He's a Keeper (Narry AU)

Forty-Five

Words: 2811

I stumbled into the bathroom after a long night of barely getting any sleep. A lovely bruise on my left side and a cut on my right cheek, right beneath my eye kept me awake for most of the night. If it wasn't the pain, it were the thoughts of what to tell my mother or friends the next day when they noticed I wasn't feeling all too well.

The warm water of the shower was soothing to my sore body. I closed my eyes and thought about everything for a minute. I don't know if it's only me, but the shower seems to be the place where I plan out my whole day and think about life decisions.

What if I would tell someone about Jack? What would happen?

I didn't want to believe they would actually kill someone if that was the case. There was a slight chance they would find out I even told someone, and if they did all they could do was either lie or get their revenge on me. But for all I know, they could easily disappear.

Deciding to not ponder about it any longer, I finished my shower and grabbed a towel from the towel rack. While drying myself off, I looked into the mirror, taking in my appearance. The blue-yellow-ish bruise on my side wasn't all too noticeable, only if you really took a look at it. But that doesn't take away the pain.

My eyes traveled up my body, but stopped right above my nipple on the left side of my chest where the permanent scar of a cigarette burn was. The burning pain was long gone and even the sore feeling in the spot had disappeared, but the memory of being burned was still present in the back of my mind. I knew that if my mother would see this scar, lying wouldn't work. She knows me just a little too well to know that I would never smoke.

After lingering my eyes on the burn mark for a few minutes, I went to my face. Luckily nothing much happened to it. A small scar was on my cheek, but that was it. It didn't hurt neither did I feel the presence of it.

Having enough of watching my own reflection in the mirror, I got dressed and styled my hair quickly before walking down the stairs and into the kitchen.

It was still quite early and my mother wasn't even downstairs yet, which meant it must have been before 8 a.m.

I opened the fridge and grabbed a mini Starbucks iced coffee. As I was drinking my iced coffee, I heard the stairs creak, signing my mother would be awake. To my biggest surprise it wasn't my mother walking down the stairs. Just as surprised as I was, Daniel looked at me with wide eyes before recovering and clearing his throat. "Good morning, kid," he said, walking past me and ruffling my hair a bit.

I don't like you, anymore.

My eyebrow raised and I followed him with my head as he walked up to the fridge and began searching for whatever the hell he needed. Once I saw him getting the butter ready and grabbing some eggs, I knew he was going to either make himself breakfast or breakfast for my mother.

As he noticed I was still staring at him, he stopped in his tracks and smiled at me. "How was your night?" he asked me, trying to get into a conversation with me.

I cleared my own throat and shrugged. "Was alright," I answered. It felt extremely awkward, talking to the -what seemed to be- boyfriend of my mom. I didn't know Daniel that well just yet. We've seen each other a few times, but other than "hey" and "how are you" we barely spoke to each other.

Daniel tried to have a longer conversation with me, but I honestly wasn't in the mood for that. It's not that I dislike him or something, I was just not in the mood to talk to anyone really. Besides, he was only wearing sweatpants which made this whole situation even more uncomfortable.

Luckily, my mother walked into the kitchen herself not very much longer after Daniel. She smiled at me and planted a kiss on my cheek before walking over to Daniel and doing the same.