Beaten In Lips - [boyxboy]

〔ten〕

It's been a month since I've been at the orphanage, and honestly, I was slowly beginning to like it and hate it at the same time. There was maybe a few times where I cried myself to sleep and hated myself for it later. I had gotten so freaking emotional while being here. This place had broken down my rock hard demeanor and now I was some emotional little ginger fifteen year old.

Kellin and I had became, I guess you could say, best friends. In fact, I was becoming closer to the rest of the guys along with Lynn and Tay. They were weird idiots and I found myself liking them all, especially Austin. Something about him made me feel calm and I wanted to be around him more and more. It was almost sickening.

Now I was sitting in class, staring at the board while the English teacher talked. She was so boring, I swear. A lot of the class was drooling while they slept and Kellin looked like he was going to fall out at any given moment. The bell was going to ring in fifteen minutes and it couldn't come any slower.

"Now, when writing-" the classroom door opened and the Secretary stepped it with a note in her hand. Her heels clicked against the floor as she walked over to the teacher, handing over the piece of paper before leaving again, quietly closing the door.

"Mr. Ashby, you're needed in the office." She said, I groaned internally but silently thanked whatever was happening for getting me out of class. I gathered my things and left out, heading down the hallway until I reached the office. It was so sad in here.

"In the counselors office." The Secretary told me. I opened up the door and walked inside.

"Hey kiddo." It was Sergeant McKinnon and beside him was a woman in a pants suit. She had very short dark hair and piercing black eyes along with a warm smile.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I'm on break now and your social worker came by the department today. She stopped by the orphanage earlier and you weren't there, told her you were at school and now here we are." Sergeant McKinnon explained. I nodded slowly and glanced between him and the woman.

"I'm assuming she's the social worker." I said, he nodded and smiled.

"This is Halsey, she's the best in the district." She smiled warmly at me and I tried to do the same.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to Alan alone." She said, Sergeant McKinnon nodded and left the room, but not without ruffling my hair. Sometimes that man could be weird.

"You're fifteen, right?" Halsey asked as the door was closed. I nodded slowly. She smiled brightly again and began to ask questions and talking to me like I was some sort of friend. She seemed really nice and friendly. By the time she was done asking all her questions and talking to me, the bell had rang.

"Oh, right, you've still got classes." She said laughing. I grinned and shrugged. "Anyway, I'll be stopping in again two weeks from now. I would like to speak to Miss McDougall, but that's other business. You can go back to class, that's all that I needed to discuss with you." She added, I nodded and stood up, leaving from the counselors office and going to my next class.

"What was that all about?" Kellin asked as I sat down. I shook my head, not really wanting to explain it.

"Nothing." I mumbled as the bell rang for class to begin.

。。。

I was sitting on the floor in front of the closest, going through my clothes to find something warm to wear. T-shirts weren't something I could continue to wear throughout the winter without getting sick. There were only a few sweatshirts in here that I actually did like, the rest were old and scratchy and something I had gotten because I was in desperate need to cover up the bruises on my arms. It didn't matter if it were one hundred degrees outside, if I had questionable bruises somewhere visible on my body to the world, I hid it with a jacket or sweatshirt.

Everyone else was downstairs watching t.v. considering tomorrow was the weekend and they could be down there for as long as they wanted. I didn't feel like joining them, I felt like I needed to be off in my own little world for some time. I don't even know why I was sitting on the floor in front of the closet, going through my clothes, I didn't know why I was torturing myself with the thoughts as I pulled out each piece of clothing and looked at, remembering certain times when I had gotten a little blood of one part of one of these. I didn't understand myself sometimes, I wanted the haunting memories to go away, to bother someone else, but yet, the smallest of things remind me of what had happened in that house and I remember that they will never go away, no matter how hard I try to make them to.

Deep within my own thoughts I didn't even hear when Miss McDougall came into the room, tapping against the doorway many times to get my attention. When I finally looked over at her, she smiled warmly.

"You've got someone who wants to see you in the kitchen." She said.

"Let me, it's Sergeant McKinnon?" I asked, she just gave me a shrug and left out of the room. I sighed loudly and stood up from the floor, heading downstairs and into the kitchen where Sergeant McKinnon was at.

Only, he wasn't alone, it was him, Halsey and-

"Mom?"