Ned and Conor

Chapter 4

Eyes tighter, then fluttered open to reveal a ghastly amount of pale sunlight coming into the window. Groggily, he arose and turned to his right side, his shirt pulling up over his stomach. He'd been in bed rest since month six and his pelvis could no longer support the pressure of he were to stand. Mr. Sherry homeschooled him and both guys took care of him. Although, he recently felt suffocated by the amount of attention. They were constantly checking on him, only worsening his fears of what would happen in a month. The doctor said that if the baby wasn't taken out quickly, I.T would tear him apart. He shivered every time he thought of it. They'd attempted to find adoptive parents, but no one wanted the child of a genetically mutated boy.

Oh...of course. You care more about Conor. Ned had pretended to get into a fight with him and be so hurt tht he wanted him out of his life. Conor fought for about a month, then gave up on the dead end conquest. Occasionally, Ned would overhear Mr. Sherry speaking about his classes and Conor's name would come up—according to the tales, Conor was still the happy, slightly emotionally distant star of the rugby team, but now had a "fella" of his own. A new boy had transferred after the summer break and, apparently, they fell madly in love almost at first sight. Ned threw his legs over the side of the bed, slowly lifting his weak body off of the firm mattress. Often, Ned stayed up late at night thinking about how Connor was probably with his boyfriend—not feeling any attachment to his old friend, nor even thinking about Ned. He imagined Conor's plump lips curving into a toothy grin as he looked at the person beside him like the boy next to him was the most significant being in the entirety of our universe. He imagined Conor's calloused hand intertwined with a smoother one, and his thumb gently rubbing patterns into the front of the boy's hand. One thing he didn't have to completely create alone was a story he'd heard through the thin walls of the apartment. The story was of what Mr. Sherry heard from his desk of the conversation between the lovers; the novel boy questioned who had been Conor's roommate before himself and Conor explained that I.T was just some guy he put up with. The night he'd heard that, he got nearly no sleep and was laying in a pond of his own creation by sunrise.

He walked and stood in front of the window, the window had speckles of droplets that dropped down the glass. He looked out into the bustling streets of Dublin—which was only an hour commute by train to his old school, which Mr, Sherry made daily. Leaning his ginger head against the cold, misty glassy, he sang a song of anguish in his head. The sun was just showing its ugly head in the damp day, and I.T was nearly four in the afternoon.

As he stared blindly, he saw a flash of colors under him. The stripes of yellow and blue painted a painfully familiar picture, along with their rowdy nature. Within a few minutes, Ned was pulling a very oversized sweatshirt over his six month large stomach and knocks rang through the wooden door, along with mindless talking. Unfortunately, Mr. Sherry wasn't present, nor anyone else. Shuffling out of the guest room and towards the front door, he took a deep breath before slowly opening the creaking door. At the sight of him, many of the rugby players showed expressions of confusion or amusement. "Mr. Sherry isn't here. How do you know where he lives?" Ned coldly questioned, accusingly.

"He gave I.T to us to drop off our equipment after the game. We're making a weekend out of this game." Viktor grinned to the player beside him. Ned cautiously stepped aside, allowing the team to enter. As they bustled in, a tall dark haired figure bustled along, giving no recognition to Ned. He was so close that Ned could reach out and touch him, yell for him to help, scream that he'd forgotten about their friendship that hadn't meant much to him. Instead of staring desperately, Ned turned his cold look to the time on the stove. He had been feeling discomfort all day but as he stared with his mid racing, he suddenly felt a pain that was tht if someone taking a lighter to his abdomen. He cried out in pain, attracting the team's attention, and grabbed instinctually onto the counter with his small fingers. At first the fire stayed in a controlled spot, then quickly spread. His grip tightened and his vision blurred, he yelled out in pain and desperation. Quickly the pain worsened, and his hold on the counter became weaker, his knees shaking until they gave in. He made a failed attempt to bend one of his arms over the counter to stay on, but the slight control over himself that he had was surrendered and blackness engulfed his vision, cutting out any noise around him.