It all started with a game

Chapter 17

My eyes started to water and I was suddenly very thankful for the sunglasses. My voice matched my emotions, the sentence barely even understandable. "I used to be beautiful."

"You are still beautiful," Klaus assured me but he was my brother, he had to say that.

"No one even notices the scars," Sonny lied poorly.

Sonny noticed them, he always has. He'll never admit it, but he notices them, and they scare him. He won't sit on the left side of me anymore; if I wear shorts sleeves, he'll avoid eye contact; and he won't touch them under any circumstances, not even if I accidentally run into him in the hall. I know he loves me to death, and he's gotten better over the years, but they're hard to look at, it's hard for anyone to look at; I get that. But with that being said, how am I supposed to face Ryder after he's seen all of it?

"I don't want to talk about this." I closed my eyes, turning my body away from them to signal that the conversation was over and yet I couldn't keep myself from playing with the ring on my finger.

My phone pinged just as we pulled into the driveway. I picked it up, trying to use facial ID to open it. Klaus snatched it out of my hand before I could. "The doctor said no phones."

"But what if it's important?" I pleaded.

"Then one of us can read it off for you."

I grumbled, waiting for one of them to inform me on the contents of my cell phone. Klaus parked before reading it off. "It's from Ryder, he said 'Beatrice please'. Do you want to reply?" He asked even though he already knew the answer.

My chest aches but I stuck to my gut. I grabbed my phone back. "No." I took a breath, shoving all my unwanted emotions down as deep as they could go.

I was the first one to go inside, trying to put my mind on something else. Walking back into our house after three days was a strange feeling but seeing the mess I'd made in the kitchen, which still lingered as no one had been home to clean up, was a whole other feeling.

I stared at the broken glass, wood chips and dried blood that covered the floor. The cabinet was keeping itself together about as well as I was, pieces missing and only held in place by gravity. I had tried to catch myself by grabbing onto the cabinet. That was the result. Laying dead center of all of the mess, surrounded by a perfect ring of space around it like everything was too scared to touch for fear of getting tainted by its darkness. It was infuriating. Why did it get to be the only thing that didn't get destroyed? It's not fair.

My hands began to shake in rage, the blood pounding in my ears.

I picked the book up off the floor, slamming it onto the countertop before tearing each page out, crumpling it up, and throwing it on the floor.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It ruined everything. It was the reason I'd fallen, the reason I was in the hospital. It was the reason Ryder had seen, the reason I had to get more stitches. It was the reason we had to keep moving. It was the reason we could never feel safe in our own homes. It was the reason Sonny dyed his hair. He was the reason it was here and he was the reason I looked like this. He was the reason.

I tore out each and every page out of the book, ripping them to shreds before mutilating the cover. I threw chunks of the book at my brothers for them to join in. I didn't have to ask them twice before they helped me on my madness until there was nothing left of the book but ashes.

I picked up the shredded remains, the gate opening, every emotion flooding back in and before I could stop it, I was sobbing and collapsing to the floor. My brothers caught me before I could hit the ground.

It's not fair.

My brothers let me cry, holding me up while I cried for everything, tears of anger, of sadness, pain everything.

We slept in Klaus's room that night, the three of us piled together on Klaus's bed, Klaus and I shoulder to shoulder with Sonny draped across our legs.

I let out a long breath. "I'm ugly." I filled the silence with my words.

They knew exactly how to reply. Klaus went first. "I'm weak."

Sonny went last. "I'm gay."

We let our words hang in the air, floating around us like constant reminders. It was a tradition, we always did it, right before bed, we'd tell each other our biggest insecurities like we could sum all of our problems down to a single root.

I missed the days when my biggest insecurity was how bad at math I was, or when Klaus's was that he didn't know how to play football, or when Sonny's was that he was color blind. Those things seem so simple now, I'd kill to have those seem like the worst things in the entire world again.

A/N
Hi lovies!!
First off thank you so much for 1k comments, it means the world to me.

What did you guys think?

I'm not a huge fan of this chapter, it was a bit hard to write but I'm hoping the next chapter will be good. I have high hopes for it.

Random question of the day: what is yours guy's favorite number?

Lots of love,
Rachelle <3