Stay for Me (Hold Me Close Prequel)

Chapter Two: Daily Escape

-=Evan=-

I got up swiftly, realizing that I was a bit late. I quickly threw on a pair of clothes and combed my fur, then rushing off to brush my teeth. I sprinted down the stairs silently, bouncing on my toes to limit the noise I was making. Father always hated being woken up early. I opened the fridge, pulling out six eggs and lighting the stove with a pan. I cooked all of the eggs scrambled, setting aside half of them to make father breakfast even though he would never eat it. Next bacon, and then toast. I wolfed down my food and hurried off to start packing my bag for the day. Thankfully I had managed to complete my semester final project for History. I had made a trifold on Iwo Jima. I started my mental checklist. Binders, check. Notebook, check. Textbooks, check. Lunch, won't eat it but check. Project...project! I had forgotten my project upstairs in my room! I ran up the stairs and grabbed it and ran back down, forgetting to be quiet. I opened the door, ready to head out because my bus was waiting at the corner for me.

"EVAN!!" Father called from inside his bedroom. I quickly peeked up the stairs to see if he had poked his head out yet, thankfully he hadn't. As long as he never saw me, I never heard him. And with that I ran outside and towards the bus. But the driver must not have seen me waving saying that I was coming, because the door closed and the brake lifted, and then the wheels spun and my ride drove away. Fuck! I mentally screamed.

Thanks be to God I have an angel looking over me, and he is a green swallow driving a silver Honda Civic. I recognized the car as it pulled up alongside me, the tires scraping against the curb. Jason, my only friend since middle school, rolled down the window.

"Did someone order an Uber?" He asked in a very serious voice.

"No, but a ride is a ride..." I said while smiling, maybe this day was salvageable after all.

"Well just hop in and tell me where you'd like to go this fine morning." He continued with the charade, but was soon cracking up as he unlocked his doors for me to climb in.

"What are you doing here Jason? I asked.

"Conveniently saving your ass from a terribly long hike." I raised my eyebrow, clearly not satisfied with his answer. Sighing, he continued. "I was getting coffee from the Dunkin down the street from your place, I even got you one too." I. Almost. Lost. My. Mind. "You alright over there buddy?" He laughed, I was shaking in excitement. I love coffee more than I love air.

Jason floored the gas pedal, sending me to the back of my seat. I've got to hand it to him, design isn't his strong suit but Jason knows how to make his car pur like a freaking cat. I sipped the coffee he gave me with one arm out the window and the other doing awful motions to the blaring music. But it didn't matter, Jason and I had memorized this whole album and we were both screaming the lyrics and just having fun. True fun is hard to come by these days.

Not five minutes later we pulled into the school parking lot. Jason shut off the car, and therefore the radio, causing me to give him an exaggerated 'boooo!'

"Come on Evan, you can survive another day here." He said, waving to the building that students were filing inside of.

"I don't know...that's what you said yesterday..." I said, trailing off.

"Yeah, and you lived to tell the tale, didn't you? Now let's go the bell is about to ring any minute." He sped up his walking speed to get inside, causing me to break into a bit of a jog to keep up. I was a Junior in high school, and Jason was sadly a year ahead of me, he was a senior. This meant that we had no classes together, except our common elective, graphic design. That class was last period, so we said our goodbyes until lunch and parted ways, him continuing down the locker-bordered hallway and me up a staircase to first period, English.

Pretty much every day was the same when it came to school. I'd almost always take the seat in the back corner and chill for the whole period. I wasn't sure if I isolated myself because I just didn't want to be there, didn't want to go near other people, or if it was just a plain old healthy combination of the two. But yeah, every day, day after day until last period where Jason and I would do nothing productive at all and just mess around with all of the equipment. And so my day went, the only break from the extensive mind-numbing called 11th grade was lunch, where Jason would use his senior privlages to get us outside, where we would hide behind the building and talk about which teacher's teeth we came super close to knocking in so far. After lunch we broke from our spot and rushed back inside before the doors were relocked. That's another reason why Jason is the best friend I could ask for, he didn't even need to stay after lunch because he had finished most of his credits. However, he signed up for a couple of elective classes just to stay the day for me. To be honest, he may be the only person keeping me here at this point...

Later that day I actually caught the bus and was dropped off at the corner of my street,but whenI got back home my somewhat good day took it's usual "fuck you Evan" swing and became my own personalized version of hell. I opened the door to see my father standing there, arms crossed and temple pulsing. He looked pissed like usual. I looked him in the eye, scared, as I closed the front door behind me. As soon as it was fully punched he thrust his fist into my gut, causing me to double over in pain.

"Weak." He punched me again, harder this time. "Pathetic." Again. By now I was on the floor. "Fucking wake me up again when your tearing through this house I'll aim a little bit lower than your stomach. If you even have a pair..." He growled, walking off while still mumbling under his breath. Great, just fucking fantastic.