What I Love About You | boyxboy

Chapter 19

His answer was shitty. "I just happened to be there." Sure, like that doesn't sound suspicious.

I wasn't going to let him go that easily. "Seriously, why were you there? No one ever goes there for any reason." Except to smoke pot, I thought.

He nodded. "I was... just walking around."

"During class?"

"You were skipping too. It's not like I don't study. You saw, my mother's insane." He turned to his side to face me. After a few days suspended from our activities, his wounds were finally healing. Even the burns on his wrists, which I noticed when I was changing him. "Still think the rich life is luxurious?"

I frowned. "It doesn't look fun, that's for sure. At least, not with her as your mother." I looked around the dimly lit room. Apart from books flooding this place, there didn't seem to be anything to do other than sleep. It was almost as if it were a library with a king sized bed stuck in the corner. "Don't you have anything fun to do? My room has a giant TV and a computer."

He shook his head, yawning. "They want me to study so I don't have anything in here that could distract me."

"But isn't there a library? You could study there and still do something when you got to your room."

"No... That's what the treehouse is for." He closed his eyes, snuggling up against me. "Your warm."

"You must be really tired." There's no way this masochist was fully awake. He's never acted this cute before. "I should go back to my room."

He grabbed me before I could leave. "Can you just stay here? We've both had pretty shitty days. I mean, yours is arguably worse than mine, but mine was still pretty shitty."

"Won't we get yelled at for sleeping in the same room?"

He shrugged, falling into unconsciousness again. I could have easily left him at that point, given how difficult he was to wake up once he fell asleep. But I didn't. Rather, I couldn't. Back in the treehouse he snuggled with me too. I would have let him had Anna not appeared out of nowhere. I laid back down beside him, embracing him in my arms. The contact felt nice, especially after everything that happened. Worry was still at the forefront of my mind, but at least I could feel at ease.

I must have fallen asleep, because next thing I remember was Ivan tapping me. As I got up I saw Taylor, sprawled out on the bed, laying on my arm. Ivan had his arms crossed as he stood above me with a really irritated look on his face. "Yeah?" My voice was groggy as I freed my arm, feeling it start to tingle.

He was holding the papers from Taylor's desk, which was now perfectly clean. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I, um, we fell asleep, I guess."

"You should go back to your room." He glanced over at Taylor and went to the other side of the bed to throw the comforter over him. I noticed him pull Taylor's sleeve down. "Thank god."

I sat up. "You know he does that?"

"Huh?" He pulled the sleeve down and let Taylor rest. "I do. Stupid kid, always hurting himself." I frowned. Did he not know about what we do? What I do? "Mrs. Taylor only yell at him for acting out. No matter what he does he can't ever get her sympathy."

Her sympathy? Wait... I looked down at Taylor. I get it. So that's why he's such a maniac. He's self destruction out of his desperation to receive any sort of love and care from his parents that he'll purposefully make it obvious. He wants control of his own life and he wants parents who care for his person. Despite that, no matter how many times he came home with a black eye, cuts, scars, and scrapes, no one seemed to care.