Waiting for Superman

Chapter 15: Make her Smile

And the way she smiles, oh she smiles

Andy’s P.O.V

“My turn?” my voice sounds weak.

“Yes,” Louis tells me. “It’s only fair, I poured my heart out to you; you have to do the same to me.”

“I-” I stammers. “B-But I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” Louis says gently. “From what I’ve heard so far, you can do a lot of things that people wouldn’t think you can do.”

My shoulders slump and I close my eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to compose myself before starting my story, all the way from the beginning.

“I met him in Germany. I was interested in him because he was a foreign exchange student. Whenever anyone foreign comes to your school, all the girls have that one guy that the girls all fawn over, and if they don’t take that language, the girls will beg their friends who know the language to tell them some sentences so they can seem cool to that guy. I was the girl who knew English; I was the one who was the best at it. People would ask me, I would tell them, because honestly, I didn’t really care about him,” I laugh bitterly.

“That soon changed. He started to talk to me, in German, and I would answer in English, just to confuse him. He told me that he liked talking to me, that he enjoyed a girl who wasn’t fawning over him like he was famous; he liked me because I was mean to him.

“It was some messed up logic, but all I cared about was that he said he liked me. Unknowingly, I had become one of those girls, except he would actually talk to me, he asked me out. We dated until he had to leave to go back to America. He promised me we’d still date, talk, everything. And we did. He was so sweet, he always would text me in class, saying things like I miss you, I wish you were here, the works. The longer he was gone, the more I fell for him,” I sigh deeply, reminiscing.

“Then, when we both graduated, he asked me to move to America, to live with him,” I say. “My parents were furious. They told me I didn’t know him well enough, that I’d only talked to him for maybe three months in person before he left. They told me I was too young to know what love is. Of course they did. I was a teenager, I was barely nineteen, I didn’t know what I was doing,” I smile sadly.

“I went, even though my parents told me not to. I packed up all of my things and I bought a ticket and I flew to America, and I found him, and he let me stay with him. We lived in New York City. I was in love with the city; I thought it was amazing, as I came from a small town in Germany. He would work then come home and we would spend our nights together,” I continue, already knowing what comes next.

“We were like that for a year and a half, and I was rapidly approaching my twenty-first birthday. We were so in love. Well, I was, at least. I didn’t notice when he began changing, being short with me, yelling more than he ever did, staying late at work and sometimes not even coming home. When I did notice, it was on my birthday, when he never even wished me a happy birthday, or even came home, and I was angry that he didn’t care. I yelled at him, and then he hit me for the first time,” I pause to take a deep breath, tears forming at the back of my eyes.

“He apologized, and I was naïve enough to accept it. It was fine, except now that he seemed to think that hitting me was okay. Whenever I pissed him off enough, he would hit me. Slowly, I stopped going outside of his apartment, hiding my bruises and cuts. I thought that if I behaved, he would stop. It didn’t,” my voice is bitter now. “He kept doing it, worse and worse until I finally broke, yelling at him and I threatened to leave, and that scared him, I think. I don’t think he expected me to be serious, but that night, he beat me the worse he’s ever beaten me, and he told me to stay inside the apartment, not to come out, and not to talk to anyone,” I bite my lip, tears falling, trekking rivers onto my cheeks.

“Andy,” Louis says softly. “You’re doing a great job, keep going.”

“I listened,” I whisper. “I stayed in his apartment, and I got beat up on an almost daily basis. I stayed in there for one hundred days. Then, one day, he beat me so bad that I woke up in a hospital. I was there for three days, and he convinced all the nurses that he was a charming, worried boyfriend and that I fell down some stairs, while in reality he had almost broken three ribs,” I say. “That’s where I met you,” I add.

“I remember,” Louis says. “I remember you.”

“I had to pretend like I loved him, when I didn’t, not anymore. He was a monster. He didn’t care about me; I was only good for his image, that he had a loving girlfriend back at home. I hated him,” I whisper. “But I couldn’t leave; he would kill me. If I stayed, I would have eventually died. When I was at the club, I was pissed because I saw him cheating on me, and I knew that it wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and you had helped me and kissed me and then you acted like I couldn’t take care of myself when in reality I had been barely surviving on my own for almost a year and you didn’t even acknowledge the fact that you had kissed me.

“I was tired, and cold, and hurt, in more ways than one, so I stomped off and was homeless for a while then I wrote that children’s book, and I became the CEO of a publishing company at a very young age,” I say, rapidly summarizing the last year of my life, my voice croaky.

Louis surveys me for a moment before wrapping me in a bone-crushing hug.  It is a needed hug, but it makes me cry even more and I bury my face in his shoulder and cry. It’s the first time I’ve cried about the last three years of my life, and I have so many tears to spill.

“Shhh,” Louis comforts me, stroking my hair. “You’ve been through so much, but I’m here now, I’m here, I’m not going to hurt you like him, I’m okay, you’re okay.”

I sniffle, pulling back, embarrassed by my tears and I wipe my eyes. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Louis smiles at me, more emotion hidden behind the motion. “I just want you to smile that pretty smile again.”

I half-smile, biting my lip as I think about all that I went through. He was a monster, he was, and I’m glad I had the sense to get out of there when I did. If I hadn’t, I think that I would’ve committed suicide by now.

“You still haven’t told me his name,” Louis informs me.

My face drops and I find myself shaking my head, saying, “No, no, no, I can’t, Ich kann nicht.”

“Yes you can,” Louis insists, leaning forward and putting his hand over mine. “You just told me all of that; you can do this one last thing.”

I shake my head, tears coming again as his name floats to mind, hovering, suspended in my mind, taunting me. “I can’t.”

“You can,” Louis insists. “Now tell me his name.”

I close my eyes, wincing as I ready myself for a blow as I speak the name of the monster that did this to me. “Beau. His name was Beau.” 

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i really need to stop writing little one-shots and posting them and work on these, but whatever, here's an update (i hope its long enough, it's 1348 words but it's barely 3 pages on Microsoft Word) and i hope you like it. it's didn't exactly turn out like i wanted to, but whatever, i'm proud of an update, so please enjoy it, it's about halfway done :) just the chorus, the bridge, then the chorus again and that shouldn't take too long :) so yeah, enjoy! Bye!

Love ya!

- T A Y L O R