The Pain, Redux(Ivy x Abused Male Reader Rewrite)

8: Change, maybe not so gradual

  Home was all the same, school was all the same.

  Four more days passed, two at school and two at home for the weekend, and with it, more and more changes were observed in your life. More specifically, your school life.

  You continued to randomly receive food at lunch, but whoever it was, was dedicated to not being seen. If you were at all alert, it wouldn't come, and if it did, it was thrown from out of sight, or dropped from a higher floor, and by the time you looked, nobody was standing out.

  Ivy. She didn't really lighten up in her bullying, oh no. She completely stopped. Just, what? What happened to her 'fun?' Not that you were complaining, no. Only confused. The last few sessions of working in the lecture hall showed her completely avoiding any interaction. If you glimpsed at her, she either looked away or ignored you. Each time, you only sighed and got back to work.

  Overall, life at school improved. Home, on the other hand, only got worse. Your Father was forced to find a job due to financial issues, and that only induced more bad moods, and more creativity for whatever punishments they saw fit. At one point, your mother had grabbed your arm and forced it onto a stove burner, singing the hairs, and giving you first degree burns, which you were forced to play off by simply covering your arm with gentle care and use of your sleeve, and tending to over the weekend with whatever you could find.

  Now, Monday came again, and with it, an awakening kick to the stomach.

  "The hell you doing asleep!?" Your father yelled, red in the face. You could barely wake up before receiving another kick in the side.

  "I had to make myself breakfast because you couldn't get your fat ass off the ground! Get yourself out!" He yelled, before turning around and slamming the garage door, leaving you to try and figure out what just happened. After trying to calm yourself down from the sudden shot of adrenaline, you got to your knees, pushing yourself up to your feet. You exhaled, then inhaled, exhaled. In a minute, you were calm...ish. You walked to the garage door, and quietly opened it. You stepped into the kitchen, nervously looking around.

SMACK

With the force of a small car hitting a wall, your mother smacked you dead in the face. Your stumbled back, holding your face. When you looked up, you locked eyes with her. The silent fury in her eyes remained unspoken when, without a word, she turned and walked to the table. As she sat down by your father and took a spoonful of cereal, you dashed out of the house.

You held your hand to the mark on your face, still stinging. How would you play that off? As you thought about it, an idea eventually came to you.

"Just hide it until first hour and say I accidentally walked into the girls restroom." You told yourself, nodding, that'll work. House after house passed, tree after tree, and you got to school.

The hours passed uneventfully, and at lunch, you received the random food again, by whoever it was that was giving you this stuff, and sooner then you'd like, you found yourself at the doorway to the lecture hall. Without hesitating, you entered the room once again.

The usual table covered in papers waited, but this time, there was a metal mechanical pencil, much fancier then the overused, comically short wooden pencils you used. You looked at Ivy, who sat in the front row. She would sometimes look at you, but she refused to make eye contact. She looked... guilty, even nervous about something. To be honest, you kinda felt the same. Not just around her, don't get yourself wrong. You definitely felt nervous around her, definitely afraid, and guilty about hurting her, despite her having done the same, tenfold.

Setting your thoughts aside, you clicked the mechanical pencil, revealing the graphite, and got to work on the project.

It was halfway through the established time when something of note happened.

"...Y/n." You froze up. In your living memory, Ivy almost never called you by your name. Brat, Idiot, Punk, Maybe once or twice Y/n.

  ".... what do you think about me?" You looked up at Ivy, who was trying to shoot you an intimidating look, but ultimately failing. You swallowed before opening your mouth.

  "If...if I'm honest, I'm... scared of you." You stammered, thrown out of your comfort zone by this sudden question. Ivy grunted, looking down.

  "Fine. Get back to work." You only nodded again, looking to your paper. The project was coming together, a large poster showing the human body, which you had traced out and tried to enlarge, resulting in a few messed up spots, such as one hand being bigger than the other. On it was a detailed diagram of different arteries, veins, the parts of the heart, etc. with presentation day approaching, you were nearing completion of the project. In fact, you only had maybe a few paragraphs of writing left, then the next two days would be revamping and improving the drawings, then coloring, and you would be done. No more staying with Ivy after school... where she would....bully... you.

  You looked at Ivy, who was tapping away on her phone, eating from a bag of veggie straws. Since she stopped bullying you, you had grown used to, and even started to enjoy her presence. Even if it was only sitting in silence near you. To be honest, coming here turned from an extension of hell to a rather refreshing break from home, which you could really use. You sighed as you wrote the last sentence for today in your project. You pressed and held the button for the mechanical pencil, pushing the lead in, and placing the pencil on the table. You stood up, pushing the chair in.

"I'm stopping early today?" You said, glimpsing at Ivy, who shrugged.

"Okay. Get lost." You almost smiled at that. Ivy had tried to sound tough, but the emotion in her voice ruined it, almost like your answer to her question had hurt her. You pushed down the urge to smile and walked out of the room, before leaning against the door, letting out a sigh.

"Irene blessed. I swear, the longer I'm here, the less I want to go home." You whispered to yourself.

"What is that woman doing to me?" You asked yourself, walking home.

~ASnazzyGuy

~1099 Words

7 Chapters Remain