Tattooed Illusions (BxB)

T H I R T Y

Heidi's leg bounced nervously. He sat on a plush, gray couch in a spacious office. The walls were decked out in black and white checkers. A petite, black haired woman sat in a swivel chair on the opposite side of the room.

Her office bathed him in vanilla and honey. The woman peered down at him, eyebrows furrowed. "You don't have to be nervous, honey. This is a safe space, where you'll receive no judgment. I just want to put it all down on the table beforehand, so I can help you cope. My name is Blythe Norrison. And your name is Heidi. Correct?"

Heidi nods, gulping nervously. The only person he ever shared his life story with, apart from the police, was Apollo.

"I'm not forcing you to share every detail of what happened to you. I just want the gist, you know. An aspect."

Freckles dot her bronze skin. Her lips are coated in nude lipstick. Her grey eyes are outlined in mascara in a feline style. Her nose is shaped like a button. Her pin straight, raven hair falls onto her demin-clad shoulders.

"As a child, I was....physically abused by my mother. She wasn't a violent person prior to my brother's suicide, but after his funeral, she morphed into a monster. She'd strike me across the face for no apparent reason. She called me a mistake. She said I was the reason my brother killed himself."

At this point, tears were streaming down Heidi's cheeks. Blythe's gaze was focused on her clipboard. She jotted down his words in her messy, cursive scrawl. Because she heard every story imaginable, she didn't react that much to his words, apart from where it was nearly impossible to appear numb. She was a therapist, but she wasn't a monster.

"I believed it. I told her I was sorry repeatedly, begging her not to hit me, but she said I wasn't forgiven. I didn't even fight her because I thought I deserved it. I braced myself for every hit she laid onto my body, for every insult she threw at me. I forced myself not to cry."

"Did she hit you whenever she was drunk or sober? Not that it really matters."

"Usually, she was drunk, but sometimes, she'd hit me when she was sober as well. My dad sat there like a statue, devoid of life. I glanced over at my father, who mindlessly watched sports on TV, a few times, but he'd never maintain eye contact."

A sad smile appeared on his face for a moment before she replaced it with a look of indifference. She didn't want Heidi to think she was pitying him. She was empathizing with him.

"Have you ever tried to kill yourself, Heidi?"

Biting down on his bottom lip, he nods. "Yeah, I have. Apollo, my best friend, stopped me, though. Not that it matters that much." Heidi wasn't able to contain the smile that colored his face whenever he said Apollo's name.

Blythe gave him a halfhearted smile. "Honey, if it matters to you, then it matters to me. Apollo obviously means a lot to you."

Heidi nods. "Yeah, um, I think he's my boyfriend."

Blythe grins at him. "I'm happy that you have someone that cares about you. Are you happy with him?"

Heidi breaks out into a wide grin, all teeth. "Yeah, he's been my best friend for years. He's the one person that I trust wholeheartedly. He was there for me when I was abused. Granted, he wasn't aware of the situation, but he was there."

Blythe nods, scribbling his words onto the lined paper on her desk. "That's all for this session, Heidi. I'll see you next week?"

Heidi gives her a nod before slipping out into the chilly waiting room. In a leather chair Apollo sits, scanning the room. When he sees Heidi, a smile stains his lips and excitement fills his green eyes. "You ready?" Heidi nods. He wipes the tears off his cheeks with his sleeve.

Apollo stands, his demin jacket hanging loosely from his arm, and follows him out into the parking lot, where a school bus is parked.

Trace stood against the concrete building, his foot propped up, as he puffed clouds of gray smoke into the cold air. The icy weather nipped at his skin through the fabric of his sweater. His right hand was shoved into the pockets of his jeans.

He peered into the space between the fence at a father holding their child on his shoulders. The child squealed in delight, a wide smile on her face. He laughed lightly. Her dark skin glistened underneath the beams reflected by the sunlight. Short ringlets fell past her shoulders.

Trace averted his gaze, the bond between a father and a child a knife wedged into him. He threw his dead bud into the dirt, crunching it with the sole of his beat up Van's. His hands dove into his pockets, he stepped into the hallway. Abruptly, he was pulled into the embrace of the stench of weed. The familiarity calmed his nerves.

He flashed a tight-lipped smile and a forced nod to a few guys who knew him. The assholes waved at him before diving back to their hushed tones. Trace had no idea what they were saying, but he didn't give a shit. He strolled into the crowded cafeteria with a false smile staining his lips. The stale air reeked of sweat and alcohol.

Trace sat down at an empty table because Ashtyn was held up in his fourth period and Zion was hanging out with Casper Roman, for some unknown reason, and his brother, Ryleigh.

Trace flitted his bored blue eyed gaze across the cafeteria. Most of the students were either taunting each other in a relatively joking manner, that could easily ignite into a brutal fight, or eating their food with stone cold expressions. Trace looked down at his potatoes with disgust.

Are they even cooking actual food anymore? he asked himself.

Deciding against falling ill with food poisoning, he pushed away his plate and ate his ham sandwich instead.