Breaking

Angry, Red Slashes

Morning came, and Leo was released from the piano to get ready for school. He was exhausted, his fingers and eyes were tired from playing, and he was mentally drained from being scrutinized by his father for so long. He walked into his bathroom to take a shower. Just glancing at the mirror was enough for him. The back of his shirt was stained red from the blood seeping through. His eyes had bags underneath them from the lack of sleep, his hair was messed up. He shook his head before stripping and stepping into the shower: how was he supposed to swim now? Even if he did wear a swim shirt, what if blood seeped through it? Leo raked his fingers through his hair.

Leo did his best bandaging the lashing lacerations, of course he would have to change the wraps a few times throughout the day, but it would work. Once satisfied, he went to school.

"Hey! You've got everything you need for coming over and swimming right?" Kevin ran up to Leo. The dark-haired boy just lifted his bag up, smiling. "Great, everyone had already gone in, you were a little later today, oversleep?" Kevin chuckled as he went ahead. Leo pinched the bridge of his nose, before hurrying to catch up with the blonde-haired guy, doing his best to ignore the pain that pulsed from his back. If only Kevin knew.

Throughout the first class, Leo shifted, trying to find a position in the chair that both looked natural and avoided rubbing his back. Thankfully, the boys didn't seem to notice the discomfort that Leo was in. He rubbed his tired eyes and did his best to focus on the classwork laying on the desk before him. Both his eyes and his mind were fighting him every step of the way. His vision would constantly blur, and Leo had to fight the urge to let his eyelids fall. The sunny and hot day that it was, it did him no good either. Leo had begun to nod off, literally, when he felt a elbow to his side, causing him to almost fall out of his seat in pain. He looked to the source, finding it to be Hadrian. He smiled as he leaned over to whisper into the dark-haired boy's ear:

"I wouldn't fall asleep here if I were you. We wouldn't want you to have to stay after school in detention." Leo nodded in understanding; he did his best to stay awake for the rest of class. This made his life worse; sleeping would have made Leo's back feel better, but now that he had to deal with ignoring the pain and the tiredness, it all seemed to be amplified. Hadrian must have noticed, because he whispered again:

"Don't worry, we're almost out of class, and since we have the odd scheduling today of having a study hall after this, I'm sure you'll be able to take a quick nap. We don't want you tired for swimming either." Leo forced himself to not wince, just the idea of the group finding out about his lacerations made him want to crawl into a hole. Leo collected himself, however, and nodded his head. His dark eyes though, held many of the emotions that his words did not. Hadrian's green eyes connected with Leo's, yet, the message the dark ones told wasn't seen.

Leo broke the eye contact, and just gave a bitter sweet smile, as his eyes dropped their gaze to the ground. Of course, Hadrian wouldn't understand what Leo was feeling, and Leo felt that Hadrian didn't need to. His friends were burdened enough with their own problems, and he had already added to it with their knowledge of his depression. He was snapped out of his thoughts by the bell.

Leo grabbed and shouldered his bag as he walked with the others to their next class. On the way, Kevin pounced on Leo, right on his back. Leo quickly shied away, keeping his head down and hoping that Kevin wouldn't care. He didn't. Leo did his best to hide the pain that he felt from appearing on his face. He just smiled. If they knew about what happened to him, they would be disgusted, they might just leave him. Not again.

Time ticked slowly by, eventually reaching the end of the day. Leo had had to take multiple breaks, occasionally even from class to change the bandages. The lacerations were looking better, but he realized that it would be some time before they would completely heal. He sighed in an attempt to relieve his mind of the stress that he had been building up over the course of the day. A new determination set on his face, he wouldn't let them find out. His dark eyes hardened, a new-found reason to hide every bit of pain that he felt.