HIDDEN in PARADISE

2 & a half • The Truth Comes In Pieces

Hanen wondered. He did think about his disbelief. He simply doesn't know anything about her, or her in general. Jayden being right with that aspect, not having a connection with Dustin, not like he was special to her. Or so Hanen thought. Still standing in the middle of his room, imaging the look in his face, how the blood in his skin drained, leaving him the visible shell of a bewildered ghost.

Having no emotion wasn't like Hanen, he had many of them. Feeling them gush from his heart and mind, his higher beings. He should of known better; acknowledge that his parents would be right.

He couldn't face the, what he believed to be a true statement. He felt let down by an angelic stranger. In hindsight Hanen, indeed questioned what was told to him, recapping the whole conversation, how Jayden stood his stance and even huffed in air, how he seemed to believe his own words. The way he, for once, looked crushed. By the weight of a heavy heart, but neither of them got shattered, not yet.

The carpet fibers entwined under Hanen's toes, digging them deep down for a feeling other than fear. Advancing towards where Jayden stood minutes ago, he looked at the windowpane and the glass, not letting his eyes venture across the property to the neighbor's house. The room Hanen thought, also was Dustin's.

His cold nose pointed towards it, but his eyes closed.

He tried to stop it, relax. But he couldn't stop what he didn't understand. He did, yet didn't comprehend why he felt the way he did. Hanen had never felt so disappointed in anything. His morals imprinted into him with such force and endless effort, he found it hard to imagine other thoughts besides pure.

Even with attending high school, it was a private, strictly catholic institute. Rules followed, but had seen them being disobeyed at times, causing guilt to be felt for those people, the wrath that was never forgiving, deep with the seeming ruthlessness plastered into the walls.

The building blocks of him, Hanen Lakes.

They were sealed, but with everything he had, he pried them open. His eyes aware of nothing that happened in front of his window. The drapes of skin that covered his blue wave colored eyes, pulled up and apart, leaving the scene of no one in the room. The light faint, empty. Dustin, nor anyone hovering around the room.

Empty like the reaction in Jayden's achievement. The constant tearing down, just to watch others carry their selves back to life, back to joy. Just to suck it right out of them, like he depended on it, not leaving him with any benefits thought.

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Hanen ate nearly half, maybe one third of what he would usually eat. Butterflies taking up most of the room in his stomach as he sat across from Jayden at the table. The whole time he sat in the hard chair, he was either glancing down at his food, sticking his fork in potatoes, or dragging ketchup across his plate. The movement making them cold at a fast pace. And when he wasn't doing that, his eyes would become dry as they stared at Jayden, Hanen dazed and in a somber mood, forgetting to blink. The muscles in his eyes relaxing, leaving the perceptions in front of him a hazy blur.

His parents never forced them to eat, but he wasn't doubting the questioning in his mother's mind. Why the grown and still growing boy wasn't trying to eat. Wanting no vex, he put a piece of fruit in his mouth, chewing it quietly as the juices collapsed on his tongue.

Can Jayden leave? He questioned the question in his mind. Wondering what would happen if he decided to speak what was in his imagination.

Them all probably going to look at him, then at Jayden, putting on a lost puppy face to act like he was stumped too.

He hadn't asked about the party he was invited to, he was getting the gist that he just shouldn't; scared of the outcome and everything else that could be relatively negative from it.

Hanen had never been this caught up in something. Walking up to his mom as she entered the kitchen, hanen's plate that was clean to a relative amount, he carried with him.

"Mom?" He questioned, close to her. Feeling safe with her presence.

"Yes, love?" Her head turned to him for a second, then back as she took the plate from him and dropped it into soapy water before turning around again to get a glimpse at his unknowingly dreary expression.

"Um, the neighbors invited me over for a celebration." He spoke soft and clear, trying not to stutter.

"I-" She perched her lips, letting out a held breath. "I don't know, maybe if you told me sooner?"

She turned down the offer, or question it was. His arms hung loose on his sides, dangling without movement. As he pulled apart his sealed lips, letting her know his true feelings.

"I really would like to go, please?" He in all honesty didn't know why he wanted to go so bad, especially now, but he had a distraction and it was eating him alive. All or nothing was what was going to happen.

He wasn't looking at her eyes, not even her face as he spoke, unlike normal. The confidence he hadn't known he naturally had, hidden as he inquired.

"Be careful." She watched as his chin lifted at a slow pace, finally looking at her. His eyes like a little kid seeing the most mesmerizing thing imaginable.

She expected him to get excited and run into her arms or jump around for a little as he yelled out, but he didn't. He shuffled closer to her, resting his head on her shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her and stood there. Quiet, remorseful, sparing, a different Hanen.

Her son letting go after she rubbed his back a few times, his smile timid and at a slow pace getting wider, eventually to a genuine smile as she grinned with him.

"Oh and remember, in the morning you have to be ready!" Her addition with all the other she had said, was thrown out gingerly, as thought they both knew what was to be held soon. Her comment seeping the idea fresh in his mind like a constant drip, making him want to bring it back up in the future.