The Cover-Up [1]

(Malory)

A quick glimpse of a familiar pair of black boots blesses my sight as I stumble backwards and I almost suffocate from relief rather than from the panic of being stifled. I swing my other elbow –the one that isn’t throbbing- back to hit the clown in his stomach and he releases me with a groan. He clutches his abdomen. I turn to him, furious.

“What are you!? A lunatic!?”

He hushes me aggressively as he surveys the house from one end to the next, frantic. He becomes somewhat small for a moment, and then he turns to me and glares like I’ve committed a grave crime. He walks past me –gripping tightly to my wrist in the process- and pulling me quickly to a small cleaning closet at the side of the house. It’s so small and so filled with cleaning tools that barely anyone can fit inside it without interfering with anything by accident, but he manages to fit us both anyway. He stands just a foot’s distance in front of me in the crammed space. I fall into an uncomfortable sort of shock.

I open my mouth to yell at him but before I could, Kyle puts a finger over his lips to shut me up. I squint at him in disbelief. He keeps his index finger over his lips.

Wait... are they swollen?

I can’t quite tell... my eyes have gone blurry all of a sudden.

He listens for any abrasive sounds. Hearing nothing, he moves his finger. He stares me dead in the eyes. I can see the anger welling up. I can feel it. I expect him to start yelling at me. I start planning to yell at him. Instead, he whispers. Something tells me sound travels easily around here.

“Are you out of your mind?” He whisper-yells, “No, screw that, you are out of your mind! What on God’s green earth possessed you to come here, Lloyd? How did you even find me?”

“I’m the one who’s out of my mind?” I defend. “You went M.I.A for a whole week! Everyone’s worried to death. Ron’s nauseous and on the verge of having a heart attack. He’s worried, you’re not replying to him, you’re not coming to school, the teachers are having a fit, Mrs Bev and the drama teachers are going ballistic, and you’ve got an enormous purple bruise that needs an explanation. I’m not leaving here without one, Kyle.” I scoff, observing the cleaning closet and suddenly feeling completely out of breath. “And why are we in a cleaning closet? Why are we whispering? What’s with all the madness?”

I blink a few times while trying to compose myself; regain my sanity, straighten my posture, and actually process everything that had just happened in the last two minutes.

I look up at Kyle and finally see what I’ve been too hot-headed to see before. His hair hangs messily over his face as always. His lips are swollen –and he’s taken off the pair of black snakebites from his bottom lip. The purple bruise has gotten worse –spreading over slightly more skin than it had the first time I’d seen it... or maybe it’s just that I hadn’t seen how badly it was the first time.

He stares at me for two seconds before looking away. He refuses to meet my eyes. He inhales sharply and looks at the ceiling –the wall –the mop –anything but me.

He swallows, and with a breaking voice he says, “You need to leave. Now.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on-”

“-GodDAMNIT, Malory! For once in your life!” Kyle’s hands grip to both my arms so tightly I can feel his nails digging into my skin. He shakes me aggressively as he speaks. He’s no longer regarding the thought of whispering. His eyes lock onto mine, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen Kyle genuinely afraid instead of angry. My heart skips a beat –maybe two –maybe three –and he continues after a note of silence, shaking me less aggressively and more intently, more determined. “For once in your life just... listen to me.”

Then I see something I never thought I’d ever see –Kyle Davidson on the verge of tears.

Kyle is on the verge of tears.

His sad cognac eyes are welling up with salt water. Why is he being so... vulnerable?

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to feel. I lower my head to stare at my feet and my eyes go blurry. I don’t want to raise my voice. I don’t know what would happen if I do.

“I... I’m sorry...” I say, slowly.

His hands loosen from around my arms but he doesn’t let go. I feel a slight sting where some of his nails had cut through my skin. I don’t budge, though, and I don’t dare to look up at him. Even without looking his way, I could still feel his gaze on me.

“Were you really that worried? About me?” He asks, uncertain, doubtful.

Yes, you dumb, red-brick blockhead! Yes!

I shoot him a glare and furrow my brows, clenching my fists at my sides. I keep my voice low. “Judging from the look of things, Kyle,” I finally find the courage to look up at him, my voice riddling with concern, “Do I not have a reason to be?”

He finally releases me. “This is none of your business. Stay out of it. Do you really want to get involved in this situation?” He points to his face, wheezing out a single, pathetic, breathy laugh and forcing a half-hearted smile. “Look at me. Tell me the truth.”

I don’t even know how I could find the stomach to look at him. The poor boy looks like he’d had the life beaten out of him.

But who the hell would do such a terrible thing?

Kyle and I may not be friends but I wouldn’t wish this kind of disaster on my worst enemy. I’m just not that kind of person.

I shouldn’t feel sorry for Kyle. Kyle put me through Hell.

But I do. Something inside me urges me to.

“...I... I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m... regretting a lot just looking at you,” I say, swallowing tightly. “And even if you leave me without an explanation, I’m going to think some horrible things about this and I’m still going to try to find a way to fix it.”

Kyle face goes expressionless, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of mine. “I’m not your problem to solve, Lloyd. You can’t fix something like this.”

My fists are tightening so much that my hands start to shake. It’s been so long since I’ve felt like my anxiety was bubbling over. I’ve done such a good job at keeping myself together...but this? This is about to break me.

“Who did this?” I ask, my voice trembling but stern. “Was it... your uncle?”

He doesn’t even reply. He looks away. He sniffles. He shifts on his feet. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his black hoodie. Then he looks at me and shrugs.

“What do you care, anyway?” He asks. “You throw punches at me all the time. We hit each other all the time. This isn’t something new.”

Suddenly I feel like the lowest being on the planet. Not even human. Not even an animal. Not a thing at all. What the hell am I? I’m not worthy of existing. I start to feel myself caving in. My breaths quicken. My eyes are going blurry again. I can feel myself about to faint.

“Can we... can we get out of this room?” I whisper. “I’m finding it extremely hard to breathe right now. And I don’t know how to process this. Look at you, Kyle. God, it makes me sick to think we’ve been demonising each other while you’ve had to deal with this. How long has this been happening? Tell me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kyle spits. “It won’t matter in a few days or weeks or months.”

That honestly hurt.

I understand that he doesn’t trust me. We never got along... but the moment something was genuinely wrong with Kyle I’d managed to disregard every reason I was ever mean to him and every instance when he was ever mean to me. The moment he said he was used to it I... I just... I don’t know.

There isn’t something worse than a dark, untold secret. This one in particular, whether it was a fight or his uncle, was a dark secret that he obviously didn’t want being gossiped about at school.

Who would want to walk into the school compound with such a big bruise on their face anyway?

Something inside me stirs and begs me to help him.

“Kyle, please... we have to talk about this...” I beg.

“Why?” He asks, suddenly. “So you can rub it in my face when we’re both in a good mood? You nag so much, Lloyd. It’s annoying. I don’t want to talk about it.”

A moment of silence passes between us. I can’t take my eyes away from him. He’d obviously been crying before I arrived. There are trails of almost-dried tear channels streaming down his face, and his eyes are red. His unusually pale face is flushed, and the awful colours of the bruise make him look sick. I almost cringe, but I can’t make him feel any worse about the situation. I don’t have the guts to do that.

He doesn’t want to talk about it.

But not talking about it won’t do him any good.

“Fine,” I say, unclenching my fists. I turn the door knob and open the closet, stepping outside. I turn back to look at him. He just stands there staring at the wall. He doesn’t even show the slightest interest in watching me leave.

He lowers his head and shakes it, chuckling humourlessly. Maybe he thinks I’m going to tell the whole world about his secrets. I guess there really is a lot that he doesn’t know about me.

I bite my lip, inhale deeply, and exhale sharply. “I... I won’t tell anyone.” His face shoots towards me at that. “I won’t say what’s going on... yet. I’ll... tell Ron and Olivia you’re fine. Is that what you want me to say?”

What am I doing?

A boy was clearly beaten up!

I should be reporting this to the authorities!

His face becomes less tense. “You didn’t... tell anyone? The last time?”

The last time? When I’d first seen the bruise? Psh, of course Davidson would think I’d talk about that. Because I’m obviously dumb enough to go shouting out people’s flaws to the universe.

Grow up, Kyle Davidson.

I know that I told Katy about it, but Katy is the quietest person in the world. She wouldn’t spill a decibel to a soul.

“No,” I say. “I didn’t.”

I turn on my toes when I lose sight of him and I run off –out of the gate and straight to the entrance of the compound.