Chapter 9

When I wake up this morning I am in my room. I thought it was a dream, but where is Caden?

I start to walk downstairs while rubbing my eyes from how tired I was the night before and I look to the living room, and I see a sleeping body in a blanket on the couch.

Caden looks at peace like it's the first time he is having a decent rest in a long time. I don't wake him up as he needs this sleep.

I walk to the kitchen to get breakfast and I hear some bowls and plates moving around and I turn the corner to see a little boy trying to get his cereal on top of the counter.

I rush over to go and get him down, but he jumps and as he jumps onto me, I fall with him and then we both look at each other and laugh. "Are you okay buddy?"

"I'm okay Lala are you" he continues to giggle. We are still on the floor, and we hear a voice. "Well, isn't this a sight to wake up to in the morning" I can hear the amusement dripping from his voice.

Then I look above me and see Brody and his smile, a smile I would know anywhere. It is his cheeky smile; I get what he is silently smiling to me, and we stand up and we look at each other and then at Caden scarily in sync.

We start stalking towards him and then Caden finally understands our idea and he runs back to the living room and then Brody runs a marathon trying to catch up to him while I am not far behind and they both fall on the couch and then I join in trying to tickle Caden and all I hear for the next few minutes is laughter, I haven't heard such beautiful sounds and felt like everything is okay in such a long time.

I pull back and I see the smile on both their faces and then I realise that the laughter has stopped, and they are both lying down with Brody still on top of Caden and they are both hugging. I am holding in the biggest awe because I don't want to ruin the moment, I wish it could be like this every day.

I look back to Caden and his focus is on me and then I see him do a big smile, the biggest he has ever given me, and I return it and I want to keep looking at his smile but then I remember his bruises on his face as I notice them, what would have happened if he didn't show up here last night?

What if he had nowhere else to go?

Who gave him these bruises?

I inspect his face and I notice his eye and lips have healed lightly and they are more clean than last night, but they still look painful. He notices me worrying and I immediately see him move into a sitting position while holding Brody and then he moves so there is space for me to sit down.

I slowly drag myself to the couch and sit on the right side of Caden and I look at him and Brody. Brody's head is resting on Caden's chest, and he is cuddled up not wanting to part from him.

So, he's your favourite person now huh? I smile to myself.

"You are going to be okay" I look to where the sound came from. I've noticed Caden only thinks of others and thinks nobody cares for him. I guess we have that in common as well.

"it's not us I am worried about. Its you. Are you going to be, okay?" this comment makes his face stunned, I guess he doesn't get that asked often.

I look into his green eyes, and I think to myself how people judge too quickly, how can they judge someone they don't even know?

Caden is a very strong, caring and an amazing individual. It's a shame nobody sees that except me and Brody. I wonder how his family is, I know he froze last time but maybe I could slowly get him to talk about them more as we keep getting to know each other.

"I'll be alright" he looks at me and I can tell he is serious. He most likely will be alright, but I hope that's enough to stop me from thinking the worst.

******

The next day the day goes by just like any other, I've looked around for Caden for so long, but I can't find him, Brody wants to hang out with him after school and I wont object for spending more time with him. Its the end of the day and I decide to go and ask him, but I don't know where he is, so I am wondering down the halls and looking in classrooms and around the library. There is no sign of him anywhere so I am slightly worried, I could have sworn I saw him heading to the gym earlier after lunch.

I guess I can try the gym as Brody has about just over a half hour until I must collect him. I start on my way and as I get there, I hear someone in there and I take a closer look without being seen. I look in and I see him, shirtless and sweaty. I feel my heart race and face get warm; his body is nothing more than godlike. He is strong by how his back is structured and his abs are very defined, I forget who I am just looking at him.

But what did stand out was his face and hands, his hands are hitting the punching bag, I can see his hands are bleeding from how hard he is hitting it. I hear him repeat the same words in distress.

"I am not him!"

"I am not him!" he looks in the mirror and turns and he stares at himself, and I see him raise his arms up and punches his reflection and screams. "I AM NOT HIM!" and he punches where his face is, and it shatters into a million pieces. I am glad nobody is around to see this. He starts to scream in pain, but I don't think its because of the physical cuts on his hand. Its more emotional, I can tell it in his voice. I shove the doors open and run to him and I take him in my arms, and he falls into me, and I pull him to the floor, and he is screaming and crying, he is holding onto me like I could disappear any moment now.

I stroke his hair delicately and we are sitting so close to each other, and he starts to calm down, and his breathing is still rugged but slower than before. He starts to pull away from me and he looks at me and as I try to wipe his eyes, he catches my hands in mid-air and stops them. I look at him confused and we both stare at each other without speaking for a few minutes.

"Why? Why did you speak to me? Why did you help me?" I am getting a sense of dejavu from when he asked me why I helped him with his anxiety attack before.

"Where is this coming from. I helped you because I wanted to" my voice comes out quiet slightly frightened how he is speaking to me

"You pity me, you don't want anything to do with me! How could I have been so stupid!"

"I never pitied you and it hurts you would think that I would do that" we are almost yelling, and we have separated, he is sitting looking up at me and I am standing.

"of course, you pity me! Wanted to make the outsider fit in? I am an outsider for a reason? Stay away from me." Both of our guards up and I can tell they aren't coming down any time soon. My eyes are watering, and he goes blurry in my vision.

"I care about you!" I cry out to him. "WHY!?" he screams at me. I just stare at him in silence, I didn't know I needed a reason to care about someone.

"I don't want you near me, I don't even want to look at you"

"Just tell me what I did, I can fix it"

"you can't do anything or fix it" by this point he has stood up and he is facing me. He comes closer and he looks me dead in the eyes "you know what you did, and I don't want any part of your life or Brody's"

He says it with venom coming from his voice, whispering in a way I flinch away from him, he catches sight of me flinching and he starts walking away. I can take it when he is talking about me but the second, I hear Brody's name I get all my anger I have held inside me come out again.

"You are like a brother to Brody; you gave him happiness and from what I observed you care about him as much as he cares about you. Brody means everything to me, and I thought he meant something to you…" I stop and he just looks ahead of him not moving "…that I meant something to you" I say in a whisper. I am passed the point of watering eyes and I am crying hard.

You don't realise how much someone means to you until they are about to walk away. He is about to look over his shoulder and when he does, I see his face shine from the tears that have fallen but he stops himself and continues to look back ahead and walks through the doors, it slams.

He is gone and he takes a part of my heart with him.

******

I collected Brody from school and on the walk home I never let him go and kept my arm around him the whole time. We arrived home with no trouble, but it started to rain but we didn't get too wet from it.

Now I am sitting in my room, on my bed, silently crying trying not to let Brody hear. After seeing Caden walk away from me I remember why I was so affected by him leaving, dad left when we were young, mum doesn't understand my depression and anxiety. When I was finally at peace I smiled, and then she said "if you were really depressed you wouldn't be smiling" that just angered me more. She doesn't understand how I feel, and I doubt she ever will.

Then I remember the darkest parts, I look at my arm, where the scars once laid, they have healed over now but I can't escape the images of what they once were. It takes me back to a few months ago, I tried explaining to mum what was wrong with me, why I was acting the way I was. But she always brushed me off. This impacted me badly and it made me not be motivated, not caring about anything anymore. Because I am raising Brody on my own, I tried standing up for us many times before, but she didn't think the situation was that bad.

Because raising Brody takes it out on my energy, I don't have time for much else, I didn't have a childhood because dad left, and I was getting yelled at constantly. Now whenever someone raises their voice I cry instantly. I self-harmed before this and because I was so scared to admit what I did, I blamed it on Clara's cat, when reality I was staring at myself in the bathroom of my house. Loathing what I saw, I took mums razor and I saw my tears interfering with my vision and I let them fall, I kept saying to myself,

"No, don't do it" my voice so scared and shaky.

"don't do it" I repeated that sentence more times than I can count but I didn't see the sunlight anymore. I shut my eyes and I couldn't do it. But when I felt the razor blades cut into my left arm on the side avoiding the veins, I wouldn't stop until I saw blood. I saw the blood dripping in the slits, it made me remember I was human, the pain made me feel alive, I investigated that mirror, and I saw the state I was in and the result of my actions. I told myself I would never do that again.

But it got worse when mum pushed me over the edge, I felt so helpless, and that Brody deserved better than the life he has been given. I gave up, but the one person who kept me going was Brody.

I never got close to people because of my trust issues, I would always get scared when someone gave me attention because I would think it was a dare, nobody even gave me a glance. When I was nine, they called me the anxiety girl. I don't think they knew exactly what it was because we were young, but they got the idea. The word anxiety scared me, and they would laugh at how easily I got effected.

I learned to live with it. But because of how bad they were to me I wake up in the middle of the night to their laughter, I guess I was the odd one out. I would stay home and look after Brody instead of going out with friends, not that I had any to go out with. I love reading and I would read when it was break time and they would make fun of me for it, I never knew why.

I think that's why I care about Caden; we are both outsiders in our own way, but we accept each other for it, I thought he did accept me but then he walked away.

I wake up and notice the time. I've been asleep for about two hours, I look to my pillow and notice wet patches, I must have fallen asleep while crying. It wasn't the first time that this has happened, and that made me start crying all over again.

******