✓ | HURT ❨ WOLFHARD! ❩

( xi. ) wasn't feeling well

They all laugh, every one of them. They stare and they laugh. Some of them try to stop, but fail. Aria couldn't blame them — she would laugh at herself too.

As she walked through the doors of school the next day, she noticed the looks, even some of the notes being passed around. It was then that she thanked her amazing eyesight, yet also hated it. She could somehow catch glances of notes, reading things such as 'Can you believe that she would fall for him?' or 'She's such a loser'.

She shook her head, trying her best to ignore them all. She brushed past certain girls who stared and laughed, not caring in the slightest as to how much pain they induced on her. She turned the corner, looking at the ground. Something smashed into her small, fragile body and she winced, pulling back. She slowly carried her gaze upward until she reached the sad, brown eyes of the boy she didn't want to see.

You could clearly see she had been running on even less sleep than usual with her disheveled hair and unmade features of her face. The bags underneath her eyes were quite prominent against her pale skin. Finn hated seeing her like that, but there was nothing he could do about it, and that pained him. What pained him the most, however, was when she glared at him and then walked away, shoving his shoulder in the process. He knew that he was the reason for this, and that just made him want to ball up and cry.

As she walked away from the tall curly haired boy, she noticed a certain blonde boy in the corner of the hallway, turning the combination to his locker. Her eyes slightly lit up, happy to see one of her newest friends. She then realized that he probably hated her like everybody else now, and she frowned. Might as well give it a chance, she shrugged.

"Chase," she muttered, reaching his locker. The boy looked over, seeing the large height difference and immediately recognizing who it was.

"Oh, Aria!" His eyes widened, a smile taking over his features. "How've you been?"

"Not great, y'know," she responded, twiddling her thumbs.

"Oh, yeah." Chase muttered, mentally shaming himself for not thinking before he spoke, "sorry, I-I uh forgot."

"No, no, it's fine." Aria smiled, attempting to hide her obvious pain. "Well, want to head to class?"

Chase excitedly nodded, grabbing what he needed and slamming his locker door shut, making Aria flinch at the loud noise, "oh, sorry! Shit, damn, fuck, Jesus why do I keep swearing?"

Aria laughed as the boy fumbled over his words, letting out a countless number of more curse words before finally collecting himself. "Alright, shall we?"

"We shall," Aria smiled, linking her arm in his, hoping to wash away any pain for at least one class period.

Finn had watched the whole thing, sadness eating at his heart. What happened yesterday didn't only hurt Aria — it hurt him too. He didn't want to let her go, he never wanted to lose her. He wanted to be the one to hold her, and kiss her, and have late night phone calls with her. However, he knew that he would never be enough for the beautiful girl. He was nothing compared to her. He was worthless, stupid, too skinny, ugly, not boyfriend material—at least that's what his father had told him.

•••

Finn left school early that day, not being able to stand the sight of Aria laughing at everything Chase had said, her hand tightly clasped around his scrawny arm. Again, he knew this was his fault, and he was glad she was happy, but he didn't want to be reminded of it.

He slumped his way home, just hoping that his parents weren't there to greet him once he got back. He slowly pushed open the front door, attempting to be as quiet as possible, yet failing when he heard a yell from the kitchen.

"Who's there?" Shouted his father, a tall, muscular man. Much stronger than Finn, and he proved that every time he could.

"Oh, uh i-it's just me, dad." Finn weakly called out, too frightened to think about what mood his dad would be in.

"Why the hell are you home, boy?" His father spat, walking toward the door where his son cowered.

"I-I had a bad day, sir. Wasn't feeling well." Finn replied, his voice suddenly becoming small as he looked up at the man, noticing the way he flexed his biceps, scaring the younger boy even more.

His father scoffed, shaking his head, "goddamnit, why are you so useless? Why can't you be like that Oleff boy, or the Grazer kid?"

His father narrowed his eyes at Finn, waiting for an answer. "I don't-I don't know, sir. It won't happen again."

"I've heard that one a million times," his father rolled his eyes, annoyed by the young boy's behavior. "Get upstairs before I fucking kill you."

Finn quickly nodded his head, sprinting up the stairs as fast as he could, careful not to break anything or make a mess — for he knew he'd be in for it.

Meanwhile, Aria was a mess. She had noticed Finn all day, and she tried as hard as she could to make him jealous, maybe even feel bad for hurting her, but he left. He just left. He gave her one last look before standing up and storming out of the classroom, completely ignoring the calls of the teacher. It was as if he was emotionless, didn't care about anything.

She wanted to run after him — she wanted to apologize for her stupid actions, but she then remembered that he had done worse. After school that day, she walked home with Wyatt, cursing herself for being such an idiot.

She slumped to her room, flopping onto her bed and leaving Natalie and Wyatt to their own things. It wasn't until 11:45 pm, on a rainy night, when the doorbell rang — multiple times. She groaned, standing from her bed and slowly walking toward the door, yelling "Hold your horses, I'm freaking coming!" When they continued to ring the doorbell. Once she reached the door, she cautiously looked through the peephole, seeing something she didn't expect. She slowly opened the door, revealing a beat up Finn with a bloody lip and bruised face — it seemed as if his body was broken.

"Finn, w-what's wrong?" She weakly asked, looking up at the sad boy, worry filling her eyes.

And that's when it happened. The emotionless boy started sobbing.