It Was Always You (No longer updating)

Chapter 5

...............Jayden...............

I couldn't sleep at all the whole night. I was wide awake due to worrying about Naomi. She said she was fine, and I feel like I should believe her, but she clearly wasn't fucking fine. She had come to me crying for fuck's sake!

I knew something was up with Mason as well when I heard the loud slam of his door shutting. His heavy footsteps pounded through the hallway and down the stairs. It was silent after that. I thought I heard the fridge open, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure. Are his nightmares back?

A few years ago, Mason would get frequent nightmares. I never learned what the nightmares were of, but they would happen all the time. Every time he woke up from one, he would go downstairs to the kitchen and down a can of ginger ale in only a few seconds. It would happen once a night, six nights a week. That one nightmare free day was whenever Naomi was staying over for a sleepover with me. Once Mason and Naomi started dating, and she started sleeping over frequently, the nightmares just stopped altogether. But why last night? I asked myself over and over again, but never coming up with a plausible answer.

I pushed the thought away completely when I heard the shower turn on and the front door slam shut downstairs. I sat on my bed in the dark silence while the entire house came alive with noises and my parents talking down in the kitchen while my mom made breakfast. I just sat there thinking about the night before.

Did Mason really just hit her on accident? Or was that just a cover up for something more serious.

I refused to move. I just sat in bed, wondering what the hell was going on with Mason and Naomi. Is he hitting her? Is that why she doesn't cut her hair very often and wears longer sleeves? To hide the bruises that Mason gives her? Is Mason abusive? Have I just been too ignorant to realize it? Am I just thinking too hard? Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Maybe everything's fine, and I'm just being crazy.

After a little while, I heard the front door open and close again. My stepfather, Mason's dad, Calvin, opened my bedroom door and peeked his head inside. "Hey, Jayden. Your mom made breakfast, come down and eat." He gestured into the hallway.

I nodded and got off of my bed. Calvin smiled and left the room, heading back down the stairs. I left the room soon after and started down the stairs to see my mom and Calvin whispering about something. It seemed serious, so I waited for them to finish talking before I would head down for food.

Halfway through a sentence, my mom had looked up and seen me. "Morning, Baby. How'd you sleep?" She asked me in her quiet, sleepy voice. I lied and said that I slept well. I didn't want her to worry about me. "That's good, darling. I made you some tea, and there are waffles for you on the counter." She told me, taking a sip of her coffee.

I nodded, the corners of my lips pulling up slightly. I thanked her and started walking downstairs. I kissed her cheek. "Thank you, momma. You're the best.

"Of course, Love." She replied to me with a small smile. Calvin smiled as well and hugged me.

"You are such a good kid, Jayden. I hope you see me as a good father figure. I'm trying my best to be a good parent," Calvin told me after pulling away.

A few weeks before I was born, my dad left my mom, disappearing to who knows where. No one had heard from him since that day. About a week before my mom went into labor, Calvin, mom's neighbor at the time, had come to visit. He had divorced his wife when I was born and married my mom soon after, my first birthday. That's when Mason showed up. He was only four at the time, but he was already cold to me and my mother. I remember hearing from my mom that I would try and play with him, but he would have the immediate response to walk away or grab me and set me down a few feet away. He started to love my mom, but he would never talk to me or his dad. It was almost as if he had something against the two of us. Maybe he does. I don't know. Mason lived with his mom, who I never met, in the house next to us until about term years ago. He started talking, well, yelling at Calvin. He started getting nightmares maybe three weeks later. Even though I was only six back then, I still remember hearing my stepbrother's screams and cries. It still haunts my mind...