Detriment

18. End

"What do you want Charlie?"

My eyes widened as I stared at Ayden in shock. Did he not hear anything I had just said? Or maybe, he wanted what I had tried to hide from him for so long. The truth.

"Charlie..."

I felt my eyes sting, a fresh wave of tears threatening to fall.

"I-I want what most people have. A safe haven away from my own personal living hell...I d-don't want to live like this anymore."

"I want to be loved."

Ayden looked as if he was about to say something else, but I had stopped him shaking my head.

"A-and I know that there are people that love me but, I can't help not believing it and I feel so bad Ayden. I feel so damn guilty that I can't accept it when someone tells me that they love me because I don't want to be hurt anymore. All of this-" I motioned towards the excess gifts in the room. "I can accept that they adore me but love? There can't be some raw feeling of love that would cause people to become too distraught if I died tomorrow. Maybe a week at the most and they're over it..."

"Charlie, that's not true and you know that isn't true. For weeks they had looked for you nonstop. They had cried over you. They had even been at the scene of the fire because they had loved you enough to make sure that you had gotten out alive. They had loved you enough to come to the hospital begging for someone to tell them how you were doing and they don't tell fans shit. I would know, they wouldn't even tell me anything until Derrick had sorted things out. Charlie, even if you don't believe it, they do love you. You have to believe that your own mom loves you right?"

I remained quiet, rubbing the bandage around my wrist. My mom obvious loved me, I was her son. So I didn't doubt her. I doubted my own love towards her. There was resentment about Bradley and this entire thing. You can't just ignore your other child until they feel worthless. Until they're so messed up that they go as far as to commit suicide as soon as the only person they believed loved them leaves and the reality of them being alone again dawns on them. This could've all been prevented if she just would've paid attention to him.

"Charlie? Do you believe that I love you?" Ayden asked, bringing me out of my thoughts. Slowly, I shook my head.

"It's not that I don't believe you love me, maybe you do... It's just the overwhelming feeling that you'll eventually hurt me is there and it won't go away. I'm petrified."

Either Ayden was good at hiding his emotions he truly was unfazed by what I had just said because I couldn't read the emotion on his face. It was a while before he had spoken. "I'm not Cameron Charlie. I will never be Cameron because fuck Cameron. He should have never did what he had done to you because you've never deserved it."

"I know Ayden and while I was down there, I would have these thoughts about you. I would question whether I would feel this way if it was you that I had met first and not Cameron. I wondered if I would be more willing to allow people to love me."

Ayden suddenly had just hugged me, trying to be careful with his arm placement. He was so warm and the overwhelming need of that warmth had almost caused me to break down right then and there. I didn't though, gripping into him tightly. Suddenly, though, he had accidentally pressed down on one of the wounds, a quick flash of the beating that had caused it playing in my mind. It had caused me to blank out for only a second before becoming aware that I had shoved Ayden away from me and to the ground.

"D-don't touch me...please, don't hurt me." I had cried out, soon trying to get a grip. My fingers trembled as I held them against my chest, continuously trying to tell myself that it was only an accident and that Ayden hadn't meant to do it.