What one can hide

Chapter five- The meetup

Trigger Warnings: Anxiety, mentions of abuse, slight mentions of homophobia

Tommy woke up in a sweat, quickly sitting up in his bed. His heart felt like it was about to fall out of his chest, it was thumping so hard. Waking up in a panic wasn't a new thing for Tommy, he had some pretty bad nightmares. He had assumed that he had another dream about his dad hitting and kicking him, that's usually what they were about. Tommy just pushed his sweaty hair back and out of his face while trying to calm his breathing. Tommy picked up his phone and looked at the time. It was about 6 in the morning, way earlier than his alarm was set to go off. After trying and failing to fall asleep, Tommy just accepted that he wouldn't have much sleep tonight and decided to start his day.

The usual unpleasant feeling he would get when waking up wasn't as bad today, despite his nightmare. Instead, it was replaced with something much happier. Tommy was excited, he was finally going to see his friends today.

Once he and his friends had all set the date to have a meet up, the days passed by so slowly. They weren't all that bad though, his father mainly kept his hands off on Tommy, not leaving any new bruises. Sure, his ribs were still a bit sore, but not as bad as before, plus it's not like his friends would see the fading purple mark under his shirt! The bruise on his cheek, well, that was still there.

Tommy followed his usual morning routine of waking up and getting in the shower, always looking in the mirror for new bruises. He sighed as he noticed the bruise on his face still wasn't completely healed over from a few nights prior. He contemplated if his friends would even notice the bruise, eventually coming to the conclusion that they would definitely notice the yellow/green mark on his face. But would they even care? Tommy couldn't stop himself from thinking.

Stop it, of course they would. Tommy quickly pushed the thoughts out of his head, just trying to stay excited about seeing his friends.

Time skip :D

After his shower, Tommy decided it would be of his best interest to buy something to cover up the still healing bruise. He quickly made his way into the local corner store, where he knew they sold concealer, or at least what Tommy thought was concealer, he had no interest in makeup and only used it when he had to. After getting a few strange looks from the workers, he kept his head down, quickly making his way home.

Tommy sat on his bed, just looking at the makeup, trying to read how to apply it. He had only ever used makeup to cover up a bruise or cut on a stream, so it didn't really matter if it was applied half-assed, but now that he was seeing everyone in person, he wanted to make sure they wouldn't see what he was hiding.

Tommy promptly checked his phone to check the time. 2:00. A lot of time has passed since he woke up. Okay, I can work with this, Tommy thought. To be on time, he and his dad would have to leave around 2:45 inorder to meet everyone on time at the cafe. (For the sake of this story, they all live kind of far away, but are meeting near Tommy's house).

He winced slightly as he applied the makeup to the bruise on his face. After a few minutes of carefully layering the makeup on using just his fingers, Tommy stepped backed and looked at his face. Good enough, he thought. It's not like his friends were going to be inspecting his face, at least the bruise was covered.

Tommy finished everything he needed to do and had a few minutes before they had to leave, so in order to pass the time, he mentally made a checklist of anything he might have forgotten. They were all staying in a hotel for the weekend, and Tommy wanted to make sure he had everything he needed.

Charger? Check. Clothes? Check. Toothbrush, toothpaste, money? Check, check, and check. Tommy's eyes drift over to the newly opened concealer laying on his desk. With a sigh, Tommy wrapped his hands around the skinny glass container and shoved it to the bottom of the bright red bag, passed all the clothes. Almost forgot that.