The Mechanics of The Heart (Unedited)

3

At first in appearance it was easy to mistake Maddox and Bianca's relationship for love. Two newlyweds who had purchased their first home and last vacant one on the street.
Maddox worshipped the ground Bianca walked on and treated her like a queen. And to an outsider looking in, Bianca played the role of the dutiful wife and stay at home mom.
The couple had a son, shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes because he hated the way his mother cut it. Eyes brown too, but unlike his fathers who were a chestnut hazel, the boys eyes were a enticing rich brown that resembled the red sands of the deserts.
Maddox had named his son just for these eyes, Hunter, they had been sharp and alight with a curious flint since the day he was born. Maddox had never seen a baby, or child with eyes so Apex predator like yet warm enough to still be charming.

It wasn't until Hunter started school and he observed the conversation around him, other kids parents that helped them with their homework and asked them about their days, made snacks and their sacrifices didn't invoke on their children's behalf. It became glaringly and alarmingly clear to Hunter that his home life was drastically different from his peers.
It left an uncomfortable ball in the pit of his stomach that left little room for food most days.

It wasn't until his sister was born that the gilded two story, three bedroom cage his parents had hauled and hid all their secrets in began to rattle. The volatile energy that was always there bloomed into something dangerous, teetering on the tilted double ended sword of deadly.
Hunter watched his already unstable mother unravel like Bambis birth had been the straw, like the umbilical cord itself was the unraveling of his mother. But he couldn't understand, she had been beyond happy during her pregnancy. Those nine months his house felt what he hoped his classmates had felt normal.
Just as fast as Hunter thought, nothing stays bad forever- he was vicariously taught that nothing stays good forever.

Life is just living out a series of consequence's because of someone else's actions.  A messy navigation through a never ending mass of cause and effect. Hunter had concluded this long before his father left and it only solidified when he took off himself.

Maybe he was biased, but his entire life had been suffering through the consequence's of others.
conceived by two people who couldn't be more opposite if one were night and the other day.

He used to want to be a firefighter before he knew he loved working on cars, hunting was fun and it bonded his father and himself but Hunter had his own dreams. That were quickly wiped away with my baby sisters tears after the first time their mother put their father out.

Bambi cried so hard she had a headache for two days. Bianca hardly fluttered an eye.

Not that she ever showed any concern for Bambi at all, Hunter thought then and even to this day in their mothers eyes, she was in competition with her own daughter.
Hunter had learned there was layers and levels to the madness that embodied his mother, and his father leaving was more often than not- but always on Bianca's say so, it was always her way or nobody's way.

Until it was like Maddox snapped, Hunter had been distracting Bambi with catching fireflies in the yard, a method he knew worked from personal experimentation- when Maddox, all brooding and bulky muscle came past that threshold that day something had changed. Hunters father was huge, and he often heard the mothers of his classmates about 'climbing him like a tree.' It made Hunter uncomfortably upset but his father only smiled and waved them off when approached.

Maddox face had been twisted up so angrily, so bitter and hateful, instinct pulled his little sister behind him. Maddox had never raised a hand to his children or wife, despite the black eyes and claw marks he'd sport after a heated argument, he never hit her back.

So when Hunter watched his father stomp angrily away from their house, face clawed at and twisted in fury, he knew it would be a long time if he ever saw his father again.
Bambi didn't cry that day but Hunter did, alone in the solitude of his room after he had tucked Bambi in for the night.
As his mother ripped and raved over the phone, screaming bloody murder to the only person who would entertain her madness for this long.

Hunters parents relationship was an anomaly that he couldn't begin to explain nor fathom, that would be strapping yourself into a first class one way trip to insanity. He didn't know where lust mistaken for love and anger and jealously began.

There was a lot of Hunters childhood that didn't make sense until he was old enough to understand what was being done to him, even longer for him to find out how wrong what had happened to him was.
The revelations had sent him skittering into the night, fumbling and frantic for solace.

His father had always been that, until the day he left them on no one's word this time but gods. Maddox Colin had died of a stroke- Hunter had wanted to laugh when the doctor explained cause of death, a stroke seemed so mundane, too regular of a way for his father to die when his entire life had been chaos.
He always thought his father would go out like ghost rider, in a blaze of glory on his Harley he loved but hardly rode.

Instead his father had a stroke in the middle of driving Hunter to school, Hunter remembered vividly explaining to the cops that his father was laughing - completely fine and then his pupils suddenly swallowed all the chestnut in his fathers eyes and the car and jerk as did Maddox's body violently until a tree impaled their bumper forcing the car to a stop. All the while trying not to wince as Bianca nails dug into the flesh of his shoulder as she sobbed hysteric and Bambi looked utterly confused- Hunter felt  more responsible than any kid his age should have