How to Lose your Best Friend

♤XXXVII♤

Antonio

Last days always seem to do something strange to people. Last days of school, last days of summer, and in my case the last day of my vacation with PJ. Something about last days give people courage to do things that they never thought were possible. For example, asking your crush out on the last day of school because you were too scared to do it the whole year. No, I wasn't going to ask out some random girl from my class but I had to admit that something about today seemed different.

Our last day in paradise ended with the whole family eating out to dinner at a local seafood place. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was around 1 am when PJ and I decided to head to our room. I undressed like usual and PJ did the same. We stripped down to our boxers, besides PJ leaving on his shirt like he always did, before climbing into opposite sides of the bed.

I tried as hard as I could to fall asleep but something was keeping me awake. I couldn't pinpoint the cause so I decided to blame my lack of sleep on Mateo's shitty air conditioning. The room was literally 35 degrees and a blast of cold air blew into my face every 5 minutes. Goosebumps pierced my skin as my body shivered uncontrollably. I turned to PJ to find him equally frozen hogging 90% of our covers.

I'd normally let PJ have his way but tonight was different. If I didn't get at least 30% of the covers I was going to get hypothermia. I lifted up my side of the blanket before rolling on top of PJ.

"Look we're a blanket burrito!" I shouted as our bodies pressed against each other entrapping us in warmth. I looked down at PJ smiling to find him gritting his teeth.

"Yo, dude what's wrong?" I asked confused by his reaction.

"Can you get off of me? You're hurting me," he replied.

"Come on, I'm not that heavy," I replied laughing.

"No, I'm serious. It really hurts. You're crushing my rib cage," he replied as tears began to fall out of his baby blue eyes. Did he fall or something? Why was his body so sensitive?

I pressed against the area in question as tears streamed down his flushing cheeks. I lifted up his shirt to further inspect his pain to discover the reason why he always had a shirt on. Discoloration filled his fragile skin as laceration lined each individual rib.

I climbed off of him immediately as he pulled his shirt down at the speed of light.

"How long have you had these?" I asked referring to his lesions.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I stopped counting after 3 years."

"Who did this to you?" I asked afraid of his answer.

"My amazing parents," he replied sniffling a bit.

"I'm so sorry" I replied softly begging understanding how serious the issue was. "I had no idea how bad it really was."

"Don't feel sorry. My bruises are healing," he responded.

"You know that this is not okay, right? Nothing about this whole situation will ever be okay," I shouted tears beginning to fill my eyes as well. How could I have missed this? I had no idea how bad PJ's home life really was. I knew his parents were horrible but I didn't know how much damage they caused him.

"Antonio, it's fine. Everything is going to be okay," he countered as he leaned in to brush off my tears.

"How can anything be okay after all of the things they've done to you? " I asked. How could he possibly be fine?

"Because it's over now. Antonio, you saved me," he responded as a tear caressed his cheek. I reached out to wipe his tear away to find myself cupping his face. I stared into his tear stricken eyes as he stared back into mine. Before I knew it our lips met each other. I encased his body with my own sheltering him from anything that could ever hurt him. I pulled him in tighter making sure to keep him close to my heart.

I saved PJ and I had to make sure that he was protected forever. As long as I was around nothing would ever hurt him.