Just a Crush

Chapter 4

•·.·✦ Chapter 4 ✦·.·•

Travis dropped Aiden to his apartment and then drove straight home. He lived about a twenty minutes drive from the college and ten minutes from where Aiden and Cory were staying. He bought his house just before starting college last year, glad to finally be able to get the hell out of his old one.

He thought of renting an apartment more than once but squashed the thought just as quickly. Staying in a building where there would be other people living just across the hall from him turned him off. It would bother him knowing that every day he stepped out the door he would see the unwelcome faces of strangers walking up and down the halls.

He couldn't deal with that. He needed space. He didn't like people being around him at every given hour whether they were separated by a wall or not. It just gave him a false sense of security. When he was younger that wasn't the case. He had actually craved the company of strangers just to feel safe even if the feeling never lasted. He hadn't wanted to be separated from the rest of the world. Now he wanted nothing to do with anyone. He didn't want company. He already had misery following him around like a shadow.

He spent nearly his entire childhood miserable and in fear. Maybe if he hadn't been such a sissy back then he'd have turned out differently. Or maybe not. Maybe nothing would have changed. It didn't matter anyway. The past was done with. He didn't ever want to go back to that point in his life. Not if Vincent would still be in it.

Travis had only been seven the first time Vincent had hurt him badly. His father tended to lash out at him but that one time had been different. It was years ago but the traumatic memory still stayed fresh in his mind.

He'd been hungry. His father had sent him off to bed without dinner again so he snuck into the kitchen to fix a small bowl of cereal. He'd been quiet and careful as possible as he moved around in the darkness. He didn't see his father's working boots on floor. The bastard always left his shit laying around all over the place. He managed not to trip over them but the empty bowl flew from his hand. It didn't break when it hit the floor but it did wake his father up.

The sounds of his footsteps on the stairs had been frightening. He didn't know what to do or where to go. He'd felt trapped. When the lights came on and he saw his father standing in the doorway, his eyes stormy and his face stony with rage he knew he was in trouble. Vincent lunged for him and he ran but he didn't get away. He remember wishing he stayed in bed. His younger self believed that what he did was wrong. He should have ignored the biting hunger in his stomach.

But now that he was older he knew better. He didn't deserve what he got. He never did. And after that night the beating never stopped. They only got worse. Sometimes Vincent came home in the mornings from work frustrated and he took it out on him. After Travis would just lay under his bed crying silently. Those days he never went to school. And the days he did go, he hung around for as long as he could because he didn't want to go home.

His homeroom teacher Mr. Winston had been the only person to notice and question his subtle change in behavior and his absences. Travis always lied to him but even as young as he was he could tell that his teacher knew. He kept lying though. Just the thought of what his father would do to him if he ever told anyone was enough for him to keep his mouth shut.

Things had gotten a little better when he met Aiden. They didn't take well to each other at first but somewhere along the way they became best friends. Travis eventually had to tell Aiden about his father when he started to get suspicious about his bruises. Aiden hadn't taken the news very well. He actually offered to go and beat up Vincent for him.

That had given Travis a good laugh. He never laughed or smiled much but Aiden had gotten him to do both by just being himself. Cory came into the picture three years later when he moved into their neighborhood and like Aiden, he eventually learned about Vincent.