A Living Hell ✔︎ {editing}

4- I wish I could

~3 weeks later~

"Please!" Ruby begs me.

"The camp's gonna be shit." I mumble. Ruby's been stressing me about going to this camp that is coming up. I heard that a bunch of people from school get together and go away for the weekend, it's an annual tradition. Thank fuck teachers aren't involved.

"No it won't, you don't know that 'til you come." she sounds like my mum but I know she's right. "Right Maya?" She asks.

"Nah it'll be shit." She admits and I scoff. "But all the guys are going so I'm down." She glances over at my brother's group and I cringe.

"You better not hook up with my brother. That's fucked up." I say.

"Oh hell nah. I mean his friend Caleb, he be lookin' fine." I laugh at her words. I look over at Caleb but immediately turn away when Hunter catches my eye. We haven't spoken much, like at all and I feel partly guilty for being so cold. But he got what he gave I guess. Must hurt like a bitch.

"But for real, you better come to the camp. I swear if you don't come, I'll drag you there myself." Ruby crosses her arms.

"Fine. Fuck it. But if it's shit, I'm blaming you and your positive little ass." I chuckle.

"And...I heard Hunter's going." Ruby wiggles her eyebrows. I told the girls about how I already know Hunter but I haven't spoken about the abuse from my biological dad or anything. It's still a sensitive topic and I really don't want to bring up old memories.

"Um that's a bad thing. We haven't spoken since he fucking winded me." Technically it was my fault that I ran into him, but he wasn't the one that got hurt.

------

I walk down the stairs from my room on Saturday night.

"you bastard! I'll win this time, for real." Bryan says to someone from the living room. He must be playing the Xbox like usual. I chuck my bag onto the floor and grab myself a cup of water.

"Oh shut up, stop trying to make yourself feel better." The voice makes me drop my glass cup causing it to shatter on the floor.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" I mutter, bending down to pick up the broken pieces of glass.

"Hey clumsy." Hunter says, his voice now in the same room, and I feel him bend down next to me.

"You really don't need to help. You didn't make this shitty mess." I sigh, but he helps anyway.

"Well it's not your fault that you were distracted by me and dropped the cup." He smirks and I scoff.

"Yeah, distracted by your cockiness." I reply as we both scoop up the glass. A piece of glass pierces my finger and it bleeds, not much, but it stings like a bitch.

"Shit." Hunter says and grabs a paper towel. He dabs the blood away then finishes cleaning the floor.

"I'm sorry." I say to him when he comes back and sits facing me.
"Why?" He furrows his eyebrows.
"I first cut my finger and now you probably feel forced to help me. And you had to clean up my mess." I say while he puts a bandaid around my finger.

He stops and looks me right in the eyes, his blue eyes piercing through mine. "I don't feel forced to help you. And don't apologise for something you can't control." With that, he stands up and walks back to Bryan, leaving me there, once again. What is with this guy?

I walk to the lounge room and sit next to Bryan on the couch. Right now they're playing some game that I don't even know or want to know about so I just watch. I stare at the bandaid on my finger and let my thoughts go. My life is kind of like a bandaid, weird I know. This family, this life that I have now has covered up my fucked up life like a bandaid. 

But one rip and it'll all fall apart. Underneath that little layer of safety is the wound. The damage that will take a long time to heal, and a bandaid won't make it heal any faster, it just covers it. Hides it even. I can't really escape my childhood, or erase it from my brain, because it's there, it's a scar that can't heal...

My vision blurs and I realise that I'm about to start crying. Not again. I quickly wipe my eyes as best as I can and walk back to the kitchen. Then I grab myself a muesli bar and nibble at it, while I sit on the kitchen bench.

"I'm hungry." Hunter whines and I look away when he enters the room. Of course he has to be shirtless again and wearing those grey trackies.

"Well good for you, hungry." I say flatly.

"Can you make me something?" He asks.

"Hell no, your lazy ass can cook something." I reply looking around at everything but him.

"Why aren't you looking at me?" He says.

"Not every girl wants to check you out." I say, fiddling with the little oats on my bar.

"They also don't avoid my eyes." He says and comes closer to me. Now he's literally in front of me, me sitting on the bench and him standing. My breath hitches in my throat from the small distance between us. Now it's hard to avoid his eyes.  He grabs my chin softly and pulls it up so I'm forced to stare into his eyes.

His features immediately soften and he says, "Is something wrong?"

"Not anything that you need to worry about." I reply.

"Why are you cutting me out like this?"
"Well can I just remind you of who cut me out, then left the town without a word? Not even a fucking text!" I say becoming sad again from the memory. "That's when I needed you Hunter."

I remember that one day he simply started sitting with the players of the school, going out to parties, drinking, and all the while he didn't say a word to me. Like I was invisible. And this was when I had enough of being abused, treated like a fricking servant, I needed someone.

"You don't know how much I wish I could go back and change how fucking stupid I was to cut you out. But I can't change the past." He says, barely audible. "I wish I could."

"You could've apologised, let me know what was happening, you just changed Hunter."

"You can't do anything about it." He says.

"Well I'll tell you what? I'm trying to move on from the 'past' and have a fresh start at this school but it's been really hard. I'm trying to get to know you Hunter, this you. The changed you." And with that I walk away up to my room, wishing that my clumsy self didn't drop that bloody glass in the first place. 

---

pls tell me u like the story so far? coz tbh idek if its any good.

I need some advice- so the name of this story rn is A living hell. But I kinda wanna change it...i was thinking The bad boys back. But it is cliche so idk, any ideas??

-L