Premature Metamorphosis

Chapter 6

Until she noticed something that made her stop dead in her tracks.

Bruises.

Deep, angry bruises of various painful purples and blues marring the pale skin of his side.

"What...What happened?" She asked, her voice breathy with disbelief. She felt as if she might simply burst into tears any minute now.

He actively avoided looking at her, maybe hoping that if he just pretended she didn't exist and the side of his torso wasn't covered in bruises then she'd drop it. When she didn't, waiting stubbornly for an answer, he instead tried to pull his shirt back into place to cover the bruises but Evelyn kept a firm hold on the fabric, keeping those horrible bruises out in the open on full display.

"Hunter?" She pushed. She didn't like being stern, it was usually so unnecessary, Hunter always did as he was told so it just made her feel mean. But right now? She'd say the situation called for it more than ever.

His gaze caught hers for just a moment but all he could offer up was a shrug.

"Where did you get these?"

"At Uncle's house..." He had to force the words out, "I fell over." He reached a hand over to pet Flapjack who was sitting on the chair beside them.

"You fell over?" She repeated, unable to help the accusatory tone slipping into her words. She didn't believe his excuse for a moment. "How?"

"I fell when I was outside." He said simply before realising just how unconvincing that sounded. "I was trying to do a cartwheel and I... fell."

"And Uncle Philip didn't do anything about it?"

His face flashed with alarm as if he was now realising he'd said the wrong thing and he rushed to explain himself (or, well, explain Philip). "No! I didn't tell him. He didn't know."

She really doubted that. There wasn't really a nice way to put it, really, but still, in the nicest way possible, Hunter was... quite a sensitive kid. If he fell over, he wanted a bandaid and a kiss. The odds of him not running straight to Philip for help, especially when he'd been bruised this badly? Highly unlikely. She'd maybe even go as far as to say impossible.

Unless he'd been too afraid to tell Philip.

Unless he'd heard one of Philip's rants about irritating children. Unless he knew Philip would chastise him for having gotten himself hurt and bothering him about it. Unless Philip had, in fact, done that already.

She inspected the collection of bruises painted like crude watercolour onto her son's side, torn between what to do. Should she prod the matter some more? He didn't seem willing to tell her much more right now and she didn't want to make him late for his first day back at school. Should she even be sending him to school? Those bruises weren't little by any means, they had to hurt like hell. He could easily hurt himself even more if he were to fall or bump into someone in the playground. How had he managed to hide them from her? She hadn't noticed him being in any pain. Had she just not been looking hard enough? Had her baby been in pain all this time without her even realising? Should she take him to the doctor?

With all the questions and worries rushing through her mind, she could only hold onto one half-baked idea to help at least somewhat.

"Wait here a minute." She instructed, rushing down the stairs and into the kitchen. She tore open the freezer and dug through the boxes and packets of frozen food to retrieve an icepack from where had slipped down into the bottom of the freezer.

It was one of the typical kid ones, filled with gel beads and shaped like a bird. Hunter got pretty fussy about ice packs, refusing to use them because of how cold they were even if that was the whole point. His dislike for them had gone so far that he'd still refused to use one even when he'd fallen out of a tree and sprained his ankle.