Please Don't Be So Shy

Landon

This is so freakin cliché. I know, I know, I'm a terrible person for taking so long to update. I'm really trying to do better, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding motivation to write. I'm reading so many amazing stories with beautifully written chapters, and I just feel like I could never be that good. Like I'm not good enough to be writing, I guess? I know that's a crappy excuse, and a horrible mindset to be in, but I've never exactly been good at being nice to myself.

The scalding hot water beats onto my back, relieving some of my tense muscles and making me sigh. I stare down at the steam billowing around my feet and think about Scott. I wonder if he's grounded. Or hurt. If his mom is still punishing him. What if she did disown him?

She couldn't. But I bet she would. Would she?

I really don't understand what could be running through her head when she walked in on us. I don't understand how the first emotion I saw was hatred. How could she hate something that felt so... right? She has no idea how amazing I was feeling at that moment. I felt wanted. Important. But in a whole other way than I usually feel it. Scott payed attention to my feelings, always making sure I was as comfortable as possibe. He was hesitant and caring. No one has ever made me feel that way. And she was repulsed by us.

I also don't understand why I'm so upset over this. It feels like my long lasting relationship just ended, not a random make-out session. I should just be scared for Scott. But my pain is deeper and I can't place where it's triggered from. Her reaction? Being shoved into a wall? Scott's sadness? The hatred in her eyes? I just can't grasp it.

We haven't know each other for that long anyways. But after thinking about it... yes we have. Since I moved here, a little more than eight years ago. That's about as long as my parents have been married.

I breath in the steam for a bit, then I grab my little blue razor and my raspberry scented shaving cream. I start absent mindedly shaving my stomach, doing the math in my head. If I was just turning eight when my parents got engaged, and we moved when I was ten- I feel a sharp, yet faint, pain and look down.

A tiny nick at the top of my hip bone shines an angry red. I watch as around it pools dark crimson, and just as it forms a small bead, it gets clipped by a drop of water and slides down my leg. Deluded by water, the light pinkish trail makes it all the way down to my ankle, then branches out in the lines of my skin. The lines are precise, pretty, almost, but it brings tears to my eyes at my acceptance to the pain.

I grab my shampoo and slowly massage it into my roots. More thoughts about Scott and his mother, more stabbing aches of grief piercing my entire chest, and then it hits me. My sadness morphs into anger as I think about the bitch, what I would just love to say to her. Horrible scenarios of what could happen if I say these things rush through my thoughts, but I blink back the tears and the images. I'm really going to do this.

~~~

Every organ in my body drops as he and his luminous blue eyes trudge through the large doors of the choir room, his adorably huge feet hardly leaving the ground with each step. Hot, unexpected tears well up in my eyes at the large, purple bruise under his eye. It looks awful, barely starting to heal after a day or two. The edges are just now starting to fade to green and yellow, giving a sickly tint to the otherwise even and pale skin of his face. In addition to the bruise, dark circles sit below his eyes. He looks as though he hasn't slept a wink since we last saw each other.

I jolt from my plastic seat and speedwalk over to him, trying as hard as I can to go as unnoticed as possible. His eyes lock on mine from the opposite side of the room and he picks up his pace towards me, his gaze never leaving mine. The tear in my left eye falls when our chests collide, both of us hugging as much of the other that we could. I discretely wipe away the tear that threatens to fall, snaking my arm over the back of his neck. I can almost smell his devastation mixed with his Old Spice cologne, the emotion simply radiating off of him in waves.