Bruised Knuckles (a Billy Hargrove backstory, Billy x Eddie)

Good Ol' Califonia

California? What even WAS California anymore? It was the only place that reminded the clueless sun kissed blonde of home. The only place that felt like home...But now, he wasn't so sure if California was Heaven or Hell at this point. All the unspeakable and appalling memories that Billy had been dictated to keep all a secret, had been bottled up inside him like a volcano ready to erupt. All these thoughts that cascaded through the troubled little boys mind, but one thought in particular ran through him like a ton of bricks... "Why me?" That was the one thought that William Hargrove asked himself whenever his mother and father had gotten into a remorseless fight, or when his dad reprimanded him for not playing 'tough enough'. Sure, toughness wasn't the real answer, now was it? According to Neil Hargrove, everything was answered with mockery and violence. That was his language. That was all he knew. So that was what Billy answered with too.

All Billy wanted was to feel like he mattered, hell even loved by his dad, but no matter what he did, it never seemed like it was ever enough. Sometimes, he wondered one day if it ever will. For some reason, the word love didn't seem tangible to the male, as if it were a fictional lie being fed to by children's parents. "One day..." Billy whispered softly to himself. "One day, I'll know what it feels like to experience real love...To be cared for by someone that you love..." He affirmed that every night before he went to bed, grasping on the idea that his wish would someday come true, but it never did.

Billy had believed that it was Neil that had drove him and his mother apart...That he was the reason why she left, and surely he was. No matter how much Neil denied it, it was his fault, every part of it. Billy had remembered the day she left, how it all started, which had shattered him into a thousand pieces, like someone bashing their knuckles through a glass mirror. It all began on a summer hot day in August, where the sun kissed blonde was catching some waves at the California shoreline while his mother watched. He loved showing his mother knew tricks on his surf board, and how high up he could go as he rode the waves, but sometimes his mother got anxious. I mean, surely Billy understood why. When he was about 7 he had almost drowned from riding a wave too high, which had caught him off guard causing him to be in the hospital for a few days. Billy's father Neil was unsettled about the situation, taking it all out on his mother, which caused more gruesome fights in the Hargrove household. Once Billy had woken up in the hospital, he had almost forgotten about the reason why he was there, and he insisted on going surfing again, but Neil scolded him, breaking his surf board in half. "You will do no such thing! I'm going to teach you stuff real men do!" Neil chastised to Billy, showing his son his broken surfboard. The thought of not surfing again had depressed Billy, sure it was an accident, but he didn't mind. He was willing to take that chance again, even if his life depended on it.