Safer This Way

Chapter 2

Yay! Update Time! I decided to jump right into a guy POV for something new, hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. Happy reading :) 

*North*

"Fucker's digging himself an early grave, better not come crawling to me when all his fucking teeth rot out of his head, ugh." I growl, smacking aside the low hanging tree branch that gets in my way as I stomp through the woods behind Kota's place.

This is already the fifth time this month I've had to get away from them to control my temper, well, Silas would call it a panic attack but what does he know? I sigh, mentally chastising myself for thinking like that about him, Silas is my best friend, my true brother who has saved me first from my father, and then many times from myself. Sometimes, when I can't seem to get out of my head, to get out of my own way to be happy, he steps in and on occasion will literally smack some ende into me.

As I walk deeper into the woods, I feel myself start to calm down, my breathing evens out and I can think clearly again. Now that my brain is working again, I'm mad at myself for getting so bent out of shape about Luke and his fucking candy bar. At first I was just joking around with them about it, chasing him and grabbing for the sugar shit, but then I thought about how much his sugar intake has increased lately and I lost it. He's going to make himself sick if he can't control himself, even if that's true, you shouldn't have let yourself get so angry, I tell myself.

The guys laugh, they hint I'm just a health nut and this is my way of showing them I care, by making them ignore sweets more often, but only Silas really knows the real reason. It's also not their fault that I can't even think about chocolate without wanting to like and hit something all at the same time. No, that is entirely the fault of my piece of shit father who threw candy bars at me to shut me up when I was a kid.

Every time he ran off to get drunk, to escape a life he never wanted...the son he never wanted, he'd toss me a bag full of candy and twinkies,and leave me in the trailer for hours, sometimes days at a time. At first, it seemed like a dream come true; after all, what kid wouldn't want to eat sugar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner seven days a week. It also didn't hurt that when he was at the bar, my father wasn't using me as his own personal punching bag to take out his frustrations on.

Eventually though, I got sick, literally and figuratively, of stuffing my face full of stuff that rotted my teeth, so I stopped eating. This would have been fine, if there'd been anything else to eat in the trailer, but there wasn't. That was the time dear ole dad decided to go on a two week long binge, during that time I'd sat at home, starving because my body couldn't handle more junk, and alone because I refused to call for help and make myself someone else's burden.

Of course, that didn't keep the Korbas away, Silas and his mother came over, found me passed out cold on the kitchen floor, and took me to the hospital. Charlie found my dad, apparently the fuckwad had been arrested that night for starting a brawl at a pub in Athens, and talked him into signing over custody to them for the interim; I doubt it was a long conversation.

Not even two years after that I'd found out about Luke, and Silas had lost his mother, so together we came to America and found our new family. I haven't told anyone else about how bad things had gotten, why chocolate makes me edgy. Therefore, I have no one to blame but myself for having to hide in the forest to calm down while my idiot brother works himself into a sugar coma.

Angry again with myself for being so weak, I turn and take it out on the trees, punching into the bark of a nearby oak until I'm numb to the pain. Palms bleeding, knuckles cracked, but blissfully numb I continue my one sided sparring, too afraid of another break down to stop.

...I'm so tired of being here....

The most beautiful voice I've ever heard breaks me from my blind rage, and I lean against the tree trunk to steady myself.