Unbroken

How was he expected to switch off?

How could he detach the way they did?

Did his father think he could torment him to numbness? Was that how it had to be done? Did this need to become his norm?

The tears dried, and he sniffed back his emotion, swallowing the bile and disgust down to that turbulent storm inside him. Switch off,he told himself.Fix the issue inside you.Fix it.Then he stood up, washed his mouth and face, avoiding the mirror so he could not see his pale complexion.

The dark edges weren’t going away. Everywhere he looked, he saw it, bordering his vision. He was tainted now. Dirty. Blackening like the rest of the sick monsters in his world.

He stilled, blinking, as he felt a coldness run through him. It reminded him when he was sick in hospital and was injected fluids through an IV. His eyes trailed his arms where he felt the coldness zip along. He felt it in his chest, travelling to his turbulent stomach, ushering away that storm that only mere seconds ago threatened to ravage him.

Something within Leo detached.

“He’s trying to break me apart,” he whispered to himself, his blue eyes misted as he finally stared at himself in the mirror. His father wanted Leo to shatter, to be a million little pieces so he could throw them away. George would make him watch every fucking piece of him scatter in the wind, until there was nothing left.

Until he was morethingthan feeling.

Until he was one ofthem.