19

Chapter 19 He had spent the entire day walking around town, going anywhere he needed to and avoiding talking to people because he didn't feel comfortable conversing with anybody, particularly people who had nothing better to do with their time. So when he finally got home, he flopped onto his couch, turned the TV on, and picked up the remote. The second his eyes landed on Netflix, he immediately clicked on the 'on' button and watched as the title 'A Little Night Out With Friends' appeared on screen. Victorz sighed tiredly, running his fingers through his brown hair repeatedly before pressing enter. Within two minutes he was staring at a list of all the movies that his friends had recommended him. He groaned. This was torture. He couldn't watch any more films tonight; they weren't interesting enough. After looking through every single movie in existence, he realised that there was absolutely nothing left that he wanted to watch. He had already memorised every song that he knew in the last few days, and he definitely didn't want to listen to a song that was written a few years back that he couldn't sing. His thoughts wandered towards Harry again. Was he having fun right now? Was he smiling, laughing? Did he know that his best friend had kissed him and run away from him? Did he care? He hoped so; otherwise it really would be painful to go through with it. He wanted to believe the words that came out of his mouth when he promised to keep his distance. He just wanted to believe that this whole time it was the other way around. The sound of the front door opening startled him out of his thoughts. "Hey Dad," called out the voice of Henry as he stomped into the living room. Victorz didn't look up, not trusting his voice to respond. There was still a large lump in his throat and his heart was still pounding wildly in his chest as he sat on the couch. He could still hear the voices echoing inside his head as if he was back there listening to them being berated by his father while he was crying uncontrollably on the ground. He thought about how much he hated his father and wished that he would hit him or scream at him for everything that he had done, but he couldn't bring himself to make any move in response. The tears continued rolling relentlessly down his cheeks. Henry stopped short upon stepping into the living room. "Are you okay?" he asked concerned. He didn't look up, simply shrugged weakly and wiped away the falling tears with his wrist. "I'm here if you wanna talk," offered Henry tentatively. Victorz shook his head no without saying anything. He heard Henry sigh as he moved further away from the door and into the kitchen, muttering under his breath about 'damn teenagers' and'stubborn assholes'. It wasn't hard to tell that the younger boy was trying to cheer Victor up. Still, he couldn't be happy; he couldn't smile because his smile was fake and his eyes couldn't fill with any emotion, and the only thing that would help was someone making him cry again, and for that, he would give anything. Just like that day all those years ago; just like that day six months earlier. As much as he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and forget about everything that was bothering him, he could no longer ignore the reality. His parents weren't angry with him anymore. They seemed to have forgotten all about their little spat. Everything had changed. He wasn't the kid they had raised anymore; he wasn't that naive child anymore. That kid – well, Victor was beginning to suspect that he had become somebody else entirely... "Have you eaten yet?" Henry asked him quietly from the other side of the room. Victorz shook his head again and looked away as soon as his father came closer to him. He wanted to tell his father everything, to talk about all those things that he had wanted to ask him the other day.