Hopelessly Broken

17. Hope

2.24.20

Jack's POV

I woke up on the couch to see that the room was still dark. I checked my phone to see that it was almost 4am, and I had to wonder why I woke up feeling heavier than usual. I stood up from the couch and used my phone light to go into my bedroom, but I was shocked to find that Devon wasn't there. I felt seriously concerned, but I was tired enough that I ended up climbing into my bed and falling asleep anyways.

***

My alarm went off at 5:30 as it usually did, and I wandered into my bathroom to begin my morning routine. I don't look this awesome just by waking up, that's for sure. After forcing my black hair to be tame and making sure that my breath wouldn't smell like shit, I went into my bedroom to get dressed.

As my shirt went over my head, I heard some really loud shouting from the kitchen. I couldn't make out words, but it sounded really serious. I pulled my pants on swiftly so that I could check out what my beautiful parents were shouting about.

I wandered into the kitchen only a few minutes earlier than I usually would, but neither of my parents seemed to notice since they were busy chewing each other out. "What has y'all's panties in a bunch?" I asked which successfully stopped their argument for a few moments.

"Your father kic–"

"She's mad because I was protecting my family!"

"You didn't have to go that far, Lincoln!"

"Yes I did he hurt you!"

"I hurt me, he was clearly just unstable and I took advantage of it!"

"Will someone please just tell me what's going on! I need to catch the bus!" I inserted.

"Your father kicked Devon out!" my mother shouted before my father could stop her. "He sent him back to the orphanage."

I froze. They did what? After I spent so long trying to convince him that none of this was his fault? "Y-you... What?" I murmured trying to remain calm and composed.

"I sent Devon back where he came from because he's hurt this family too much after everything we've done for him," my father declared.

"That wasn't... That was... That was absolutely the worst reaction you could have done to him!" I screamed. "He was absolutely unstable, and you just kicked him to the curve? Send him to therapy or something, don't do this! I'm pretty sure that he has some serious self-destructive tendencies, and this is certainly not the way to help him handle them! God, you can be so dense sometimes!"

"You can't speak to me like that! Get your ass to school right now!"

I stormed out of the house in an extremely angry stupor. How could my father even consider doing something this serious? Now I have to go play damage control like I always do!

When I got to school, I found Devon mingling intensely with my friends, and he was ignoring Blake who kept trying to talk to him. The way he was acting now was exactly what I had been trying to avoid; he's become me!

I tried to rejoin my friend group, but one of the people who I had considered a close friend turned to me and said, "Go away, Jack. You've changed, and we don't like it. You're no longer welcome to sit with us at lunch."

I gasped quietly, and for only a few seconds, my gaze met Devon's. The was his face looked... It was scarily emotionless. "Right, okay," I murmured and walked away from the group. As I was walking away, I felt Blake catch up to me and begin walking beside me.

"Do you know what happened to my best friend?" he asked sadly.

"My father happened," I admitted. "He's becoming like me, Blake! I don't know what to do!"

"I don't know either, Jack. I don't like the look in his eyes. He just looks really dead."

"He's holding in his emotions. My dad kicked him out for having some pretty serious instability in emotion. I'd imagine he's blaming them for his misfortune, and I'd also imagine that he's hanging around the popular people to feel better about himself."

"And how do we fix that?" Suddenly, the bell rang, and it cut our conversation off. "I'll figure out what's wrong with him over first block and get back to you."

"Alright," I replied before going to my class. Damnit, Dev, there's a better way than this! I'm seriously going to kill my father for this.

***

It was the end of the day when I was finally able to catch Devon from leaving school. I dragged him behind the school before he could recover enough from the shock to run away and pushed him against the brick wall using my forearm.

He tried to fight out of my grip, but when his eyes scanned my face, he stopped. "Why do you have me against a brick wall?" he spat. Devon's fists were clenching and unclenching themselves in a way that made me feel very nervous.

"There is a better way to handle yourself than just hiding your emotions in your head," I responded gently.

"Really? 'Cause I haven't seen one in a long time. Every time I act on my emotions, I get hurt, so I've decided to stop acting on them," he shot back while trying to surge out of my grip once more. I searched deeply into his facial features to see if there was any way I could convince him to listen to me. I wandered into the icy blue of his eyes, and I found myself being sucked in slightly. I could see a lot in them, and that gave me hope that he still felt a little bit. I'm not too late.

"Listen to me, Dev. You haven't done anything wrong."

"How do you know that, hm? You think you know me, but you don't. Face it, Jack, you don't know a single fucking thing about me!"

"Give me 2 hours to assure you that I do," I bargained. Two hours, that's all I need. Well... all I need to help him. There's a lot I need for myself. Maybe for my father to politely remove the stick from his arse and stop pushing people away for doing nothing. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. I can't tell how many times he has pushed away friends or girlfriends since my sister died. I think that he's just scared deep down that he's going to hurt someone else like he thinks he hurt my sister.

"Oh, yeah? What are you going to do with two hours? I can't go in your house without getting my head chopped off."

"Simple. I'm going to take you to my house anyways and my dad can hop off of my dick for once."

"Fine... Two hours, that's it."