When I'm With Them, I'm Free

Chapter Thirteen: Love Can Make You Cowardly

Running away from your problems was the coward's way out, but at that moment, it was your only choice.

What would there have been for you to say? For you to do? You couldn't talk to him, unable to move your lips or form coherent sentences. Although, even if it was possible, and cotton wasn't clogged in your throat, what would've fallen from quivering lips? The truth? Lies? Anyway, what was the truth?

Was it the feelings you undoubtedly experienced around him? The ones you pushed to suppress? Or maybe it was turmoil you felt at his sight? Was it possible he was the reason for the painful simmers in his stomach? All of it originating from your father? Was Shoto some sort of catalyst for your father's abuse?

Questions were heavy on your mind, far too many at that. All of which swirled around in a vibrating manner, a pulsating feeling triggering the worst of a migraine. You weren't sure you'd be able to suffer through the pains of a headache at the moment, still struggling to trudge yourself to the haven you called the bathroom, and unable to catch your shaky breath.

Once your body and palms met with the large door, however, you were able to breathe again. It was as if the air surrounding was toxic, poisonous, and somehow the damned bathroom was your only escape; one for peace and a moment to settle in your jitters. It was ironic enough to make a chuckle grow in the deep of your throat, but such a sound never left its spot. It stayed there, silent and unreleased.

When your fingers curled around the edges of the sink, your eyes raked over your face through the mirror. Your face was nothing less than a mess, wet with tears, splotchy with discoloration of crying on your skin, and lips cracked in the worst possible way. Your tongue swept at your dry mouth, some of your fallen tears being smeared across your face and sucked into your tongue.

You sniffled, blinking and breathing mechanically in hopes the control over your cries would provide at least some relief. Maybe it would help bring you back? Help you gain the rest of the control you lost over the last eight minutes; the loss of your power starting from the moment anger in Shoto's stares grew heavy in your chest cavity.

Perhaps the muscle control would help you calm down quicker, knowing there was at least something you could control. Afterall, Shoto's confession wasn't one of those things, and neither was the blush across his face, the way his breathing seemed abnormal, nervous, the way his eyes struggled to find a target or even the way those same eyes would flick around your face, curious and childlike, searching for something. And maybe it would even help disperse the thoughts that lived eagerly in your mind; thoughts solely around topics you hated, or at least topics you wanted to hate. After all, truly hating something and wanting to hate something, forcing yourself to hate something were completely different things, and you acted like you didn't know the difference like there wasn't one at all.

Thoughts like your mother, her spilling organs covered in the red of love. Thoughts like your fate ending with the same weapon your mothers did; those were all thoughts you really did hate. But the thoughts that surrounded Shoto, the ones that were filled with hopes, dreams, and desires you convinced yourself weren't there, were all thoughts you pretended you hated. You didn't actually hate them, that was obvious enough because if you truly did hate them, your heart wouldn't rush with the same feelings it did; the sparkling feelings, the drumming feelings of fingers against your stomach, the quick, fatal-feeling squeezes of your heart.

Those feeling-filled thoughts were the ones you acted like you hated the most, but you knew deep down that wasn't true. Late at night when you would imagine his hand cradling your own—perhaps your fingers were laced, or maybe they weren't because they were far too busy fumbling with your own fingers—or when you'd create a reality where gently threading your fingers through Shoto's dual-colored hair in a fumbling, bored manner was okay, that's he'd accept the affection.