Bad neighbor

Trauma

It's been a month or so since I've been here, and although it was boring, when Calix came home the time went by faster.

He treated me well and was kind with me often, I noticed that he tried to keep true to his word on treating me better.

I wandered around the living room and stopped at the mantle. On top of it were several pictures from Calix's teenage years. Oddly enough there were only pictures of him, and none of the pictures were below his teen years. He seemed to be 17 or older in all of them.

The sound of footsteps became louder as he got closer, I slowly turned around to see him walking over to me, lazily, his hands deep in his pockets.

"Why are you over here? Dinners ready." I nodded my head, "Okay let's go." I walked away to the dining table but I couldn't help but think why did he only have pictures of himself. Where was his family?

I sat down at the table and pulled my plate closer. I picked up my fork and gently stuck it into the pasta, swirling the fork I picked up the noodles and quickly ate it, savoring the delicious flavor of Alfredo sauce.

"Why does your mantle only have pictures of you? Don't people usually have pictures of their family as well?" He put his fork down and grabbed a napkin, wiping the side of his lips.

"That's only for people who had good families." His expression was stone cold, as if he had blocked all emotional ties to his past. "What was your family like?"

I knew I shouldn't pry but, I couldn't help it. I wanted to know everything about him, I couldn't stop myself. "When I lived in Germany, I had a father who was addicted to drugs and a mother who tried to protect me from him. She could only do so much though."

I could feel warm tears stream down my face as the pain in my heart wouldn't go away as I thought about a younger Calix. An innocent young boy, always hurting, crying to himself. It hurt so much I couldn't breathe.

He watched me in shock as I cried silently, "El, why are you crying?" I wiped my tears away and took a deep shaky breath, "I'm sorry, it's just to imagine you feeling so alone and hurting like that, I'm so sorry calix, I'm so so sorry."

He reached out and held my hand, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. "Calm down, it's okay. Don't cry for me, I don't deserve your tears." I frowned, looking at him with sadness. "Yes you do, nobody deserves to go through something like that Calix, especially not you." He pulled his hand away and shook his head, "You know, nobody has ever cried for me after the passing of my mother. You remind me a lot of her. She was a good woman."

"Wait she's gone now? How did she die?" He leaned back in his seat and looked up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath he began.

"I think I was around thirteen, I was fed up with how my dad treated me and my mom. He would pimp her out to drug dealers and whoever else would pay for his next fix. One day, my mom tried to run away to my grandpas, everything was scheduled and supposed to be fine. We only had a day before we would meet up with my grandpa and leave for his mansion In the states," he ran his fingers through his hair, letting out a humorless and defeated laugh.

"but the night of, I heard my moms screams and cries. I bust into their room to find him raping her. I tried to do everything to get him off of her which backfired because he was then focused on trying to beat me so he could continue. My mom fought for me and told me to run, but he ended up shooting her in the face. I ran to the meetup with my grandpa which was a couple blocks down and he took me in."

I felt sick, I couldn't even imagine going through something so horrendous. I watched his emotionless face, it was cold and stoic. Poor, poor Calix. His eyes went blank for a minute.

He looked so broken. He was usually so emotionally unavailable but I could see now, it was just a defense mechanism. I shot up and walked over to him, wrapping my arms around him and encircling him in a tight hug. His body was tense for a moment but he quickly relaxed.

"It's okay Calix, it's okay now." He slowly released a shaky breath, " Yeah, it is."