Falling Apart

Chapter 5

I feel a wet cold thing on my forehead. My head is hurting less, my arms and body are hurting less. But I'm still shaking from cold. My eyes go open.
It's the boy. He is looking at me worriedly, placing a wet cloth onto my forehead. “Jug,” I breathe out, but the other part of his name disappears from my tongue. I don't know if it's intentional or not, but I like the sound of it.
His eyes go on me and he starts smiling a little, “Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I breathe out. I haven't even seen what he looks like. I wasn't paying attention before. His hair is black. Totally black, just like Ronnie's. His eyebrows aren't perfectly shaped like Kevin's, but are exactly what teen boys should have. His nose matches the angry look of them. His lips are pressed together, like he'd be solving a math problem. And then there are his eyes. They're blue. And they're the softest eyes I've ever seen. Weird, I know.
I force my eyes off of his and let them slip over the room. It's only a huge bed, two bedside tables and a bathroom. The bed's duvet is over me, but my arms are bandaged and I feel the same bandage around my torso.
“Where are we?” I ask quietly.
“In a hostel. A mile away from Riverdale, about in the place I found you,” he says, brushing the hair off of my face and tucking it behind my ear, which makes me blush more than a lot. He grins at that. He's sitting on the bed, next to me.
“How did y-” I shut up, seeing my palms in bandages as well. He sees what I'm looking at and sighs.
“I don't know, how you did it, but you can't hurt yourself like that.” Since my arms are in bandages, he must've seen my scars too. My face grows sad and embarrassed. “You’re not the only one,” he says quietly and turns his arms around. “I have less, I've only done it a few times, but… Still.”
“Why?” I ask in shock, looking at the three cutting scars on his left arm. Then I get it, that I know absolutely nothing about him. Not one thing, except for his name of course.
He rolls his eyes, “I’ll tell you later. At first I wanna know about what exactly he did to you and when did it happen and why.”
I gulp. He looks at me pleadingly. I sigh. “And you're not gonna tell anyone?”
“We could tell the child-services?” I shake my head in horror. He sighs. “And why not? He'll keep hurting you otherwise.”
“Every time someone gets the child-services, we run. And I love this house and I actually made some friends. I don't wanna leave this town too.” He seems confused, but nods.
“You know what… Tell me about what happened today in the morning and then you can tell me your life story.”
“I never open up. I shouldn't do it.”
“Are you sure? I'm a good guy, right? Don't you own me an explication for saving your life at least?” he smirks a little.
I grin. “I don't even know why you're helping me.”
He sighs. “Neither do I.” I giggle quietly at that. He smiles sadly, “You have a cute giggle.” I raise my eyebrows at him and his eyes go wide. “I mean…” His face goes red and so does mine.
“Thanks,” I say quietly. “For everything.” He smiles.

The next hour we spend telling each other stuff. I tell him about what my father's like and he tells me about his life. Apparently he's a gang leader in what they call ‘The Southside' of this town. I get to know pretty damn fucked up things about Riverdale. Like the Northsiders hate the Southsiders and they all wanna kill each other.
The gang he's leading, is ‘The Southside Serpents'. Everyone thinks they're dangerous, but he takes it more as a family who protects each other at every costs.
“So,” I say to sum it all up. He's lying next to me on the bed, but we have a distance between us. “Your dad was my mom's neighbor since birth and they started dating when they were 14,” I say. He nods. “But,” I continue. “They broke up, because they needed a change and since they only had been with one another, they both tried new partners and ended up creating families with people they actually didn't love.”
He chuckles and nods, “That’s pretty much it. If they wouldn't have done it, we'd be siblings.” I giggle at his wrinkled face. He doesn't seem pleased with the idea.
“Can I ask you something else?” I ask. He nods. “What about your mom? You told me about your amazing dad and your 14 year old sister, but you never said a word about your mother.”
He smirks, “He isn't that perfect, by the way.”
“He loves you, that's as perfect as it can get,” I murmur. He looks at me sadly.
“My mom left us when Jelly was born. I was 2 when she left and we've been living without her for 14 years now, so it's pretty hard to remember her.”
“Oh,” I say quietly and lower my head a little, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he chuckles. “Your dad is abusive and mom died, what do you have to be sorry for?”
“My mom loved me. Your mom chose to leave you. That's the difference.” I look into his eyes. They're filled with hurt and sadness. “You try to sound like you're not hurt, but I can see that you are. And it's okay to be hurt.”
I see tears form in his eyes. I want to hug him, but I can't bring myself to cross this little are between us and wrap him into my arms. I'm too shy and socially awkward for that. So we just lie on the bed until he opens his mouth.
“Can you tell me about your brothers?” he asks. I start smiling a little.
“Like what?”
“Like where the hell are they and why aren't you living with them.” I chuckle at his tone and nod a little.
“I'm the youngest, obviously. The next ones are Daniel and Jacob. They're 20 and they're in college in Spain.” He bursts out laughing and I nod with a smirk. “Yes, I know. At least now they talk Spanish, I think… So yeah, I can't live with them. Then the next one is…” I shut up and look into his eyes, the sudden closeness scaring me.
“Yeah?” he asks.
I gulp. “The next one is Nicholas. He's… a musician. You might know him.” He nods and waits for me to continue. I smile, he isn't asking me anything else. I like this guy. “He's 25, in LA, can't live without paparazzi or anything, so that life is not for me. He's kind of rich though, so he's the reason I get food and clothes and have a phone and all these things.” He looks kind of sad.
“And your dad? Doesn't work?”
I shake my head. “If he's not drunk, he's high.” He raises his eyebrows in shock.
“Anyways,” I continue. “The oldest brother is-“
“Wow, you have a lot of them.” I chuckle at his comment and find myself turning to face him.
“He’s Matt. He's 28, and in the military. Afghanistan. I haven't seen him for four years.”
He looks sad. “And the others? You've seen them?”
I shake my head, “I saw Nick about a year ago, but the twins don't have that much money to come home just for few days, so I saw them last when they left. Two years ago.”
He sighs sadly. “Do you miss them?”
“More than anything,” I say quietly.
We keep lying on the bed in here for a while. Just in a comfortable silence. “How much did this place cost?” I ask finally.
“Not much.” I turn my head up, to see his face, but my head starts hurting again and I hiss in pain. He slides his hand over my hair. It makes all the nerves in my head disappear and it stops hurting. “Come on. Get some sleep,” he says softly.
“And you'll stay, right?” I ask.
“If you want to.” I give him a single small nod. He smiles sadly, “Then I'll stay.”