We're Not Sleeping, We're Just Dreaming (Waterparks fanfic)

Four - Keon

The lock of the front door clicked as I closed it behind me, hanging my ragged backpack on the coat hook on the wall. I heard my mother in the kitchen, cooking, hoping she hadn't heard me as I went to put my phone on charge, the chipped screen dimly lit with the single figure battery percentage. It chimed happily as I inserted the wire into the base, filling up with the much needed power. I turned to leave my room and there she was, my mum, stood there with her arms folded.
"Late again, Keon. What's your fucking excuse this time?"
I stuttered. "I...I was with Mr McKenna."
"Liar"
"I was!"
She tutted, rubbing her hands together and walked over to me. I stood my ground, knowing she would grab me by my hair if I stepped backward.
"I'll ask you one more time, stupid boy...."
I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as she roughly placed her fingers beneath my chin, forcing me to look up at her.
"Why are you so late?"
I didn't answer, I couldn't form the words. She huffed and took her hand out from underneath my chin. I then felt a sudden strike against the side of my head, a hard one. The ringing in my ears came back, the disorientated feeling as I felt a second one drip of blood coming out of my nose in a small but steady stream as I felt a sharp grip pulling on my hair.
"You want to fucking play games..."
She sharply pulled on my hair, placing one of her hands around my neck and pulling it to face the door.
"Then you can go play them somewhere else, you pathetic little shit."
She let go. I breathed a sigh of relief as she left the room and I gently stroked the side of my face - it stung with even the slightest of touches. Running my finger under my nose, my hand came away with blood as I reached into my bedside table drawer for a pack of tissues, walking over to the mirror in the en-suite annexed to my room and mopping up the blood still streaming from my nose. I ran a cloth under the cold tap, folding it and gingerly placing it against my cheek as I massaged my throat with the other hand, tracing where her fingers had tightly gripped it. Tears welled in my eyes and I let them fall now that I was alone. They stung as they ran down my cheeks, deep red now from the sharp and sudden impact. I sighed, my mind racing and loud.

*

The blood stopped flowing from my nose as I dug through the cupboard of the shared bathroom, reaching back a far as I could for the box of old prescriptions. Numerous pills - painkillers, hormonal drugs, and some I didn't recognise - laid before me and my fingers began to shake as I grabbed them and stuffed them into my pockets, replacing the contents of the cupboard as best I could to their original positions before sneaking back out of the bathroom back to my bedroom. Should I do it tomorrow? At school? Or run away again and do it in some field somewhere? Should I do it next week? I glanced at the window and saw myself in the reflection - my eye was beginning to go purple at the edge and my nose was starting to swell.
Tomorrow.