The Centre - a Home for Aiden (bxb+/poly)

1. So cold

❄️ A I D E N ❄️

So cold, so cold, so cold.
So fucking cold!

Why is no one answering my call at the gate? I've been pressing the call button repeatedly for what feels like hours! Is this all a part of the conditioning? To break you down by the elements?

This is far worse than I thought it could be. This place is a nightmare!

I can't give up now though, Fox needs me! Ever since that horrible night, all those years ago. I vowed to help him. The only reason why we were stuck in that situation with the rat was because of me! If I wasn't so greedy trying to steal food from the guards room, then we wouldn't have gotten caught and we wouldn't both have been sent to the ICU that night! When my parents told me that another boy was sent to the hospital with me, I so badly wanted to go see him. Say I was sorry. But they wouldn't let me near him! No matter what I did! And then they discharged me and said the other boy had to stay because of neurological issues, I just about vomited in my mouth. Poor Fox, the kindest, funniest boy that I met. I never had fun at an institution until I met him!

I need to see him, I need to apologize and take him far away from here. From anyone that can harm him!

My toes have since froze solid in my combat boots, the wool socks only helped for about 30 minutes. The winter coat, hat, gloves and scarf stopped keeping the cold and blistering wind out forty-five minutes ago.

I have been waiting out here for at least two hours now.

My cell phone battery died at the airport and based off the cab ride here, the closest neighbor is a three mile walk, the town is about ten miles past that.

I can no longer move my limbs to keep warm.

I'm going to die out here.

No! I need to put more layers on! Crouching down to open my suitcase, I rip off my gloves to unzip the opening. It's frozen shut, my fingers are frozen stiff and so numb that I can't get it open! I scramble to put the gloves back on.

Tears build in my eyes but the wind washes them away creating ice on my lashes. I huddle closer to my bags into a ball trying to create a wind barrier and close my eyes.

I think of Ezra back home, I feel so bad for what happened after my parents came into my room. He has been my rock for so long. My neighbor that never moved away. We've been best friends since we were in diapers and when I told him my plan, he tried to talk me out of it for weeks before I put it in motion. Begging me to reconsider. But I just couldn't.

I'll be forever grateful to him. He told me at the hospital a week after I was admitted that he was able to drag my father off of me before he killed me. My black eye and broken jaw, that is now wired shut for the next few weeks, was damage enough.

I just couldn't let this opportunity pass. After digging for years, I finally found a lead. It was all because of social media.

I was doing my usual monthly search of Fox's name, when an article popped up paying tribute to his mother and her charitable work. The journalist asked if she had any children and she gave Fox's name. I scoured page after page and finally found a picture of a young, sour faced, Fox sitting at a table with his mother.

I found out that she lived in New York, a mere five hour drive from my parents home in Vermont. I called her, pretending to be a donor, and sweet talked my way into locating her son. I used the ruse that my non-existent brother was 'inflicted' and I needed a recommendation of a 'good' place to send him off to. That led to her confiding about The Centre.