The Mechanics of The Heart (Unedited)

32

Heavy trigger warning: Sexual assault. Towards the end. If you're uncomfortable please do not read this chapter, it is not needed to continue the story line. The next coming chapters will have a brief overview. Please do not put your mental health or yourself in jeopardy just for a story.

I love you, I see you 🩵🩵

The sun was beaming brightly this afternoon, hardly any clouds in the sky to provide any comfort from the sweltering Georgia heat.
It pissed Hunter off, how bright and full of life the world around him was. Yet he had seen the life be sucked from his father, all that light and brightness dim out to a dull darkness right before his eyes.
He barely registered the sweat slicking down his back under the dark hoodie on his head, his boots clank like heavy cinderblocks on the cement, hood pulled low to cover a split lip.

Hunter had hardly spent any time in school these days, only time he really was on the grounds he was fighting or dropping off and picking up his sister. His absence to the team was excused indefinitely by his coach towards the start of the sophomore season. Nearly three years ago, news he had delivered with a somber expression after he found Hunter throwing up in the locker room.
His star athlete hunched over the porcelain bowl of these small, smelly locker room was like seeing his own son dwindle. Only Hunter had been sick off the sight of death, not alcohol.

There was once a time where Ryan Torks, football coach and chemistry teacher of Roosevelt High School, thought Hunter Colin would be the player on his roster to go pro.

He had seen it all for the kid even if he didn't see it himself, the glory, the championship ring and the high life. He was smart too, only one of his few players that kept their grade point average above barely passing.

"I'm telling you Matt, this kid, man he's got it all." He was attempting to convince his childhood friend and coach of the Georgia state college football team. Matt looked at his friend then back to the small quaint house, white peeling paint that seemed to have been started to be painted a fresh coat with dark curtain cover all the windows.

Matt had watched the many videos of Hunter Colin littered all over YouTube and sent to him by Ryan. The kid read the field like a apex predator and dominated like a beast. "Why hasnt he been on the field lately?" Ryan opened his mouth to answer but clamped it closed, squinting past his friend as he clocked the familiar figure sauntering up the sidewalk.

Matt hardly had time to process him friend exiting the car, Hunter barely registering his name as his porch steps creaked and groaned under him. He sighed as he recognized the booming voice of his coach.

"Hunt! Hold on a minute." Hunters shoulder slumped deeper in his hoodie. He just wanted to crawl into his room and lay under the cover until it was time to pick Bambi up from her art class. She had been spending a lot more time there, Hunter was sure it was to escape Bianca's harsh, drunken words. It was harder for Bambi to hide her grief, and every tear she shed was a reason for Bianca to chew her out.

Ryan almost jolted back at the dead, beaten look on Hunters face. Split lip aside. Light brown hazel eyes now seemed sunken into his skull and the barely eighteen year old kid Ryan had known before seemed to have aged drastically in the three years since the boys father had been gone.

"Coach." Hunter cleared his throat, casting a glance toward the curtains as they shuddered with movement. Angling his body he blocked off his coaches curious glance as unfamiliar man walked up his porch steps. "What's up?" Matt didn't miss the way the boy seemed the analyze him and his entire demeanor was defensive.

"Hunter this is Matt Ludwig. Coach of Georgia State Uni-"
Ryan hardly barely gotten the words out when in a deeper and colder voice than he expected from his athlete, Hunter said: "Not interested." The words felt bitter and wrong on his tongue and his stomach clenched as he thought of what his father might say if he were here.

But he wasn't and that thought made Hunter angry all over again.

"Hunter you're half a year from graduating, it's important you think about your future." Ryan spoke sternly but gently, Matt watched as Hunter looked him over, a slow long beat of silence before the teenager shrugged.

"Sorry he wasted your time, comin all the way down here. But I can't do nothin for you or ya team." Hunter grunted, voice hoarse with the effort, he hadn't had much to say these past few years outside of words of comfort and encouragement for his sister.

"With all due respect son, what would your fa-" Matt had skipped over the thin ice and plunged himself into the cold, Arctic depths that swallowed the air right out of his lunges, the air around Hunter Colin seemed to shift into something cold, and prickly.

Brown, doe colored eyes narrowed into slits as the massive teenager seemed to straighten, his full height a few inches taller than both the men in front of him, muscles bulked beneath the sweater.

"Shut your fucking mouth, You don't know anything about him and, I'm not your fucking son." Bullet forced his clenched fist at his sides, watching as the man's apparent blue eyes widen slightly. Not offering another word, he turned and stormed into his house.
Eyes struggling to adjust to the darkness as his mother cut out every bit of sunlight from their home. The air conditioner running on constant blast made it feel like a cave.

Outside he could hear their thumping footsteps down the old stairs and as he peaked out to watch them crawl back into their car he sighed, forehead resting on the glass of the front door.

"Hunter? Who was that?" He didn't even have to look at his mother to know she was in that old earth robe and house slippers she'd been in for months. The sounded like sandpaper as she slid her feet over the hardwood floors, if Hunter hadn't know the truth, he'd think his mother was dying of a broken heart.

But you need to have a heart for it broken.

"No one important." He turned to hideout in his room, unprepared for how close his mother actually was, his back rattled the door as he pushed back.
It had been a while since he actually looked at her, he had been leaving her dinner by her door and breakfast in the microwave mainly because Bambi was worried about her, she spent most her time in her room.
But up close Hunter could see how deeply sunk in her cheeks were, they made her eyes look buggy and bulging, they looked even bigger as tears began to well up in them.

"That was those recruiters wasn't it? I told them to stop coming here- if you go who will take care of me!?" Bianca was falling into hysterics, honey hands clenching at her sons hoodie as he stood frozen.

"What are you talking about? They've came here before?" Questions were futile, he knew now he mother was off rolling in her sorrow, makeshift or not, he wasn't sure but he had wondered if his coach had seen her like this.

"Please don't go Hunter, who will take care of me? Please, don't leave me." Her broken words ripped through him like bullets, her hands yanking his stiff body back and forth as he swayed with his mind. Trying to block out the noise, the screaming echoing inside him.

"Don't leave me, I'll be better, I'll be good." Hunter blinked, his mind and body registering the hand down his pants on a delay. His stomach twisted and his mind warped, "I need you to take care of me, please Maddox." Bianca sobbed, "who will take care of me if you go?" The old wood of the front door snagged and left splintered pieces of wood that pricked at the skin of his back as he forced himself away.

Blinking rapidly at his mother collapsed onto the floor, tears running down her cheeks as she looked at him with a desperation he hadn't seen before, his joggers pulled to his knees with his boxers. Bile crawled up rapidly and he lurched forward, gagging and dry heaving as he empty the contents of his stomach on the floor of the foyer.

"Maddox." Bianca hadn't even registered her son throwing up, hastily yanking his clothes back in place as she swirled in the mementos and memories of a lover that was no more.

Hunter blinked, eyes stinging with tears as his mind reared, it felt like it was doing somersaults.
What just happened?
He squeezed his eyes shut, his mothers bubbling muttering of his fathers name as his soul twisted, screamed and fought to jump out of his skin.

"I gotta get outta here." His chest heaved as she grabbed at the scuff of his pants.

"Don't leave me again Maddox. please." Her touch made his skin feeling like it was jumping off his bones. Yanking his leg away he watched as she fell only a few inches from his vomit before yanking the door open and bolting back down the side walk towards the direction he saw his coaches car pull off to.