Tainted

CHAPTER 3: JEALOUSY

Fae' P.O.V 

Crying? Someone was crying. I jerked up quickly and felt pain shooting up my shoulder and back. I opened my eyes and saw Vivian. Tears streaming down from her red eyes.

"Vivian." I said strained. Waiting for her to say something. 

"Fae, you have to tell someone. I can't let this happen anymore. I see it and I keep ignoring it, but you literally collapsed today on the field. That's not OK." She said sobbing, clutching her face in her hands, dabbing her nose with a tissue. 

"I ..." I did not know what to say. I could not tell anyone. She had no one. No one, but me. I thought about my pathetic life. Dad left us when I was about seven years old. I never understood why. I woke up one morning and he and all his stuff was gone. I asked mom but every time I questioned her I was answered with a slap. She stopped showing up to the school events and started ignoring me. It went downhill from there, she started bringing home different men. I would wake up to alcohol everywhere. By the time I was ten, it was so bad she stopped coming home for months. Then she would suddenly be home again and beat me. I would hear her cry every night. Eventually bills kept coming and she lost any job she would ever get. I started supporting myself when I turned 12 by working under the table. I couldn't let her wither by herself, she was my mother. "She's just lost, she has nothing Viv, I can't leave her like Dad did." I said quietly.

"You could have a better life, a new family Fae." She screamed at me.

I looked away. Like I had not thought about it. I remember the night, I was 11 and had gotten back from soccer practice. I found her in the kitchen. She had cut her wrists. Blood everywhere. 'I though you left me, Fae, I thought you left me like he did. Don't leave me too.' She cried.

"I only have one more year left here, just one more." I said assuring her. "Then I'm going to leave her." I said the words that I thought I would never say. I was 17 and would turn 18 soon enough.

She nodded her head. "You have a fever, stay at my house tonight." She said almost begging.

I couldn't argue, she wouldn't even notice that I wasn't home. So, I nodded my head. I sat up when the nurse and coach came in asking about my back and fever. I covered it up by telling them fell down the cement stairs at my house and did not realize that I was hurt. They did not question it any further. The coach told me that I was not allowed to play until the end of next week. I panicked but Vivian held my hand whispering to me that it was OK. The nurse told me to rest and not to attend the dance as well. I was not going anyways, but I just nodded in return.

When they all left I turned to Vivian. "I am so embarrassed. I cannot believe I fell in front of everyone." I said, trying to lighten the mood.

Vivian smiled at me slyly.

"What. What! OMG Vivian tell me."

"The blonde hottie carried you here." She said winking at me. Then laughing looking at my face.

"I can't show my face ever again. Did we at least win?" I asked getting up, ready to get out of the here. 

"Nope. A tie." She said. "Let's go. Here grab me." She said as she hoisted me up, and I had no choice to lean on her as I felt dizzy, my fever still hadn't broken, my body still feeling hot. 

As soon as we exited the infirmary. I was surprised to see him, he was sitting with his head bowed low between his knees and his shoulders slumped forward. Light blonde streaked his brown hair, with the rest of his clothes matted with dirt. He looked like he had run his hand through his hair multiple times. He looked slightly pale and lines formed around his scrunched-up eyebrows, like he was worried. Worried about me?