Never Crossed My Mind (boyxboy)

Chapter Sixteen

"Sam, stop! Wait!"

I ran, and I ran and ran and ran. No one was there to stop me. It should have been a nice feeling, almost like freedom, but the dead feeling in my chest drew me away from anything else.

"Sam," Sammie shook me awake. "Wake up."

Mason was already awake, standing at the side of my bed with a tired look on his face.

Sammie smiled, but it looked pained. "You have visitors. Richard requested that you see them, now."

I slid from the bed and followed Sammie from the room, Mason trailing behind me.

"Wha' time is it?" I slurred, trying to rub the grogginess from my eyes.

"Four-thirty," Sammie said, opening the door to Richard's office. I noticed her hands were shaking, and there were shadows under her eyes. She gestured to the office, not looking us in the eyes. "Richard requested that Mason came along, too, to keep you better grounded. I'm not supposed to go in."

I stepped in blindly, as did Mason, and Sammie closed the door behind us.

I blinked a few times to clear my head as the bright fluorescent lights of Richard's office pierced my pupils. When it cleared, I was afraid that I was a bit sleepier than I had originally thought.

I saw two people who strongly resembled my parents, a short woman with a pile of blonde hair and a lanky man with a balding head.

They stood, their eyes wide, as they noticed us. Their eyes locked on mine.

"My baby boy," the woman said quietly, her lip trembling and her green eyes watering.

It was her. My mother was there, in front of me.

I picked at the scabs on my forearm and bit my lip when a sharp pain stung my arm and a scab busted, pooling with blood. I shuddered. It was real.

Tears poured from my eyes and my legs turned to jelly. I was sure I would collapse.

The woman took a step toward me, and instinctly, I took one back. She looked hurt. I didn't care.

"Sam, honey, we're sorry." She dabbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. My father wrapped his arm around her.

"You're sorry?" I spat disbelievingly. "After six years in this shithole, you're sorry?"

"Sam, we were going through a hard time, and--" she tried to explain.

"Listen to yourselves!" I laughed sardonicly. "You left me here to rot when I was ten, and then didn't visit for six goddamn years because 'you were going through a hard time'? That's bullshit!"

"Don't swear, Sam," my father scolded.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, give me a break, you assholes. You aren't parents to me. You aren't anything to me. You're just the selfish bastards that dropped me here and never returned."

Richard didn't say anything, merely scrolled through files on his computer.

"We're here now, Sam. We're here to make things right." My mother took another step towards me, and I stepped back until I was touching Mason. He wrapped his arms around my torso.

"It's too late for that. You've put me through too much shit these last six years to just suddenly show up and try to mend things. Did you know that I was only supposed to spend a few weeks here, just so that they could see what medications to put me on and if I would need to see a psychiatrist after? Of course you did, because you are the ones that signed the papers saying that I would remain here until you chose to take me out. Which you never did."