Fixing Her

Chapter IX

I realize when we're all sitting and watching McFail while eating pizza, even though I'm not a fan of it, how much I'd miss the boys if I'd move out. I know I should be terrified after finding out Noah's here, but I feel safe, for some reason, and I'm pretty sure that safety would disappear if I'd move in with Emma.

They will never find out, but they're my safety right now. As long as I've got them around me, Noah won't do anything. I know it sounds like I'm gonna hide behind them until I finish high school, and that's because I am.

I can't move once more, and I can't escape him. I can't afford moving out of here once more, and he's always finding me. He won't leave me alone. The best thing to do is wait until I'm eighteen, and then I'm out of here. I'll ask for a work visa somewhere on the other side of the world and I'll finally escape him.

It feels terrible to use the boys like this, but I don't know what else to do. Everything I do ends up backfiring at me and everything just keeps on ruining. I really have no strings left to pull at. I'm hanging on on the last one.

Even though I don't like McFail, I like to watch it with them. I like hearing them comment and laugh. I like being around them, all of them, even Landon.

My relationship with Isaac is pretty good now, we talk a lot more, and for us, two unsocial people, it's pretty good. Landon on the other hand, has no interest in talking to me if it isn't for fixing his face. Maybe I'm exaggerating now, because he does talk to me a little, even if it's been in an conversation where the other boys have been participating as well. Let's just say I haven't had any private conversation with him like I've had with the other boys.

I'm still worried about what they're doing those nights when they come home with that appearance so late, and even the few nights they don't come home, but I've stayed out of it. The only time I've interfered is to fix their faces. Isaac, Dylan and Landon have been out the most. Parker has been too, not as much but yet a few times, but what surprises me is that Thomas hasn't been out ever. He's never asked me to fix his face, he's never come home bloody, and the nights he's late or doesn't come is because he's spent them with his girlfriend, not doing what the others are doing. He's the one yelling at them when there's something like that going on, which shocks me, because I thought Parker was gonna be the one keeping them outside of trouble, but I guess there's a lot I don't know and that I can't insist to know either.

"Hi," I answer Landon's call at two am when my phone starts vibrating on the night stand. I always mute it at nights since the boys call during that time, and none of them want the others to know when they come home. Even though I've got school the other day, I still keep answering their calls and they still keep calling and we always keep having this scenario, and call me selfish, but I like helping them.

"Hey," he says, and I can't divorce in his voice if he's hurt bad or not as I tip toe downstairs. "Did I wake you?"

"No, I was studying."