Educated Courage: A Kenny X OC Story(on Hiatus)

Sleepover

Skye's POV

After I hung up on Craig, I turned to look at Kenny who was just finishing up with the car. He looked at me with a concerned twinkle in his eye. He walked over to me, I put my arms around myself in a hug, and looked down. I could feel the tears begin to fall, I knew my father was a bad man, but this was a new low. Kenny put his hands on my arms and pulled me into a loving hug, rubbing circles on my back gently. 

    “What happened?” He asked as he continued to hug me. I sniffled and tried to wipe my tears away, but they kept coming. 

    “Dad choked Craig, that was him on the phone. He told me not to come home because he doesn’t want dad to hurt me too.” I softly explained, Kenny pulled away and used his thumb to wipe away the last of my tears. 

    “Stay at my place.” He said simply, I nodded and smiled at his generosity. He took my hand and led me out of the shop, turning off all the lights and locking up. We began to walk to his house in silence until Kenny spoke up. 

    “I don’t want you living there anymore.” His voice was quiet, his hands in his pant pockets. 

    “It’s not like I have somewhere else I can live, besides I’m not leaving Craig and Tricia to live with my dad by themselves.” I had to admit, my words sounded colder than I had meant them to. Again the walk was quiet, we reached his house and unlocked the door, I looked across the street to see my house lights were off and dad's car not in the driveway. 

    “You coming inside?” Kenny asked while waiting in the doorway for me, I nodded my head and followed him. We took our boots off and headed for the wooden staircase. 

    “Do you mind if I take a shower?” I asked as he turned on his bedroom light. He smirked playfully and winked. I took that as a yes and went to the bathroom across the hall. It was painted purple with yellow accents on the wall and yellow decorations around the room. His mom’s idea of home design, it honestly looked like somebody puked up a bunch of lavender and decided to paint the walls with it. I took off my clothing and looked at myself in the mirror, I had bruises up and down both arms. My stomach had a giant blue bruise from when my dad kicked me two nights ago. I looked away, I couldn’t stand to see my body, I hated it. I knew dad was right, it should've been me that died and not mom, I was a complete disappointment. It’s not like I get good grades or pay attention at school, I'd rather talk with Bebe or Wendy than listen to the teacher and I'd rather hang out with Kenny instead of doing homework. I turned on the water and got in when it was hot enough for my liking. The heat consumed my body and I let the tension roll off my shoulders, a sigh escaped between my lips. A million thoughts were swirling around in my head, and each thought brought my self-confidence down even more. Kenny’s smile echoed through the bad thoughts, trying to make everything okay. A sad smile settled on my lips, I put both hands on the wall and let the water run down my back. Why would someone like Kenny, like someone like me? I’m disgusting, according to dad I’m a whore and shouldn’t even be alive. I didn’t realize I was crying, the shower was mixing with my tears, coming together just to swirl down the drain. A loud knock brought me out of my disturbing thoughts. I turned the water off, got out and wrapped a towel around my body. I cursed myself when I remembered that I didn’t have any pajamas. 

    “Skye, I laid some clothes on the bed for you.” Kenny’s soft voice came from the other side of the door, I took a deep breath and turned the knob, coming face to chest. I gulped and looked up to see Kenny’s face bright red. His eyes trying to avoid looking at me, I too began to blush. 

    “I’m g-gonna take a shower too, I’ll b-be out soon.” Kenny stuttered, my eyes widened at his flustered speech. He never stuttered or got embarrassed, at least he never showed it if he did. I nodded my head and shuffled past him and walked into his bedroom. I heard the bathroom door click shut and I too closed the door to his room. Kenny had laid out a long t-shirt and some boxers for me, I dropped my towel to the floor and slipped the shirt over my head. It reached my knees, I then put on the boxers, they had hearts on them. Fifteen minutes later, Kenny came back into the room, he grabbed his own pajamas and went back to get dressed in his bathroom. When he came back I was looking at a picture of us that he framed, it was sitting on his brown night stand next to his bed. I remembered that day like it was yesterday, it was a week after he found out about my dad. I was really sad that day, I had walked to Kenny’s with a giant bruise on my cheek. When he saw it he nearly walked back over to my place to knock some sense into my dad. To cheer me up he took me out to lunch at my favorite sub sandwich shop, we had Wendy take the picture since she was working there. I smiled at how caring Kenny always was, always so gentle and kind. He walked up behind me and grabbed the picture from the nightstand, he smiled and rubbed the picture with his thumb, I craned my neck to look at him.

    “You’re very photogenic. I love this picture, it’s my favorite,” He said, putting the picture back down. He sat on his bed and smirked, “ya know, you don’t look half bad in my clothes.” Kenny’s smirk grew bigger and he bit his bottom lip and looked away. 

    “Where should I sleep?” I asked, looking around his room. His room was painted orange and had brown furniture. He had posters of his favorite video games hanging on his wall. His T.V. was in the corner with his PS4 hooked up, sitting on top. He had two bean bag chairs positioned in front with two controllers, one orange and one pink, the pink one was mine. Kenny bought it for me since I didn’t have one, I leave it at his house since I don’t have a game station anymore. Craig used to, but dad broke it on one of his binges, so my brother is now saving up for another Xbox. 

    “You can sleep on my bed, I’ll take the couch,” Kenny stood up with a pillow and blanket and walked out the door. He looked back at me, “let me know if you need anything. Goodnight.” He tiptoed down the stairs so he wouldn’t wake Karen or his parents, or so I assumed. I turned off the lights and got under the covers, it smells like his cologne. The scent of his covers slowly eased me into a deep nightmarish slumber. 

Kenny’s POV

After saying goodnight to Skye, I made myself comfy on my couch. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much danger Skye and Craig were really in. I mean, their dad tried to choke Craig, who knows what he would do next. My blood boiled as I thought about him hitting Skye. I’ve only ever seen the bruises on her face and arms, but I wouldn't doubt it if she had more that she hid from me. I’ve only known her for about four months, and in that short timeframe, she became my best friend. She became the person I could tell my deepest secrets too, the one person who I know would never judge me. She became my shoulder to cry on and I became hers. I want to hold her and hug her and kiss her and tell her everything will be alright. I’m madly in love with her. I bring her lunches and buy her presents, but it doesn’t mean anything if I can’t even tell her how I truly feel. I looked at the time on my phone, it was just past midnight. I didn’t realize how late it had gotten while I was deep in thought, we said goodnight around 10:30 and already it turned into Sunday. 

    “Kenny?” Karen's voice cut through the darkness of the living room. I jumped and fell off the couch with a loud thud. She hurried over to me to make sure I wasn’t hurt. 

    “Karen, what are you doing up?” I rubbed my head and grabbed the edge of the couch to help me stand. Karen was in her unicorn onesie, her hood was up which had a horn connected to it. 

    “Well, I heard a noise come from your bedroom so I went to look. When I saw it was Skye I calmed down. But I think she’s having a nightmare, she’s throwing her arms and legs around and whimpering.” Karen explained, I nodded my head and sprinted up the stairs to my bedroom. I knew that Skye had night terrors all the time because she told me, but I had never witnessed one. I also knew that it wouldn’t be wise to wake her up or she could become confused and agitated. Karen followed me up the stairs and stayed in the hallway. I walked closer to my bed to see Skye thrashing and crying out. I sat on the bed trying not to disturb her, after about five minutes she stopped. She fell back asleep and I sighed in relief, I looked over at Karen and nodded, signaling she was okay. Karen went back to her own bedroom, I gently shook Skye awake, her eyes fluttered open and looked at me. The moon was shining through my window, basking us in it’s heavenly glow. 

    “You okay? You had a night terror.” I gently asked, Skye sat up and looked out the window. A sad expression rested on her perfect features. 

    “I don’t remember, but I know it was about my dad. I’m okay though.” She replaced her sad expression with a smile, her eyes moved to look at me from the window. 

    “Please lay down with me, it’s lonely.” Her soft voice filled with desperation and longing. I brought my hand to her cheek and was surprised to feel her soft skin wet from tears. I laid her back down and she scooted closer to the wall to make room for me, I brought the blanket over both of us and laid on my side. We were facing each other, I could feel my face heat up, I was thankful that she couldn’t see. I closed my eyes but shot them open when I felt Skye scoot closer to me, I hesitantly pulled her to my body, my chin resting on top of her silky black hair. My arms wrapped around her in a blanket of warmth, she gripped my t-shirt tightly as if I might disappear if she were to let go. I kissed the top of her head and she settled down, I hated seeing her like this. So scared, feeling like she’s alone in the world, I know Craig and Tricia are always there for her but there's only so much they can do. Once I felt Skye’s breathing mellow and her grip loosened, I too was finally able to relax and I slowly drifted off into the best sleep I had ever had.