another family have to burden themselves with him.

He wanted so badly to be free but didn't have enough time to think about what he would do if he was. His mind was consumed with other things: school, surviving, maintaining a happy façade, making Nate happy.

Nate.

Beautiful boy, quite a bit taller than him with these warm brown eyes that made all the pain in his life disappear. He was always warm and smelled like a mix between a forest and cinnamon. His arms felt like the home Matthew never had, and he hadn't known him for a month and he already knew he loved him. At the moment he didn't know what kind of love it was, but he knew that he loved him. Matthew loved just about everything about Nate: the way he made him feel safe, the way he made him forget about everything, the way he could distract himself from his problems with Nate's own issues. He only looked happy when he saw Matthew, but he never smiled.

It felt like he had a problem to fix that wasn't his own and he loved it. Nate was like his own project, just to see how long it would take for him to make him smile. He didn't mean it in a poor way, but he knew he couldn't let Nate know he thought like that.

There was a picture he had taken of the two of them without Nate knowing. It was his phone lock screen, of the two studying that he had one of his friends take. Matthew was reading out a question and Nate was gazing at him with such a happy look in his eyes. He didn't know what it meant, but the picture made him break out into a beaming smile whenever he saw it.