5 Minute Reads | Anthology

Rag Doll

By Me_Eaton.

He sat in the darkest corner of the room, face buried in his drawn up knees, arms wrapped around his huddled up body. I didn't even have to hear his muffled sobs, or see his tear stained face as he lifted his head to look at me to know that he was crying. "What do you want?" he croaked, voice hoarse from the pain. He rocked himself, sobs racking his body, a silent plea to rid him of his inner demons. 'Go away, go away, go away...' he seemed to be saying. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and each felt like a burn in my own heart, as if his tears were made of acid. "Nico..." I said, choking on my tears. I helped him up and brought him into the part of his room that had sunlight coming in, though it did nothing more than cast a dim, grey light over the room. But what it illuminated was enough. The little part of my heart that hadn't been burned, broke.

Dark circles ringed his eyes, hollowing his cheeks and highlighting his sunken eyes, his cheekbones protruding in a way that could only be described as sickening. His once bright blue eyes were now sad and defeated, the broken fragments of his heart showing through. He was able to open up about his feelings truly, but right now, knowing what he felt was as simple as looking at his red, tearful eyes. Tear-tracks stained his face, water spilling onto his bloody, cut wrists. His shirts was two sizes too loose and without even asking him, I knew that it wasn't because he bought it like that, that if he lifted his shirt, his ribs would be protruding from too thin body.

"Fag!" "Dyke!" "You're worthless!" "You deserve to die!" "You're no longer my son, Nico..." I heard the words they said to him as if they had been said to me. I felt the sorrow reflected in his eyes as if what he had gone through had happened to me. I saw what his entire body projected, pain that had stripped away his beauty, hollowing his cheeks and greying his eyes and making his body thin, too thin, too thin...

But still I remembered two boys running through the greenest of meadows, sunlight pouring down their backs and illuminating their features and smiles and laughter and million beautiful emotions and butterflies in their stomachs. I remembered a boy with flushed cheeks and pale olive skin and blue, blue eyes, as bright as the clear, afternoon sky. I remembered his plump lips, the taste of them on mine, the way they felt on my back, my jaw, my neck. A thousand kisses in the safety of secrecy and more love than most people could imagine.

I was crying now, hot tears rolling down my cheeks because I couldn't, wouldn't see him like this. "You let them win..." I whispered as I pulled him towards me, his skeletal hands gripping my shirt, wincing as his cut wrists touched my body. And as he buried his wet face into my shirts, I felt him smile.