Stolen Voices ✓

February 19th

It's a lonely thing,

protecting a breakable heart.

- Atticus

February 19th:

As deranged as it sounds, Elias has started getting used to collapsing asleep to the muffled cries of his mother. The walls weren't thick enough to hide her smothered sobbing that continued through the iniquity of night. Even after the sun rises to its peak, bright rays cast over the shadow that looms over their house, tears stain her cheeks. Dark brown bags encircled her eyes, her bones beginning to show as she's lost her appetite to grief.

Elias wants to bring her into an embrace, to tell her that it isn't her fault he's so messed up inside his head. But he can't even move from his hidden place beneath the sheets of his bed. He's managed to shower and brush his teeth, sluggishly dragging his feet into the small bathroom attached to his room. The entire thing took more effort than it was worth.

The treehouse stands as a beacon, pulling Elias to it in the middle of the night. Whispering into the shadows dark for him to come to it. He's spent the past week staring at the light gray walls of his bedroom, feelings as if they are suffocating him from the inside. Giving in to the callings, Elias trudges out into the snow-covered grass. Climbing into the safety net of the structure.

As soon as he's inside, candles lit in the corner, the memories hit him like a storm. Almost as if they take him over, sucking in a breath of fresh air he so desperately needed.

His feet swing, sweeping over the tiles of the front office, not quite touching the surface. His fingertips tap anxiously on the armrest, his eyes darting around the room as he takes in every colored poster on the wall.

He awaits his turn with the principal, his knuckles bruised and abraded. His brown eyes, continuing to dart around the room. An older boy, with a now purple bruised eye under his eye, emerges from the jaws of perdition. Staring daggers at the younger boy, who continues to swing his feet, staring back with the same intensity.

The young boy held no fear.

"Elias, can you please come in here," the tall man with white hair and beady chuckles calls his attention. His head grazes the top of the door, his hand motioning into his office.

Sitting down on yet another chair, this one covered in a plush cushion, the young boy perches upright. Fidgeting with the zipper of his sweatshirt, his sleeves rolled up on the ends as they were too long. The smell of coffee instantly attacks the adolescent boy, in a powerful aroma that overwhelms his senses.

"Can you tell me why you hit him?" the principal questions, leaning back on his rolling chair. He was quite stumped to see an eight-year-old boy dared to take on a fifteen-year-old, and despite his disadvantage in height and weight, win.

Pushing back the dark curls that blanket his eyes, the young Elias shrugs his shoulders, carelessly. He stares the principal straight in the eye, holding not an ounce of regret in their irises. He slowly smiles, the corner of his lip turning upright.

"He touched her," Elias vocalizes, his speech slurred by his two missing front teeth. Elias only had a few scrapes on his elbows, mostly from rolling around on the concrete slab.

"What?" The principal sits up at the sudden news.

"He. Touched. Her." Elias repeats, dragging it out each syllable.