Closet Case

(3)

TW: mention of murder/witnessing a loved ones death and suicide towards the end of the chapter. There will be *** at the beginning and end if you'd like to skip those parts.
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I get to school and walk to my locker. 

"Hey" Sophia says.

"Hey" I say.

"So last night I---did Carson hit you again?!" she cuts off her own sentence and grabs my face.

"What?"

"Your eye is all bruised" 

"Oh. I tripped and face planted last night"

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I'll be right back" I say and go to the bathroom. I make sure no one is there before getting out a bottle of foundation and a beauty blender. I've been covering up bruises for so long I just keep this in my room. I finish but before I can put everything away, Carson, Parker, and Aiden come in.

"Is that makeup, Ben?" Carson asks.

"Um....no" I say holding it behind my back.

"I think he's wearing makeup, guys" 

"It's not what you think"

"Then what is it?" he asks. 

"Just covering up something. I face planted the sidewalk last night" 

"Just covering up something? Really? That's what everyone says"

"Actually, it's not" I say under my breath.

"What was that?" he asks.

"Nothing" I say.

"Well if you have a bruise on one side....the polite thing to do would be to make it semetrical"

"Don't you have anything else to do?"

"Nope, not really" he says coming closer to me.

"Carson, we gotta get to class" Parker says.

"In a minute"

"Dude, seriously. We gotta go"

"Shut the hell up, Johnson. We'll go when I'm done here. Got it?"

"If we get detention, I'll kill you"

"Go to class. I'll meet you there" Carson sighs. Parker looks at me for a minute, rolls his eyes, and leaves with Aiden.

"You can not be serious" I mumble as I watch them leave. I thought that we were starting to be friends or something. I am not dealing with this shit right now. I put the foundation and blender in my bag and start to walk out before he grabs me and throws me to the floor. 

"Where do you think you're going?" Carson asks.

"I don't know. Class maybe?" 

"Shut up" he says and kicks me in the face.

"You know I've heard it gets better after high school"

"What?" he asks, confused.

"In high school you have the guys who get bullied for being gay and the guys that bully gays to hide that they're gay"

"I'm not a fucking faggot!" he kicks me in the face. I groan in pain but try to make it look like I'm not hurting as much.

"Online tests work great"

"Fuck you" he spits. I know he's not gay but if he's gonna hit me anyway I might as well have a little fun with it. He grabs his back off of the floor and leaves. Instead of getting up and going class like I usually do, I crawl over to the wall and sit against it. I close my  eyes and take a few deep breathes. He kicked me a lot harder than he usually does. Angering him probably wasn't one of my best ideas. A few minutes later I hear the door open. I open my eyes and see Parker.

"You ok?" he asks.

"Fuck off" I say.

"What did you want me to do?"

"Not leave"

"I'm sorry"

"Whatever. I don't care"

"Obviously you do"

"Just go away"

"How'd you get the bruise last night?" he asks after a couple moments of silence.

"I tripped" I say.

"You're a terrible liar" 

"No, I'm not"

"Yes, you are. You don't make eye contact and you look really uncomfortable"

"I'm going home" I say and get up.

"It's starting to make sense" he mumbles.

"What? What's starting to make sense?"

"You hate going home. I can see it whenever you talk about it. You didn't get that bruise at school and it wasn't there when you came over which means you got it after you went home. You act like Zoey's dad more than her brother so I'm guessing your dad isn't much of a father"

"So now you're fucking Sherlock?"

"Skip with me"

"Why?"

"Don't ask why. Just say yes" 

"Fine" I say. We get our things and go to his car. We're coming back for my car later. We drive to his house in silence. We get out of the car and I follow him to the forest behind his house.  We walk to the abandoned park and don't say a word till we've both sat down on a swing. 

"Do you wanna talk about it?" he asks.

"No" I say making a whole in the dirt with my shoe.

"What the hell were you thinking? Getting Carson mad? You're such a dumb ass" 

"I don't know"

"Why are you so secretive?" he asks after a minute.

"Why do you care? You have spent the last few years torturing me and now we're watching Netflix and going to your secret place" I ask.

"Answer my question first and I might answer yours" 

"The truth can get you hurt...or worse. I don't tell people shit 'cause it's either none of their business or it's safer that way. Your turn, why do you care?"

"I...don't know yet. Why do you never talk about your mom. I've heard about your dad a couple times but I've never heard of your mom"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah"

"You're friends never told you what happened that month you were gone with pneumonia?"

"No"

***

"Your friends beat the shit out of me and stuffed me in a locker because I was crying. I was crying because my mom had just been shot and killed the night before. They knew that but they wouldn't leave me alone. My mom had just been fucking killed for telling a group of guys to fuck off for calling me a faggot. She said that the Earth would be a better place if homophobic scum like them were gone so they killed her. I don't talk about her because it's my fault she's dead. I was 13 and I watched my mom die right in front of me....." I explain.

"I am so sorry, Ben" he says.

"It's not your fault"

"That doesn't mean I don't feel bad" he says. I get out my phone to check the time. It's 9:30 am.

"Who's the girl on your lock screen? She looks familiar" he asks.

"Gabi. She was mine and Sophia's best friend"

"What happened?"

"She killed herself last year. She went to a different school but we would always go everywhere together whenever we could" 

***

"Damn. How many people have died in your life?"

"Too many"

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Thanks for reading! Love y'all!

 XoXo
~Mel