BLIND a lucaya fan fic

Stone Cold Sober

I remember when I was a kid in Texas, my dad, rather than telling bedtime stories, would show a puppet show against my one blank wall. I remember every night they lasted exactly ten minutes, and when the nightly stories were concluded, my dad would say goodnight and leave. A third thing I remember though, was that he never did tuck me in or kiss me on the forehead like my mother did.
Of course I loved my dad, as every kid loves the person who hugs them and takes them to parks and tells them funny stories. However, when I got older and matured a little more, I realized that was the only thing my dad knew about being a dad: he knew how to make little boys like me laugh.

As a little kid I didn't really have a concept of days of the week either, so on the nights when my dad didn't come home, I didn't worry at all, because my mom would tuck me in and read me a story and tell me that my dad would be home in the morning (and he always was). But then I got older, and realization hit in many ways, as it does when our brains learn new concepts.
My dad was a silly jokester who i loved to see, but when the years added maturity to my still adolescent mind, I understood that he was anything but a father.
Of course as an oblivious little kid i didn't understand that most of the times he was telling jokes that he was drunk. And of corse i didn't understand the way my mom acted around him, or why she sometimes didn't let me go into his bedroom. I didn't understand this because the only impression of him I had was a loving, goofy, and sweet dad. The times he called me a pussy for being too scared to go on a rollercoaster ride, or compared me to my more athletic friends, I only saw him as a dad who wanted an all-star son. It wasn't until the mental damage was done that I realized my my dad was toxic.
Now, coming to the adult stage in my life, i realize that it is the same with virtually all abusive relationships: the victim doesn't understand that they're a victim of anything because they are blinded by the impression they have of their abuser.
And though I hate to, I can imagine it was that way with my mom as well. A young, charismatic girl with the dream of a white picket fence and an arm around her shoulder, oblivious to the fact that her high school sweet heart was manipulative and harmful until she was pregnant with his child. 'Things will get better with the baby,' is what she would tell herself. 'Everybody's husband gets a little bit out of line sometimes.'
It is thoughts like these that go through a persons mind when they are blinded by their conception of love, and when I woke up on Wednesday, March 8th, I realized that these were the exact thoughts going through Maya Hart's mind.
I knew Maya enough to consider her a close friend, and although our years of bickering would make it seem otherwise, I was always awed at how strong willed and independent she was. To think of her as anything other than an immovable wall was perplexing; well, up until now.
Though I had learned the state of Maya Hart a little over a week ago, the full thing just now hit me.
It's hard to explain, but looking at all of this from a third person point of view, very much like you are, it's easy to see what's going on: Maya is the victim of abuse, who needs help and support. And although that is true, from the point of view of someone who has been in a terribly similar situation, it's somehow more than that.
I wasn't mainly focussed on the fact that Maya was hurt, I was focused on the fact that Maya was being hurt. From my experience, I couldn't help but imagine the entire thing: the fighting, the fear in her eyes, the actual physical impact of a fist on her body, day after day after day.
You may not see a difference, but like I said, it's hard to explain how much worse it seemed through my eyes.

So you can imagine how I felt waking up that Wednesday morning. You can imagine the rage that was pent up inside me, ready to burst, ready to literally kill the person who was doing this to her. And I felt no hesitance towards this, despite the fact that I knew the exact consequences I would have to face, or, well, re-face.
I can't remember saying one word from the time I woke up to the time I arrived at school. The only thing I remember was being thankful that my mom was still asleep, or else I know she would have seen my exact intentions, and refuse to let me leave the apartment. But she wasn't awake, and I arrived at Abigale Adams High School at 8:00 am, running completely on auto pilot.
As I sat in my first period of the day, AP History, I made it a point to avoid Farkle, which was far easier than I thought it would be, seeing as he had evidently come down with something since yesterday, and when he was sick, he never liked to talk.
Second period was a little harder, as I had Riley in my class, and nothing could stop her from being Smiley Riley. Despite the fact that she did manage to make me laugh after interrogating me on why I looked so angry, I left that class and walked to the library with the same intent I had walking out of my house that same morning.
Somehow Riley had gotten there before me, and was sitting next to Maya at our usual booth. They were looking at Riley's phone and giggling like the school girls they were.
When I sat down across from the two, they tried to engage me in their gossip about the 'mystery boy' that Riley was crushing on. I felt bad about absolutely unamused I was, but it had been obvious for a while that Riley's 'mystery boy' was none other than Mr. Farkle Minkus, her Cory since kindergarten.
I felt like flatly saying that their gossip was trifling, but I was then reminded that just because I was ready to explode and release what my friends had began to call "Texas Lucas", didn't mean I had the right to be a dick. So we sat there in the library, all of us except Farkle, who had most likely gone to the nurse, doing our work. Or, I did my work while the girls across from me had theirs on the table, but were seemingly unaware that it was there. I was once again amazed at how Maya could act so much like her old self. God knows I couldn't keep a smile during my last years in Texas.