Love is rich

His

TW: self harm

~Nate~

I respected Tom. I had too. We'd been friends for years now. And that's why I had been so good at keeping up my end of the deal, I hadn't spoken to Evan at all, not a single word.

I had no intention of breaking that promise now, pink-haired Evan was the same Evan as before.

However, before I knew exactly what I was doing, I found myself wondering through Toms house and straight to Evan's room. I'd just gone to get a class of water, that was all. Yet here I was, standing outside knocking on the door.

When I heard no answer I knocked again a little louder. This time I heard a sound come from inside the room. It wasn't a clear 'come in' but it was good enough for me so I swung the door open.

It took me a moment to spot Evan, he was curled up in bed with his back to the rest of the room seemingly unaware of my presence.

Sensing something was wrong I walked over to the bed slowly and knelt down next to him.

"What's wrong?" I asked as softly as possible.

"Nate?" Evan moved away from me, pressing his back to the wall and furiously wiping at his eyes and nose.

"Evan what's wrong?" I asked again. I moved closer and stupidly wrapped a hand around Evans arm, about to pull it away from his face, when Evan let out a hiss of pain. I let go instantly but didn't move away.

"Did you hurt your arm? Let me see."

"No Nate it's fine, I'm fine, just leave... please." Evan had finally stopped wiping at his eyes and now they were left red and blotchy.

"Let me see your arm Evan." I held out my hand, and didn't back away. I wasn't going to take no for an answer and Evan must've known that as he held out his arm.

I carefully pulled back the sleeve of Evan's top and felt my heart shatter when I saw what he had done. I knew Evan struggled but fuck it was hard seeing it like this.

"Let's go get this cleaned up." I said after what felt like forever of me looking at Evan's arm.

Evan nodded, and stood up. I kept a hold of his hand the whole time, not wanting to go a minute without having him next to me.

Once in the bathroom I directed Evan to sit on the counter while I pulled out a first aid kit.

"How do you know where that is?" Evan asked, breaking the silence.

"Tom cut his finger once, I helped."

"Oh."

I pulled out a few things, bandages, alcohol wipes and sudocrem.

"I'm sorry if this hurts."

"Think that's the whole point." Evan murmured. I pretended not to hear, instead focusing on cleaning up his arm.

"Want to talk about it?" I asked.

"No."

"Okay." I fell silent for a moment, "have you talked to someone about it? Anyone?"

"Catherine knows."

"Your mum?"

Evan nodded and I made a mental note to stop referring to Catherine as Evan's mum, if she wasn't treating him like a son then why should I give the honour of calling her Evan's mother.

"You need to clean it, make sure it doesn't get infected. Did you use something clean? That's important too."

"Nate, I don't mean to be crude but I've been doing this since I was 12, I know what I'm doing."