Conflicted Eyes, Confusing Feelings | Complete

t w e n t y - t h r e e

Trigger warning. This chapter contains the issue of depression, self-harm and grief.

You wanted to know what Xander thinks and why he behaves the way he does, right? Well, this is it.

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People think that to be strong is to never feel pain. But in reality, the strongest people are the ones who feel it, acknowledge it, and get through it.

* * *

Xander skipped school that day.

However, it was his decision. In fact, if it was totally up to him, he wouldn't even attend school anymore and just dwell in his room for the rest of his pathetic life, but his 'parents' wouldn't get off his back - primarily his father. They droned that he needed to stop skipping school and eat, and Xander knew that they were right. Notwithstanding his hatred for them, he couldn't bring himself to care.

To him, practically nothing in his life even mattered anymore.

What the hell were they talking about anyway? Xander was fine. He did his schoolwork, exams, and he was on the senior football team for crying out loud. What more did they want from him? They were acting like he had a disease or something of that sort, and it made Xander pissed beyond saying. Almost everything did.

"Your mother wouldn't want this for you, Alexander."

Xander rolled his eyes. Pulling the last cigarette out of the pack, he lit it, sticking it between his lips. His fourth take for the day.

They'd told him to stop that, too. But did he listen? No. Was he going to? No.

Cognizant of the fact that he was slowly killing himself, again, he couldn't bring himself to care. Did it even matter? Of course, it didn't. Adamant that he wouldn't quit smoking for the life of him, that only created strife in his household between both him and his elders, as well as between Anna and his father.

They practically begged him to move on. Buying him everything he needed to make him comfortable, trying to motivate him with inspirational quotes and even trying to set him up with girls ... none of that ever seemed to work. Nothing was going to ever have him just forget about his mother. The constantly multiplying scars on his body were constant reminders of that, alongside the fact that he'd never forget. He wouldn't allow himself to. But, on the other hand, he wouldn't bring himself to come to terms with it.

Drawing the half-burnt cigarette from between his lips, he rejected the urge to crush the still-burning end into his skin. Disposing of it in a nearby bin, he absent-mindedly began tugging at the long sleeves of his favorite black hoodie. It was close to forty-five degrees Celsius outside, but Xander knew he couldn't go out without something to conceal the sites of another one of his unhealthy ways of venting. He'd gotten used to it anyways.

Leaning forward on the bench he'd been sitting, he braced himself on his knees, capturing his face in his hands, fighting back the rising pain in his chest with everything he had within him.

The feelings rose despite his efforts, and soon, and as expected, that familiar stinging in his eyes became potent. Biting down on his lip, he promptly stood to his full height, knowing he needed to leave. To distract himself, somehow. Again. His attempts at drowning out the thoughts weren't effectively happening by listening to music anymore, so he ultimately knew the method that never failed him.

And he was going to do just that.

His phone buzzed him his pocket for the hundredth time, but he ignored it. The mere thought of having to deal with anyone made him feel an even greater sense of annoyance - particularly towards Carter. He knew all that Xander had gone through, that the feelings were still unyielding, but Xander learned to keep all that to himself.