Unbroken

Fifteen

Skye

Iwasn’t keen on leaving the house alone anymore.

I was more…aware if that was the right word. I’d peeked the other side of a curtain I didn’t know existed, and I saw a world loaded with cruel intentions.

I didn’t care to go to parties anymore.

I didn’t care about being part of any crowd at school.

I didn’t even mind the swirling rumours of me hopping from Leo to Hunter—apparently, because we weren’t a trio in the open, it meant I was screwing them both. Honestly, what in the hell?

I wanted to hide inside myself, never let someone come close to me. I felt suspicious of everyone. Even cars spooked me when they rode too close to me on the road.

Even with Mrs Itani altered and gone, I never stopped feeling like there were eyes on me, following me everywhere I went.

I spent Winter Break in my bedroom, listening to dark songs. I couldn’t handle the sweet stuff anymore. It felt too trivial, too fake, too childish. I felt my personality beginning to shift. Felt the desire to be private override my desire to experience events in the open.

Here, in my bedroom, nobody could hurt me.

But I still felt a pang in my chest.

I missed my boys.

Hunter’s attendance at school was non-existent. His life orbited his workplace. He wasn’t at the mail courier place anymore. He was going down the route of taking up a mechanical trade and was gaining experience as an attendant to one of the garages in town. He was seeking an apprenticeship. He said it was boring stuff, but it paid something and helped spruce up his home where he solely looked after his mother.

If anyone was more recluse than I was being, it was Mrs Dawes for sure. I hadn’t seen that woman in the flesh in over a year. She was pretty and slight, had Hunter’s dark eyes and hair. But she was empty. One look at her and you just knew she was weighed down by unspeakable demons. Hunter said she took it out on pain medication, locked inside her bedroom, watching old movie classics on repeat. It wasn’t so bad, he consoled me. She had Onyx, her ancient black cat that never left her side. He said two of them belonged together, loved each other, and at the end of the day, if she was sitting in bed next to the love of her life—Onyx—what better way to spend it?

I’d get a cat if I could—or even a dog. An animal was incapable of deception. An animal I could trust blindly. But Mom claimed she was allergic to animals (I was positive she was full of shit) and Kurt said the only animal he ever wanted was one he could eat.

Anyway, it was the last day of Winter Break, school was in two days, and I’d fallen asleep to a sad melody, the headphones half hanging from my ears. The covers had slipped off sometime in the night, and I’d wound up shivering in my bed, grabbing for them. It had fallen off the bed, so I turned to my side and reached out for it, cracking my eyes open when I couldn’t find it straightaway.

It was unusually cold in the room, and I could feel a subtle breeze coming from the window. Stretching out, I grunted, brushing my hand along the floor, twisting my head to the window because I was certain I hadn’t left it open—

A giant figure was sitting below my windowsill, unmoving.

I yelped in shock before I fell off the bed and on the sore side of my body. Even two months after leaping out of that car, I felt painful twinges throughout my body, particularly the hematoma that took forever to go away.

The air knocked out of me, and I groaned pitifully into the floor before twisting around and crawling over to the window.

“What the hell, Hunt,” I wheezed out. “What did I say about sneaking into my room in the middle of the night?”

Hunter smelled like the forest did on a rainy day. Tonight that scent was mixed in with sweat, fuel and a tinge of metal. I assumed he had come straight here after working at the garage.

He was strangely quiet, his movements only slight as I sat back next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. We said nothing for a while, but it was starting to get cold, and I needed to know why he was here all of a sudden; it had been a long time since he had climbed through my window, I was beginning to think that part of our lives was over.

He beat me to it.

“There’s something wrong with me,” he whispered sadly.

I leaned forward to get a look at him. It was hard to see every detail in the dark, but I saw enough. Some of his hair was over his face, covering his eyes. His lips were pulled down in a heavy frown. He had definitely come from the garage because he was in his grey work overalls.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked him, heart clenching because I just knew something was wrong.

“Everything,” he answered. “I’m sick. I think…I’m really sick, Skye.”

“What’s hurting?”