Chubby ✔️

Young Man

⚠️warning!⚠️ this chapter can be triggering. Be safe. You have been warned. Again, be safe.

"You can't be serious." I hear someone speak and then feel something slightly shake under me.

"I want her to join online school." The heavenly surface beneath me vibrates and it dawns on my sleepy brain that the vibration is caused because the thing under me is actually a person and that this person is talking while they stroke my back slowly, which is trying to lull me back into sleep and without meaning to, I surrender when someone shushes me and whispers, "You're okay, go to sleep." And feeling safer than I ever have, I let the voice guide me back to sleep.

My eyes flutter open and I close them immediately when the sunlight shines through the window and onto my face, warming me up in the cold winter atmosphere but blinding me as well. I hiss, irritated as I drag my body from the bed and go to draw the curtains together, effectively shutting out all light and creating the perfect darkness needed for sleep.

Oh wait. Now I have to pee.
Guess I'm up for the day.

I rub my eyes as I walk to the bathroom and close my eyes as I maneuver the toothbrush around in my mouth. My eyes instinctively glance at the mirror and the brush hangs from my mouth as I examine myself.  I don't look...tired.
And then it hits me.

I slept. No nightmare. Theodore. I slept.

My hands shake and my mind runs a hundred miles per minute due to the new-found energy that only sleep can provide. I grasp the brush and rinse my mouth, changing into fresh, new clothes for the day.

I rummage through my bag for my house keys as I slowly walk the stairs and almost fall when a chirpy voice speaks up, "Well, don't you look well rested?"

I find Theodore at the bottom of the stairs, leaning over the banister as he smiles goofily at me.
I smile back and quickly move down the steps. I stop right in front of him and he tilts his head and stares at me, while his smile remains intact and the twinkle in his eyes continues to sparkle confidently.

"Breakfast?" He speaks after a moment's silence of staring and my nervous shuffling and I nod my head gratefully in response.
I almost miss the relieved look on his face as I move past him and walk into the kitchen as I tell him I'm starving.

As I finish eating the waffles and go to grab the apple juice, my hand freezes midair when I realize I didn't even think of calories and not eating.
It's like the voices vanished into thin air, like they didn't exist in the first place.

Theodore tenses when he notices the gears in my mind changing and he quickly leans in and pours apple juice into my glass.
I look at him while I question all the possibilities of the voices disappearing. He glances at my glass and then at me, smiling and then going back to eating, but I notice him discreetly glance at me as he chews.

I pick up my glass and swirl the juice around, still lost in thought.
I take a sip of the juice and pause for a moment, expecting the voices to return.
Nope. Still no voices.
I take another sip and wait once more but no.
No voices.

I glance at Theodore and almost choke when I notice him staring expectingly at me. Confused, I smile at him and he smiles back.

"Come on," He speaks as he's still chewing his last bite and grabs my backpack from the still next to me. "Can't have my- I mean can't have you late for school, now can we?"

I nod my head and follow him out the door, saying bye to a shirtless Casper running around trying to avoid bath time and Natalie who's running around looking for Casper with a stuffed Nemo in her hand, trying to persuade him.

•••

"Where did you get that ugly sweater?" Mackenzie teases me. I stop going through my locker and just stand there, grasping the locker door in my hand so it wouldn't give her a chance to smash it into my head like before.
When I don't respond, she hums a little and walks away after lightly tugging on my hair.
Theodore snatched my hair tie away explaining that I look very pretty with my hair down.

Mackenzie tugging on my hair makes me feel self-conscious. What if she has some horrible scheme to destroy my hair?
I shake the negative thought off and walk to the art room which is on the ground floor.

As I'm about to take my first step down the stairs, my phone rings and I pick up, after seeing it's Theodore.

"Hey-" a rough force collides against my back and I fall down the stairs, landing on the floor as pain shoots up my entire body. I lay on the floor, dizzy as hell and my phone lands next to me from which I can hear Theodore's panicked voice.
I rest my head on the cold floor, trying to control the room spinning but it doesn't work and instead I just want to close my eyes and go to sleep right here.
Theodore's voice is still going crazy on the phone and I want to tell him it's okay. That it's fine but as I reach my hand out to my phone, a stiletto clad foot stomps onto it and the screen cracks; also cutting off Theodore's voice. I try to pull my hand closer to my body so I can tuck it into safety but the monster above catches on fast and therefore decides to stomp hard on my hand.
I whimper pathetically against my will and I can hear the satisfactory hum from above.

I notice she's wearing the stilettos she's already worn before and I want to point it out, because I know she cares a lot about that kind of thing. Especially shoes.

There's another voice in my head this time, and it's done being the victim. It wants to hurt her the way she hurt me. Only worse.

I don't like this voice.

Just as I finally decide that everything can go to hell and close my eyes, I feel someone yell, "GET AWAY FROM HER!!"

The next minute, I'm being cradled and shook awake by shaky hands and as much as I want to listen to them, I can't. I'm so tired.

The last voice I hear before my mind shuts down is one with a lot of authority, "What's going on here? Young man, I don't think you go to this school."

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Inspiration comes best when I'm feeling down.

And I'm feeling really down right now. But I'm not going to bore you with that.

Thanks for reading,
Teddy🐾