fragile | jelix

chapter 15

there i was, standing in his bedroom, after a whole week of not being able to see him. i was there with him, he was there with me. but for some reason, it just wasn't giving me much joy on that particular day.

"you haven't visited in a while. where have you been?" i cast my mind back to the week of sitting in my room either playing video games, crying or doing absolutely nothing at all. it had been a hell of a sad and boring week. mark had no idea what was going on, i had decided not to tell him that my dad grounded me. he would freak out and make a big deal about it, like he does with every single situation i am ever in.

"i got grounded." he didn't seem at all shocked by the length of said grounding, but then again i was speaking to a boy who hadn't left his house since he was a little kid.

"what did you do?" i sighed, not wanting to go into full detail about the whole thing.

"i just had a small argument with my dad is all." he nodded slowly, looking me up and down. his eyes stopped at my face. he stared for a while and a frown began to form, followed by a mildly confused and slightly concerned look.

"what's that on the side of your face?"

"what's what?" i asked. now i was confused. he gestured for me to come closer to him as i was standing at the very back of the room. i walked over to him gradually, picking up the pace a little when his gestures became slightly more violent and aggressive. eventually i was next to his bed, right by the line. if i had taken one more step i would have crossed it. jack stared at my face for a few more seconds before pointing at me and sinking deeper into his bed.

"that mark on the side of your face...is it a bruise?" my heart stopped and my blood turned cold. it couldn't have been a bruise from my dad, could it? it was highly possible. he had hit me pretty hard across the face a few times over the course of that week. i had never even thought to check if i had any sort of injuries before hand, so this was the first time i was aware of a bruise on me.

"i'm guessing that because of your silence it is a bruise. how did you do that? it looks pretty nasty." there was no way i could tell him it was my dad that put that mark there. i had never told anybody about the way my dad used to treat me, not even mark, who was my best friend. i planned to keep it that way. i could have stood there like an idiot and thought up a long winded excuse as to how the bruise got there, but the longer i stood the more suspicious i became, so i ended up going with a classic lie:

"i fell over." he raised one of his eyebrows. well of course he didn't believe that.

"are you sure?" i nodded and put my hands in front of me, shaking them.

"now can we drop this? we don't have to talk about it anymore." jack sighed, folded his arms and muttered the word 'yeah' under his voice.

"i'm gonna be coming less from now on. i don't wanna keep getting in trouble with my dad." he nodded, and from that moment on we didn't say a whole lot. i wasn't in the mood and he didn't really have any idea what to say. which is why i only stayed for about ten more minutes before escorting myself out of the window and back home to lock myself in my room and stare at the wall again.