Something's wrong, and for the first time in a long time, it's not with me.
Go figure, right? But the thing is, I wish it were because the one with the problem now is Hunter.
And that's a big problem.
I first noticed it a couple of days ago, about a week after he went to see his old friends. He's been tired. At practice, he's been running a little slower and barely clearing heights that he usually sails right over. In class, he's been falling asleep regularly and losing his patience with the teachers. And he's been stressed.
Like really stressed.
At first, I thought maybe he was just tired or that the stress of the championship meet coming up was getting to him. I hoped really, but this morning, something was way off.
*Flashback*
I'm sitting in chemistry class, completely zoned out and wondering at what point in my life I'm going to need to know this, when I feel someone slide into the seat next to me.
"That seat's taken," I mumble, not even bothering to look up from the paper I've been absentmindedly sketching on for the past ten minutes.
"I know," a familiar voice replies, and suddenly, it's the best sound in the world.
I sit up from my previously slumped position and turn to face Hunter, who's smiling tiredly at me.
My heart drops when I see that he looks worse than he did yesterday. His eyes, his blue eyes that I love so much, seem dimmer and under them, there are just barely visible dark circles from lack of sleep. Even his uniform is disheveled and wrinkled, although it looks like he tried to hide it with his jacket.
I try to keep the worry from showing on my face, but it's hard considering I think I know what the problem is. His parents. He's been fighting more often with them lately, and they've been fighting with each other again. He hasn't really told me much about it, but sometimes when we're on the phone late at night, I can hear them.
I hate seeing him like this. It's weighing him down, and I just feel so useless. Whenever I ask how I can help him, Hunter says that I help enough by just being there for him, but it doesn't feel like it. As a matter of fact, it feels like I might be making it worse.
I mean, sure, his living situation wasn't ideal before I met him, but it wasn't like this. I can tell it's gotten worse than he's letting on. I've been trying to make sure he knows that it's okay if he needs some space, that I won't take it personally. After all, I don't want to be a burden, but he insists on spending time with me anyway. I feel awful letting him make me a priority when he needs to be taking care of himself. It's not fair to him, and it's not healthy.
When I'm finally done looking him over, I let out a reluctant sigh of relief. At least for right now, he's here, and he's safe. "Very funny," I say quietly so the teacher won't hear. "I didn't know if you were still coming. Are you okay?" I ask, eyebrows drawn together in concern.
"Yeah, fine. I always am," Hunter replies with a grin, but it doesn't reach his eyes. He's lying, I can see it all over him.
I frown. "Hunter, I know you. What's going on?"
"Nothing," he replies, but I'm not convinced, and he can tell. "Don't worry about it," he says instead. He moves his gaze to his chemistry book and starts flipping through pages, as if cutting off conversation.
"Hunter -," I begin, reaching out to place my hand over his, but he pulls it away before I can and quickly hides it from view.
"Mia, I'm fine, just- Leave it alone, okay?" Hunter stresses, raising his voice slightly and giving me a look that I can't exactly read. It's just harsh enough to make me stop asking though, and I withdraw my hand. Immediately, I see the frustration in his eyes be replaced with regret before I look away. Picking up my pencil, I return my gaze to the flower I was sketching in the corner of my notebook before he showed up.
Hunter sighs deeply, and I see him run a hand through his hair out of the corner of my eye. "Mia, I - ," he begins, but just as he does, the bell rings signaling the end of class, and everyone starts gathering their things. I do the same, and once I'm finished, I don't wait for him before hauling my backpack over my shoulder and quickly exiting the room.
It shouldn't have hurt that he snapped at me. I know he's under a lot of stress, I know he didn't mean to, I know it's not his fault. It shouldn't have hurt... but it did. Just a little. What hurt a lot was what I saw. Before he snatched his hand away, I saw it. He moved fast, but not fast enough to hide the bruised knuckles on his right hand.
"Mia, wait," I hear Hunter call after me as I move through the crowded halls, but I just keep making my way to my locker. I'm smaller than he is, so it takes longer for him to slip through the crowd. I'm not mad at him, I just don't want this to escalate, so I'm giving myself time to calm my thoughts before speaking to him. I'm fiddling with my locker door when he finally catches up to me.
He reaches out and lightly places his left hand on my shoulder, carefully as though he's worried that I'm going to be afraid of him now, but he's wrong. "Hey, look, I'm really sorry, okay?" Hunter says, voice filled with remorse, his right hand firmly hidden in his pocket. "I didn't mean to go off on you like that, I just -," but I hold up a hand to stop him.
"It's okay, I shouldn't have pushed you," I say, avoiding eye contact with him. Sure, my feelings are a little hurt, but I think it's best if I just let this go. He doesn't need to be fighting with his girlfriend too. "If you say you're okay, then you're okay right? I shouldn't have kept pestering you," I finish.
When I finally do look at him, Hunter's staring down at me with a grim knowing look on his face. He knows it's not okay, he knows I'm only saying that it is, and he knows that I'm just trying not to make things any more difficult for him than they already are. I can tell by what he says next. "You weren't pestering me, okay? I shouldn't have done that," he says. "I promise you, I'm not that guy. I'm not the guy who's going to take things out on you," he finishes, determinedly looking into my eyes.
I know that, but from what I see in his eyes, it's not me he's really trying to convince. It's himself.
I take the hand he's not hiding from me and lace our fingers together. "I know," I reply. Knowing that he needs me to believe in him, I give him a comforting smile. "You're a good guy Hunter," I say. "Don't forget that." He smiles back, relieved, before leaning down and placing a short lingering kiss to my lips. It's soft and brief, but desperate. It says everything he's feeling right now. All the emotions that he's keeping bottled up, this is his way of showing them to me.
As we walk to our next class, I decide not to ask about his hand. For now at least.
*Flashback Ends*
Before you ask, I checked and Sean is alive and well, which is a good thing I suppose, but now it begs the question: who did he hit?
"His knuckles were bruised?" Rose asks as she rummages through her gym bag for her practice clothes.
"Yeah," I answer shrugging an old t-shirt on over my sports bra. "I don't know what to do Rose, he won't let me help him," I say, fixing my hair in the locker room mirror. "It's like he thinks he needs to handle this all on his own."
"Well, maybe you should let him," she suggests, shrugging on her own t-shirt.
I raise an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," she begins, pulling one of those collapsable brushes out of nowhere and running it through her hair. "He's been dealing with this by himself his whole life right? Maybe he's got his own way of handling it."
"Okay, first of all, where did you even get that?" I ask, gesturing to the brush she seemingly materialized out of thin air. "And second, the point is, he's not by himself anymore, he's got me. It doesn't have to be like that for him now."
"Well, I don't know Mia," she says, gathering all her hair into a ponytail. "All I'm saying is that maybe you should think about it. And you're just jealous of my brush," she finishes with a grin.
"Yeah, maybe...," I say, slipping on my running shoes as we prepare to leave the locker room. "About your advice, not about the brush. That thing is lame."
"See? Jealous," Rose says, pushing past me to the door as I laugh.
**************************
"Come on Hunter..," I say to myself quietly from my spot on the ground next to Zack.
The two of us have already finished jumping for the day and are now sitting down taking a breather. Hunter, on the other hand, has been having some trouble. Usually, he's the one helping us, but not this time. Like I said before, something's wrong.
He was doing so badly that Coach told him to sit down and wait for Zack and I to finish our jumps so at least some of us could get some practice in. He usually only does that if he needs to move the bar up higher, and he knows you won't clear it. And considering it's the week before championships, that's really not good.
"He can clear that. He's done it before," Zack says assuredly, keeping his eyes steady on Hunter, who's getting ready to attempt the same height for the fifth time in a row.
"I don't know," I say. "He hasn't been himself lately."
"Yeah, I've noticed," Zack replies. "Something wrong with you two?" he asks, glancing at me.
"No, it's not us. He's just stressed I guess," I say, giving out the same lie Hunter's been giving me. Zack's my oldest friend, and normally I would tell him the truth, but it's not my secret to tell.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hunter preparing to jump. "Wait, here he goes," I say, and we both turn our heads to look.
We watch as Hunter sprints toward the mat, jumps, and lands so hard on the bar you can hear it from here.
"Crap..," I sigh, as I hear him groan in pain.
"Yikes, that had to hurt," Zack says before standing up and jogging over to help. I follow him and stand a few feet back as Zack lends Hunter a hand to help him off the mat.
"You okay man?" Zack asks him.
"I'm fine," Hunter says harshly, before dropping back down on the mats and holding a hand to his aching back. He curses and kicks the fallen bar, before letting his head fall.
Zack looks to me with raised eyebrows. I wrap my arms around myself and shrug, not really knowing what to tell him.
"Look, maybe you should be done for the day," Zack suggests. "Get some ice for that back?"
Hunter sighs. "Yeah...alright," he finally concedes allowing Zack to help him off the mat again.
As the three of us head back towards the locker rooms, Zack looks back over his shoulder and gives me a reassuring look. He's trying to tell me that everything's going to be fine, and I try to look like I believe him.
************************
It's almost midnight, and I finally just finished my homework.
It's not that I had a lot to do tonight, it's more that I killed a few hours watching "Friends" reruns, and if you ask me, it was time well spent.
I regret nothing.
Anyway, just as my head is about to hit the pillow, my phone starts to buzz and I let out a groan.
Hastily, I reach over and grab it off my nightstand. "Hello?" I answer without even looking at the number.
"Hello?" comes a woman's voice through the speaker. "Is this Mia?" she asks desperately.
Confused, I sit up. "Yes, who is this?" I answer.
"This is Mrs. Scott," she says. "Hunter's mother."
I blink once. Twice. What the heck? How did that woman even get my number? More importantly, I'm probably the last person in the world she wants to talk to. Why would she call me?
"Hi," I begin. "Um, it's a little late Mrs. Scott. Is there something I can help you with?" I ask.
"Yes, I'm aware," she replies, but her voice is lacking the condescending tone it had the last time we talked. "But, I was wondering, is Hunter with you?" she asks, and she actually sounds worried.
"What??" I ask, starting to feel a bit worried myself. "No, why?"
"Well, he didn't come home tonight. Or last night...," she says. "As you would imagine, we're starting to get concerned."
My mind is already starting to race with worst case scenarios. "I'm sorry, I don't know where he is," I reply. "After he dropped me off this afternoon, I assumed he went home."
"Oh.. alright," she says, and I can hear the disappointment in her voice. "Well, would you call me if you find him? Maybe ask him to come home?" She pauses and lets out a shaky breath. "I know he'll listen to you," she says.
I'm not so sure, I think. "Yes, I'll definitely let you know," I reply, already swinging my legs over the edge of my bed and reaching for my shoes.
She says a brief thank you, and we hang up. I shrug on a jacket, silently exit my room, and slip out the front door unnoticed.
It's a little cold outside tonight, which is unusual considering how close to summer it is, but it's nothing I can't handle as I begin walking down the street.
Hopefully, I won't have to walk far though. I think I know where he is, at least, I have a hunch.
Hunter's going to freak when he finds out I walked all the way there alone at this time of night, but I don't care. This has gone on for long enough. I'm going to make him talk to me, whether he likes it or not.
After about ten or fifteen minutes, the park finally comes into view and so does Hunter's car. It's not hard to spot considering it's the only one in the lot. I breathe a sigh of relief that I was right.
As I walk down the hill and closer to the lake, I finally see him at the edge of the water. He must hear me approaching because he turns around once I'm within earshot.
"Mia?" Hunter says, narrowing his eyes like he's not sure of what he's seeing. "What are you doing out here? You should be home, in bed," he says, but it's not whole-hearted which means on some level, he's happy to see me.
"So should you," I reply closing the last few yards between us.
"Look, I love you, but you shouldn't be here. I'm all kinds of messed up right now," Hunter says, looking away from me.
"Yeah, well...," I begin, sitting down next to him. "You might be a mess, but you're my mess. So here I am," I finish, clasping my hands together in a way that says "I'm not going anywhere."
Hunter sighs and finally gives up. I guess he's finally starting to realize that I can be just as stubborn as he can when I need to be. Smart boy.
"So, how did you know where I was?" he asks, picking up a rock and tossing it into the lake.
"Well, it was either here or the spot you took me on our 'not date,' and I can walk to this one, so I took a gamble," I say with a shrug.
Hunter quickly turns to face me. "You walked here??" he asks. "Mia, are you crazy? It's not safe for you to-"
"Ah," I say, holding up a finger and effectively cutting him off. "You can be mad at me later. First, let me see your hand," I state holding my hand out to him, face up.
His mouth opens and closes multiple times, like his mind can't figure out what to react to first. "I - um... no," Hunter replies awkwardly, glancing away from me and shoving his hand deeper into his jacket pocket.
I smile and shake my head. He can be such a child sometimes. "Just show me your hand," I say again. Innocently, Hunter reaches out and places his left hand in mine, and I raise an eyebrow at him. "The other one," I say.
He looks into my eyes for a moment, like he's trying to read my thoughts, and hesitates before removing his right hand from his pocket and placing it in mine.
I look at the damage there, and try to keep my face impassive to show him that he didn't have to hide it from me, but it's not easy. I swallow the lump in my throat. "What happened?" I ask after a moment.
"Long story," he replies, raising an arm to rub the back of his neck.
I run my thumb lightly over his knuckles and look up to meet his eyes. "I've got time," I say with a small smile.
Hunter sighs deeply, like the weight on his shoulders is so heavy he just doesn't have the energy to fight it anymore, and I know that whatever he says next is going to be the truth.
"The other day," he begins. "I was at home, and my dad comes into my room and starts giving me all this shit life advice. Telling me how I need to be thinking about my future," he says, staring out across the water. "That wouldn't be such a bad thing except the man's never given a damn about my future until now."
"So I told him that," Hunter continues. "Next thing I know, my mom comes in too like some kind of fucking ambush," he says with a short laugh, shaking his head. "She starts telling me basically the same crap that my dad was saying about how I need to think about who I'm choosing to spend my time around."
Oh.
"So I told them both to shove it, because there was no way in hell I was going to take relationship advice from the two of them. Then I tried to leave, and my dad tried to stop me." He pauses then like he's remembering something particularly bad. "I'll spare you the details, but I ended up punching a wall. Then I stormed out, and I haven't spoken to them since," he finishes. He curses under his breath then drops his gaze to the ground, holding his head in his hand.
A wall. He punched a wall. Oh thank God.
I press my lips into a straight line and look down at my hands clasped in my lap, letting the gravity of everything he's just said sink in. I try really hard to force the words "my fault" from my head, but they won't go. "I'm sorry," I say softly.
Hunter lets out a short caustic laugh, making me glance up at him. "See? That's why I didn't tell you," he says. "I know you Mia, and I know you're going to blame yourself for this, but it's not your fault."
"Even if it is -," I start.
"Which it's not," he interjects.
"Either way, when are you going to realize that you don't have to protect me from this kind of stuff all the time?" I ask. Even though it's difficult, I make myself look straight into his eyes as I speak. "You don't have to handle these things on your own anymore, okay? I want to help you," I stress.
Hunter's still looking stubborn as ever, so I lift my hand and place it gently on his cheek. Immediately, I feel him relax slightly under my touch. "But to do that, I need you to talk to me," I say. "I know that it won't be easy for you to do all the time, but you can't shut me out. Please don't shut me out," I plead.
As Hunter looks into my eyes, it's like he's searching for something. For anger or judgment maybe, but he won't find it. Then I see the steely undertone that had taken up residence on his face for the past few days start to fade away.
He places his hand over mine and leans into my touch. "I'm sorry," he says, "for the way I've been acting these past few days. I'm just so used to dealing with this stuff on my own, but that's not an excuse." He lets out a breath. "I forget sometimes, you know? That there's someone in my life now who I can depend on, when things get bad. Thank you for reminding me," he finishes. He takes my hand in his and laces his fingers with mine.
And then he smiles. It's not big, but it's real. It's not fake or tired, it's not a smirk or sarcastic. It's a real, genuine smile.
And I can't help but smile back as I lean into him, and he wraps an arm around me. But then I remember the other reason I came.
"Your mom called," I begin hesitantly. When he doesn't answer, I continue. "And she called me, so I know she must be desperate. She sounded worried."
"She must not be too worried. She didn't even try calling until tonight," he says, and honestly, he's got a point.
"The thing is," I say, interrupting to keep him from getting angry again. "She told me you haven't been home in a few days. Hunter, where did you sleep last night?" I ask.
"Mia, before I tell you, try to remember, it's not a big deal," he says.
"Just tell me Scott, we don't have all night."
"My car..," he answers. Shocked, I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off. "And I'd do it again too. Some of the things they were saying..," he pauses and shakes his head. "Just trust me, if I go back there right now, things will only get worse."
I sigh because there's no way in hell I'm letting him sleep in his car again, but there's also no way he's going back to his house, and right now I see only one solution. And it's completely insane.
Well, no time like the present to start taking risks in life.
"Alright, come on," I say, standing up from the grass.
"Come on where exactly?" he asks as he stands too.
"Well, you're giving me a ride home, unless you want me to walk back to my house alone too," I say, smiling at him before turning and walking back towards his car.
"You know you're still in trouble for that," Hunter says, as he follows behind me. "You should've called me."
"Yeah, maybe, but that would've ruined the element of surprise," I call back over my shoulder with a smile, and Hunter grins back.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
A/N - Hey guys! Song at the top is "The Mixtape" by Jack's Mannequin, because I just think it gives a really nice feel for this chapter.
Please vote and comment letting me know what you think!