"Dad! I swear, he didn't do anything!" I heard a shouting that bordered on crying as my eyes opened. "Those cops did this to him."
"According to the sheriff, that 'X' on his shoulder is a Torinos mark. That pretty much says he was jumped in." the older voice replied. "Besides, nobody is going to take a loser like him seriously. His record says everything."
"Fortunately for him, the reason the cops were looking for him is because his mother filed a MPR." he sighed. "You know what I said."
"Dad! I'm not doing that, and you can't make me!"
As he had been about to leave the room, I pushed myself up from what appeared to be some bed in a room - possibly a high-end hospital room - and looked at her father. He gave a demanding expression, as though he had wanted answers and quickly. What had I been ready to say that I had so painfully forced myself up? Had it been important enough to matter to him or Kylie?
"I'm sorry for all this trouble." a stabbing pain rammed its way through my stomach and right arm as I had walked past her dad with curtained eyes. "That cop, Martin. He has a knife that he keeps at his ankle."
"You'll get it when you get older, but hearsay can only do so much." he answered. "As for this trouble, you won't be seeing Kylie again, but I'm pretty sure you already knew that judging by your expression."
"I don't go away that easily." I grinned, using his shoulder for balance. "Unless you want to kill me here, like those cops failed to do, then I won't be going anywhere."
Just as I had gotten my last words out, I had begun to walk past him only to fall forward - hitting the wall shoulder fist. Why? I had the strength to say all of that, yet I couldn't have had a cool exit for her? I had to fall over and practically face-plant into a wall right in front of her? Heh. I guess I was a loser. I hadn't even been able to do this right, and yet I had expected to keep Kylie in my life?
Maybe I was just punk who pretended to be okay with himself, or maybe I wasn't. All I had known was that I needed someone like Kylie in my life - no, it had to be her. Over the last few weeks, she had been the lone thing I looked forward to. Her smiles, the way she spoke, and even her scent had cursed me in the best ways possible. I likely hadn't been able to go a full day without at least a single thought of her.
Of course, there had been plenty of days where we hadn't seen each other. Those days had been slow, and not to mention boring, yet it had been okay since I had been sure that I would see her again. This situation had been different, there was a very distinct possibility that she could have disappeared from my life as a whole.
...Which may have been better.
"Aiden, are you okay?" Kylie ran to wall I had fallen into.
I pushed myself up again, looking at her father through my hair. "I don't give a shit if you hate me. Just know that I'll make you trust me."
"Is that so?" he mumbled.
"I'll contact your mother and look into that knife, it seems promising. If you're lying to me, however, the hammer will come down."
**
Almost three weeks had passed since that incident with the police, and since then, nothing had been found. Yet, that apparently hadn't been the first time they were accused of abusing their power as police officers. As what was titled a preventative measure, they had been put on indefinite and unpaid suspension. Even better, was that I had seemed to somewhat gain his trust.
Thus, we had ended up at The Raps on a Saturday night, just like usual. Instead of just bud, I had Hurricane buy me a forty-ouncer for us to split. So, with permission, I had been allowed to take her out like I had normally - just not secretly. Would they have let us go if they knew I was smoking her out and drinking with her? Probably not, but what they hadn't known wouldn't have killed them.
Lying down on Kylie's lap, she had been stroking my hair softly as talked about anything that came to mind - which had ultimately led to those events three weeks ago. "Aiden, why did your mom file a missing persons report?"
"I don't know." I answered. "Maybe I wasn't home enough because I was spending too much time with you?"
"She obviously had a reason. The fact that she hit you front of Police Officers says a lot." Kylie hadn't liked my joke very much, as her tone stated. "You don't have to tell me, but you're hiding something and I know it's not good."
Lifting my head off of Kylie's lap, I looked at the lake. Should I have told her the truth in the very beginning, or would that have been a mistake, as well? Knowing Kylie, she would have wanted to help, but how? She had no money, and no power - and her parents surely wouldn't have done anything at all for someone like me - a stain to their very name. That had been the reason why I hadn't told her.
"I hadn't been home for about two weeks." I decided to answer her honestly. "It's her boyfriend...He was there a week and thought he ran the place. He started drinking and beating her. It's always the same thing with her."
"Don't tell me you've been sleeping outside..." Kylie trailed off.
"Not very often. Mack and Hurricane let me stay at their places most of the time." I felt her hand clench onto my wrist. "When I couldn't, I just slept here...thinking about you, if I'm being honest."
"What about me were you thinking about?" I could hear the faint shaking of her voice, which was the exact reason why I hadn't looked at her when I said that. "I want to hear."
Picking up the forty, I took a swig and set it down. What exactly had I thought about? While I had thought of nearly everything, there had definitely some that came up more than others. Several things had come into my mind at that moment, yet I hadn't been sure how to put some of them into words - it had been like trying to explain Inception to a toddler.
"One of them was how you are so predictable, yet I can't ever guess what's coming next." I answered with the first one that I could explain. "You are so hard to explain...I can't really do it."
"Yeah? Well, you're pretty simple." she laughed as she pulled me back down into her lap. "You hide everything, smoke way more pot than you should, and depend on a girl way too much...But so much has changed since we met. Weeks feel like years, but days feel like minutes. It almost feels like I'm obsessed with you, and I can't even really imagine what my life would be like without you in it now - even as a friend."
"A friend?" I looked up at her. "If that happens, then just put me out of my misery."
While I had been joking on the outside, how had I actually felt about that? Had I actually felt that way, or was it purely a joke? Would I be okay just being friends with Kylie, or would the age-old rule of "Guys and Girls can't be friends" come into play? The latter had surely seemed the most realistic, not just for me, but for anyone and everyone. Hopefully neither of us would have to confirm it.
"My point is that I can't see myself being happy without you in my life, in some form." Kylie lifted my hand and pressed my knuckles against her lips. "I'd much rather stay this way for as long as possible. Obviously."
"Ditto."
Would it stay this way, or would she have just been yet another person to come into my life and leave just as quickly? Had she been the one I could place my faith in, or would it have been taken advantage of? My life had always been question after question, but those questions had rarely been answered. As soon as she had come into my life, things had seemed to change - aside from my mom. Everything had seemed to get brighter, and there had been one reason.
Her.
Kylie had changed my view of things, small and large, narrow and wide. While there had been things that she wouldn't have changed about me, there had been others that she had entirely changed already. While we had only known each other for a month or so, I had fully believed that this had been something special. In that sense, time had no relevancy between us. It had just been us when we were together. When I had thought back to the first time I had seen her, I never would have thought I'd have been in this position.
She had been everything I wasn't, bright and sunny - smiling and laughing at everything - and could care about everything. I had been dull, constantly looking down, and hadn't cared about all that much. However, as I had gotten closer to her, her personality had begun to rub off on me.
Not only had I been slowly been able to see from her point of view, I had come to enjoy some of it. While I may have not agreed with it all, it had been something different from the darkness that I had typically seen around me. Had that been why I was so attracted to her, because she had been completely different from me - or had it been because I could tell we were more similar than she let on?
"Hey...Aiden, do you hate your mom?" Kylie asked, breaking what had been a few moments of silence.
"I think I do." I answered. "I sure as hell haven't liked her for a long time."
"I hate my parents." Kylie had clearly been thinking about something as her chin rested on her palm and her eyes had been staring off into space. The question had been off the wall, what exactly was she thinking about? "I overheard my parents talking about us. My dad said something about your record and how it makes me look bad for private schools or something. I just get the feeling that he's going to do something to you."
"He has a point." I stated honestly. "I fucked up a couple times, but once I turn eighteen it'll all go away."
"That doesn't matter to me, and you fucking up doesn't matter, either." Kylie spoke softly, as though she had been having a hard time getting the words out. "My dad knows that you haven't gone home, but he doesn't want to do anything for you because you aren't the silver-spooned kid he wants me to be with. If that's how he feels then I'm going to stay here with you. If they can't understand my feelings, I don't want to be apart of that family.
I've always been the black sheep anyways, I've just always hid it. I'm done hiding it."
"...That's just going to make him hate me more than he already does." I pushed myself up, eyes covered. "If you want him to accept me, then just keep hiding it. That's the only way, otherwise he'll find a reason to blame me for that. If it isn't that, then he'l-"
Kylie had interrupted me with a smack across my face.
"Dammit, Aiden!" she growled, her palm hitting the ground.
"Can you please be the person that lets me do what I want for once?"
ns 15.158.61.48da2
