Just How Life Is.

Just How Life Is. Chapter 9

Troy actually asked me to meet him outside of school, to a little coffee shop in town center. Town center had little shops and restaurants and a lot of people hung out there.

I decided not to deal with Jared and headed there right after school. But Chloe and Faith were happy that I was going to meet him.

“See? New friends,” Chloe said, nudging my arm while we were walking through the school.  I rolled my eyes and smiled.

“I hope you can really help him out Skye,” Faith said, with a genuine smile.

I nodded, “I hope so, too.” Then Jake and Danny walked up to us.

“Help who out?” Jake said, looking from me to Faith.

“Troy. Skye’s going to meet him after school,” said Chloe with a satisfied smile.

“Why?” he asked.

“To talk I’m guessing,” I shrugged.

Now I was walking to the coffee shop. It had stopped raining, so that was good. But the more and more I thought about Troy, I started to have assumptions about Troy’s ordeal. I sat down at a small round table towards the back of the shop. There was a radio playing some random song I didn’t know. The only other people here were a bored looking worker behind the counter and an old looking man on the other side of the shop. Then Troy walked in.

His eyes spotted me and there was a mix of emotions in them. The one I could pick out the most was nervousness. He sat down at the small table across from me.

“Hi,” I said quietly, hoping to start the conversation.

“Hey,” he said, then rubbed the back of his head. He cleared his throat, looked at me, then looked at the table. “About your question you keep asking me, about my-my wounds…”

I realized that if what I thought was true, it must be very hard for him to talk about it. I gently put my hand over top of his; he smiled a little without looking at me then looked around the shop and spoke quietly.

“Well, my father and I, we, um, often get into fights, and he normally wins.”

I blinked, starting to understand. The constant wounds; what I thought was true. I put my hand softly on his bruised cheek and he didn’t move. “Your father abuses you,” I said in a whisper.

He seemed to have twitched but nodded, “Yes.”

“For how long?” I asked, moving my hand away.

“Since I was seven.”

“When your mother left,” I said, everything fitting together. His father must’ve beaten him from all the sorrow and his wife leaving. It was all too horrible.

He nodded stiffly.

“Troy, I’m so sorry. You have to tell someone.”

His eyes widened and he looked scared, his eyes looking left from right. “No, no I can’t,” he shook his head roughly.

I put my hand on his good side of his face, “Troy, you have to. You need to be done with this.”

“No. If I tell someone then he will find out, and if he finds out…” he was speaking quickly, I could see this was scaring him. His sentence trailed off and he began to stand up. But I grabbed his hand before he could move.

“Please sit,” I said quietly. He nodded and stayed still, his hand was still on mine and I let him keep holding it. It felt nice and it seemed he needed the comfort.

“Troy, you can’t keep living like this. It’s not right and you father needs to, well, go to jail for what he’s done.” He nodded at me.

After a few minutes of silence I spoke again. “I’m guessing you have trust issues right?” he nodded again.

“Well, I’m here for you Troy, and I always will be.” He looked up at me with his wonderful blue eyes and I smiled. He smiled right back at me.

~*~*~

Troy and I talked for about an hour after that. He told me about when it first started, and his voice would keep shaking and I could tell that him talking about this made him nervous.

From what he told me, his father was terrible. He told me that he started to fight back but it never worked. After a while we decided to stop talking about this and he walked me home. I gave him my number and told him to call me whenever. He nodded and I quickly hugged him goodbye and he left.

I walked into the kitchen and Jared was there waiting for me. “What?” I questioned.

“Where were you?” he asked, his arms crossed.

“With a friend,” I said, taking off my jacket.

“Which friend?”

“None of your business,” I said harshly, beginning to walk past him. He grabbed my arm gently and I looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Make me dinner.”

I pulled away and started laughing, “You can’t be serious.”

He nodded, “I am.”

“Psh, fend for yourself. I have homework to do,” I said, grabbing a granola bar and quickly walking into my room.

I can’t believe him, sexist bastard. I thought harshly. I truly hated Jared. Then I remembered the paper I found in his room. I quickly jumped to my laptop and searched through the news. My eyes widened, No way…

I sat back smoothing my hair out. It just couldn’t believe it. Could he really do something like that?

What if I say I’m not like the others?!

“EEK!” I shouted, jumping about five feet in the air as my cell phone went off to Chloe’s ringtone.

I picked up the phone, I really need to put my phone on vibrate, “What?”

“Geez, someone’s not in a good mood,” Chloe said.

“Sorry,” I said, rubbing my forehead, “I just wasn’t expecting a song to blast through my ear drums.”

She laughed, “Well anyway, I was calling to ask you how your meeting with Troy went.”

I was silent for a moment; there was no one I could tell anyone about Troy without his permission. I wanted him to trust me, and that couldn’t happen if I just started telling people.  “It went fine.”

“…You’re not telling me everything.”

I sighed, “I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Oh. Alright, I can respect that.”

“Thanks.” Although, I really did want to tell someone. I mean, this is a big secret that’s hurting Troy. Why won’t he just go to the police?

“You seem distracted,” she pointed out.

“That’s because I am.”

“Oh, anything else you can talk about?” she asked.

My eyes flickered to the computer screen, “N-No.”

“Skye,” she said like she was scolding me, she always knew when I was lying.

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” I said, quickly hanging up. Then I lay down on my back, lying on my bed.

Great, now I have two issues to deal with. Troy and Jared. I really wanted to help out Troy, so badly. But I had a feeling a lot of things would get in our way. And now the whole issue with Jared.

I made an annoyed noise and rolled over on my side.