Breaking Boundaries •jb•

38; Scratching the Surface

"I just don't want her to feel that I'd hurt her in the future...intentionally or not,"

Hazel's POV:

"Honey," I heard my grandma say, my head feeling heavy on my shoulders as I lifted it to meet her gaze, a soft frown washing over her features.

"Yeah," I asked quietly, twisting the rings on my fingers and then abruptly stopping when I realised what they had caused.

"You okay?" She asked and I immediately shrugged even though both of us knew I was far from it. "Hazel," She coaxed softly and I shrugged again in response hearing her sigh as the familiar need to cry crept up on me.

I swallowed painfully, a thick lump of emotion blocking my throat of any sort of speech to develop as she sat down at the dining table with me which was something new for the past forty eight hours since I'd locked myself up in my room.

"Are you and Justin okay?" She asked, placing her hand on my forearm gently and I licked my lips in an attempt to cease the feeling of crying but I failed when I shrugged and my vision blurred over.

"I slapped him," I whimpered, my head hanging low as I squeaked out a breath and I heard her sigh.

"I'm sure you didn't mea-"

"I still did it though," I cried quietly, blinking which in turn produced tears to slip over my cheeks, "I didn't mean to and I wasn't t-thinking," I stammered, finally letting the sob that was caught in my throat escape as I put my head in my hands feeling my grandma rub my arm up and down.

"He probably knows that though," She cooed sympathetically as I cried quietly, sniffling ever so often at the image of the cut on Justin's face...the look of realisation passing over his face which only made me feel ten times worse about the situation. "Did he say anything about it after?"

"I apologised the second after I did and tried to see if he was okay," I hiccupped, sniffling as I tried to control my breathing. "I wasn't even trying to touch the cut but my hand went over it and he pushed me away," I whimpered, the situation that blew way out of proportion blurring behind my eyes painfully before I screwed them shut in an attempt to block the image out of my head.

"Did he hurt you?" She asked in concern, my head lifting up to see her looking at me with a saddened expression because she knew about the situation concerning my dad.

I shook my head and she looked a little better but still had the same concerned look on her face before she spoke up.

"I think he thinks that he did hurt you," She said quietly as I sniffled, wiping away the stray tears as I took in her words. "He came down the stairs looking so distressed and kept on looking from his hands to where he was going constantly," She told me.

"But he didn't hurt me though," I said to her, feeling the need to cry over the fact that this situation had took a turn for the worst, "I didn't have time to tell him that he didn't hurt me because I started crying and h-he...he left," I breathed out, my voice cracking at the last two words. "I tried calling him but it goes straight to voicemail," I whimpered, the thought that we had broken up floating around in my head.

"Does he know about your situation with dad?" She asked and I sniffled, wiping under my eyes with my sleeve and I nodded, letting out a heavy breath, "Perhaps that's why he's ignoring you and being so distraught over it," She said softly, my eyes flickering from looking at her and over to the counter where a big bunch of white and pink peonies sat in a glass vase, a gift from my granddad to my grandma. "Maybe he doesn't want you to go through the same thing and pushing you in his head was you going through what you happened with your dad all over again," She told me, her voice gentle and sympathetic as she tucked a piece of hair behind my ear.