Unbroken

Eighteen

Hunter

Skye’s place was quiet.

He lingered in the cold, blending into the night, staring at her dark window, wondering if she was okay.

Usually, at this time, her mom would be out talking shit to a neighbour, smoking her cigarettes. Hunter learned a lot about the trailer park politics, and Skye’s mother was at the heart of it, stirring shit.

He sat in the bushes; his tall body awkwardly folded, unable to tear his eyes from her window. Waiting. He was aware how insane he might have looked sitting there, peering intently at a girl’s window, waiting for signs of her. To an outsider he looked like a creeper for sure. It was why he had to be extra quiet and still. He didn’t want to attract anyone’s attention, even if the cold drove everyone inside their little homes.

Perhaps it was too soon for him to show up here—he’d only dived out of her window that very morning, but he wanted to see if she was okay. Wanted to know that Kurt hadn’t been too hard on her. Thank fuck he had gone to work.

Loud voices erupted.

He tensed when he caught Skye’s distressed voice.

Without waiting, his body jerked forward and out of the bushes. He moved along the side of her house, stopping by the kitchen window.

“Would you just stop talking about it!” she cried in defeat. “You’ve been at it for hours, I get it, okay!I get it!”

“You get it, but you don’t stop!” her mother, Maddie, retorted. “Even now, after all we’ve said, you haven’t once apologized to me—”

“I have nothing to be sorry for!”

“He was NAKED in your bed, Skye—”

“NOTHING HAPPENED!” Skye screamed.

Hunter’s body flushed with anguish. He pressed his forehead against the light panelling; he wanted to punch a hole into the window and climb in after her. Wanted to tell her mother to leave her the fuck alone.

“If it’s not one boy, it’s the other. You’ve never been normal, Skye, never had healthy relationships. You need to find other friends—”

“They’re my friends, Mom.”

Her mother sighed. “Do you like the attention? Is that why you’re playing them against each other—”

“I would never do that!”

“Be honest with me.”

“I. AM.”

“Admit you like when they fight over you—”

“I don’t, and it’s not like that—”

“Do you love to tease them, Skye—”

“Fuck off!”

Hunter went rigid. He had never heard Skye swear before. Judging by her mother’s silence, she was shocked too. But then she replied in an icy tone that even made Hunter’s chest tighten with anger, “You’re lucky Kurt isn’t here to witness you behaving like a little bitch.”

Skye didn’t respond, and this time Hunter edged closer to the window, peering in. They weren’t in the kitchen, but a little ways off between the living room and the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Skye’s mother was standing in the centre of the hallway, arm out, blocking Skye from her bedroom. She was a tall woman, and she peered down at Skye with a scathing look on her face.

“I’m disgusted by your behaviour,” she told Skye. “I don’t know what to even think of you. I’ve never seen a girl play around with two boys the way you have. For what reason, Skye? Do you want them to fight each other? Do you like when they get jealous—”

“Move,” Skye cut in, shaking as she stood before her.