Categories > Celebrities > Panic! At The Disco > The Tears Won't Fall if the Heart Stops Beating
The loud slam of the door woke Ryan up.
He could hear his father in the kitchen and cringed when he heard the commotion and glass shattering as it hit the floor.
As he heard his father stomp up the stairs, he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Luckily, his door was shut and locked, and the loud sound of his drunken father gradually faded. He assumed his dad had made it to his room and passed out on the bed again. Groggily reaching over to check the time, his hand swept the clock to the floor. He huffed and rolled over, too lazy to retrieve it. He could feel sleep start to claim him again, and lazily and ungracefully kicked off his shoes before sighing. Falling asleep in jeans and his shirt would not be comfortable, but he was so exhausted that he didn’t care. Ryan’s stomach made a loud gurgling noise, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast—two days ago.
His brain and thoughts were so clogged with the fog of sleep that he didn’t care, and let his exhaustion overtake him. His breath became shallow and quiet; his body gently relaxing from its natural tensed position, and Ryan was asleep.
*
“FUCK!” Ryan clutched his pounding head with his hands. His alarm had scared the shit out of him, and was currently going off somewhere in his room. He had sat up too quickly, and slumped over, still holding his head trying to fight off the dizziness. Ryan slowly reclined his body and felt his head thump against the pillow. He extended his body, stretching his legs, before curling up and hugging his knees to his chest like had been before his alarm woke him up.
Shit. The alarm.
It was still beeping, and from the sounds of it, was buried under something on the floor. He slowly rolled his body and kind of crawled from his bed to the floor. He angrily pushed his haphazard mess of hair from his eyes and was on his hands and knees looking for the alarm. The sound led him to a pile of clothes and he threw them aside before retrieving the annoying mother fucker. Still too sleepy to remember how to shut it off, he just threw it halfheartedly across the room. From the pile of clothes he was slumped across, he dragged an old Smashing Pumpkins shirt and some blue skinny jeans from the mess. He slowly stood up, trying to shake the sleep from his body.
Ryan stripped down, removing his clothes from yesterday, and putting the new, albeit still dirty, ones on. He looked to his clock to see what time it was, but seeing the cracked screen, just nonchalantly made his way to the bathroom and hoped he wasn’t running too late. It didn’t really matter. His dad didn’t usually regain consciousness until around noon, and it’s not like school was the top of his to do list.
He grimaced at the reflection in the mirror and half-heartedly combed his hair down. It was still shaggy and messy, but he had managed to tame it into a somewhat acceptable look. The crack on his lip was barely visible, healing quickly.
His old converse’s and backpack lay by the door, and he scooped them up before making his way to the kitchen. Ryan’s shoulders slumped with a defeated sigh. The floor was covered in glass shards and the counters were sticky from dried alcohol. He looked through the pantries, before settling on just grabbing an old granola bar. It’s not like they had much food anyway. He walked out of the house and shut the door quietly behind him, as not to wake his father up. Ryan chuckled darkly to himself as he made his way to the bus stop, it’s not like that would wake his father up anyway.
With his ipod, Ryan could face anything. The early bus ride by himself, the awkward maneuverings of a busy hallway, and the occasional insults tossed at him. With his earbuds, Ryan was oblivious to all, and jumped about a foot when the slamming of his locker startled him. He cautiously pulled out an ear bud to see a tiny 5’ 4’’ girl standing in front of him. He rolled his eyes.
“Hey Melissa.”
Melissa was like his personal stalker. And the poster girl for stereotypical emo. She had the black hair, the piercings, the dark clothes covered in skulls, and a particularly ugly face. Since last year this girl had had a fascination with Ryan, you could even call it an obsession. She seemed to think he was this dark quiet boy with a tortured soul, egging her stalker-like tendencies. She would often appear and make some comment about death or some other morbid topic. As if him wearing skinny jeans and eyeliner automatically joined him to her, and they could both suffer in a joint pity party. She started to talk him, but Ryan was not in the mood. He stuck the ear bud back in his ear, and walked away. She frowned, and turned to walk the other way. Maybe he should be nicer to the only other person to notice him and not completely berate him besides Jon, but really, she was just so.. creepy.
It was just another school day, filled with the same boring classes, stupid teachers, and obnoxious kids. Ryan had spent most of the day with his mind elsewhere. Not really thinking, more or less zoning out. When the bell rang, signaling the end of fifth period, Ryan made his way to the cafeteria. He stopped at his locker first to drop off some binders, glad to see that Melissa wasn’t there. He bent his skinny body down to lazily through some binders into the bottom of his locker and when he shut the locker door was surprised to be thisclose to a familiar pair of brown eyes.
“Hi!” The warm brown eyes crinkled at the corner as the face smiled.
“Oh…Brendon. Hey there.” His face flushed, being in such close proximity of Brendon.
“Can you tell me where the cafeteria is?” Ryan watched his eyebrows crunch in slight confusion. “I had to fill out some new-student forms at lunch and didn’t have a chance to find it yesterday.”
“Sure.” Feeling awkward, Ryan ran his hands through his hair, like he always did when he was uncomfortable. In response, Ryan got a 1,000 watt smile. He made his way to the lunch room, Brendon close behind him. Kid was so fucking hyper. Ryan noticed he like bounced with ever step he took. He led the boy, the hyperactive child, to the table where he and Jon usually sat. Jon’s scruffy head was hunched over yet another sheet of unfinished math homework.
“Jon.”
“Fuck this shit” his friend muttered and angrily crumpled the paper up before turning to Ryan with a friendly smile.
“Hey dude,” he greeted his friend with his normal chill attitude, “who’s your friend?”
“This is Brendon. He’s new here.” Turning to Brendon, he asked, “Wanna sit with u—“ only to stop short when he saw Brendon had already sat down and was talking easily with Jon. Where the fuck was this kid from again?
Ryan quietly sat down and observed their conversation, which had turned into a friendly argument of which Chuck Palahniuk book was the best.
“No, dude, I’m telling you Haunted is the shit!”
“There is no way Haunted can compare to Invisible Monsters!” Brendon countered. Ryan thought it was adorable, how passionate and somewhat flustered the boy was getting over a simple debate about books. Never one to talk much, Ryan let them duke it out, glad to see them getting along. He thought back to yesterday, and the strange incident in the hallway. Maybe Brendon was just a touch-y kind of person. Ryan didn’t like that. In fact, he’d cringe whenever someone ended up too close to him. The gaze he had received yesterday from the boy though was disconcerting. He had just felt so…analyzed. He wasn’t used to people paying too much attention to him.
“What about you Ryan?”
Brendon’s voice snapped him back to attention.
“Um..I’ve always like Invisible Monsters the best.” He said shyly, giving the awaiting boy a small smile.
“I told you!” Brendon exclaimed towards Jon, “Victory is mine!” His little Brendon smirk was adorable. Jon, as good-natured as he was, just shrugged it off with a “Whatever you say man”.
Meanwhile, Ryan just kind of sat there and stared at Brendon. Really, the kid was gorgeous. It was even more adorable because Ryan had a feeling that Brendon had no clue how cute he really was. He had on a pair of red-framed glasses, to match his red skinny jeans. Like yesterday, his tight pants and shirt clung to his body in all the right places. He was skinny, but with curves, and muscular, but it was subtle. Brendon leaned over to retrieve a sandwich from his backpack, and Ryan found himself blushing slightly, as he was checking out the boys perfect little apple bottom. He quickly turned his face downward as Brendon sat back up, not wanting to be caught creeping.
“Aren’tchu gonna eat?” Brendon asked Ryan, wide-eyed, mouth slightly stuffed with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ryan laughed, seeing some bread caught on the outside of the boy’s mouth.
“What?” he asked, looking at the laughing Ryan, a little more crumbs falling from his mouth.
“Nothing. You just have a little food on your face.” He smiled.
Brendon unabashedly wiped the food from his face with the side of his hand and stared at Ryan expectantly.
“Food?”
“Nah, I had a big breakfast, I’m too full to eat lunch.” Ryan lied.
Brendon shrugged, choosing to believe Ryan, but it was still off-putting to Ryan to see the concern in the boy’s eyes.
“SHIT!” Brendon suddenly exclaimed, and quite loudly, earning their small group some annoyed glances from nearby tables. Ryan was starting to learn that this kid was just naturally loud.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I forgot to finish my French homework”. Brendon pouted. Oh god, he pouted. Brendon, with his large lips, pouted. He looked like a fucking adorable puppy. “I don’t even know how to do any of this!” he whined. Really. Ryan smiled. He was just too cute.
“Will you help me?” He asked Ryan, with big eyes. “If it says ‘Je mange le pizza’, what do I do to turn it into the past tense?”
Ryan explained the answer to him, and the rest of their lunch was spent trying to explain the process of passé compose to Brendon. When the bell rang, Brendon let out a huff.
“I’ll never get this!”
“Of course you will, you just need to keep practicing it.” Ryan consoled him.
“Can you help me? Please?”
“With your French?”
“Yeah! I just need to keep working on it and your really good at French and I know I just moved here but I can’t get bad grades or my parents will kill me and today is Friday so maybe tomorrow we could hang out and you could be like my tutor because I’m only in French one and you’re like a fucking French genius so with your help I could totally pass the class so I’ll give you my number my address so we can hang out and you can help me study!”
Ryan just watched the boy ramble, trying to comprehend half of what he was saying. Before he knew it, Brendon was shoving a piece of paper with a phone number and address into his hands. Ryan opened his mouth to speak but Brendon had already run off to his locker before seventh period.
Ryan turned to Jon with wide eyes and a “what just happened?” look on his face. Jon just laughed and said,
“He’s a keeper. Looks like you guys have a date tomorrow!”
His brain finally catching up with all the information Brendon had just spewed, he shoved Jon.
“Shut up.”
*
When he got home, Ryan trudged upstairs to chuck his backpack onto his bed, before making his way back downstairs to the kitchen. He got out an old broom and dustpan, and began to pick up the broken glass from last night. Seeing as his father’s door was open, he figured he wasn’t home. The boy picked up all of the glass, cleaned the counters from their sticky substances, and made his way up to his room. He was like a hobbit with all the time he spent locked up in there. With a content plop, he landed on his bed, glad it was Friday. Hopefully, his dad would be out late so he wouldn’t have to deal with him tonight. School seemed to have a way of always draining all of his energy, and Ryan found a nap in order before starting any homework. Ryan was glad to observe that though a little sore, he didn’t feel much pain from his ribs when he landed on his bed. He pulled his shirt up to see that the myriad of bruises had faded, and where now an ugly yellow green, instead of the angry purple/blue they had been two days ago. He pulled a pillow under his head, and let himself think about Brendon. The paper he had given him seemed to be burning a hole in his pocket. He’d have to remember to text him. Did he really want Ryan to come over? And Ryan even want to come over? He liked Brendon. Maybe more than he should of. As different as he was, compararatively to Ryan, his hyperness and loudness were almost endearing. There was a ghost of a smile etched on Ryan’s face as he fell asleep thinking about Brendon.
*
Once again, a loud slam of a door woke Ryan up.
Shit.
The heavy fall of footsteps made him sit up.
Fuck.
The meaty hands pulled him to his feet.
Oh fuck.
The smell of alcohol shook the sleepy fuzz from his mind.
“Wha didshe llleave?” his father slurred, his hands wrapped tightly around Ryan’s slumped shoulders. The boy bowed his head at the mention of his mother and quietly replied,
“I don’t know”.
“Speak up boy!” his dad’s voice getting louder, his grip on his shoulders getting tighter. Ryan raised his head to look his father in his glassy eyes.
“I don’t know.” He stated louder and more firmly. The older man’s eyes narrowed, Ryan could sense his growing anger. Still holding him, Ryan was unprepared for the knee that violently collided with his stomach. He sunk to the ground with an ‘oomphf’ and doubled over clutching his stomach. He had knocked the wind out of him, and was panting when he felt his dad’s foot collide with the side of his face, the toe catching on his cheekbone.
“She left us!” his father roared, the alcohol egging on his anger. “She left us. And I’m stuck with you!” Ryan was curled up in fetal position on the floor, unable to see with the pain and blurry vision. He could hear his dad’s loud exasperated sigh, and heard the floor creak and he stumbled and almost fell. It fell silent, except for his dad’s heavy breathing, before the silence was cut with a loud yelp. His dad had kicked him one last time, nailing him right in the ribs, same place as before.
“Little shit.” He could hear his father mumbling before he stumbled away, colliding with the door frame before crookedly making it to his room down the hallway.
Still curled up in a ball on the hardwood floor, Ryan alternated between panting and trying to regain his breath, and holding his breath to save himself the pain radiating from his lower chest.
But Ryan didn’t cry. He felt pain—physically. Emotionally, he was hallow. He was stuck living under the roof of the man he despised the most. He was worthless to everyone. He had learned to accept that from a young age, and keep his self hate bottled up. The boy maneuvered his hands to the sides of his body and tried to hoist his head and upper torso up from the ground. Pain seared through him, his arms gave out, and he collapsed with a thud to the ground. His head rebounded off the ground with a dull noise. Ryan’s vision started to cloud even more, as if a vignette had settled within his view. His phone lying on the ground in front of him read 11:35 pm.
He just lay there.
The boy could feel himself falling asleep and gave a small shiver, before passing out.
He could hear his father in the kitchen and cringed when he heard the commotion and glass shattering as it hit the floor.
As he heard his father stomp up the stairs, he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Luckily, his door was shut and locked, and the loud sound of his drunken father gradually faded. He assumed his dad had made it to his room and passed out on the bed again. Groggily reaching over to check the time, his hand swept the clock to the floor. He huffed and rolled over, too lazy to retrieve it. He could feel sleep start to claim him again, and lazily and ungracefully kicked off his shoes before sighing. Falling asleep in jeans and his shirt would not be comfortable, but he was so exhausted that he didn’t care. Ryan’s stomach made a loud gurgling noise, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast—two days ago.
His brain and thoughts were so clogged with the fog of sleep that he didn’t care, and let his exhaustion overtake him. His breath became shallow and quiet; his body gently relaxing from its natural tensed position, and Ryan was asleep.
*
“FUCK!” Ryan clutched his pounding head with his hands. His alarm had scared the shit out of him, and was currently going off somewhere in his room. He had sat up too quickly, and slumped over, still holding his head trying to fight off the dizziness. Ryan slowly reclined his body and felt his head thump against the pillow. He extended his body, stretching his legs, before curling up and hugging his knees to his chest like had been before his alarm woke him up.
Shit. The alarm.
It was still beeping, and from the sounds of it, was buried under something on the floor. He slowly rolled his body and kind of crawled from his bed to the floor. He angrily pushed his haphazard mess of hair from his eyes and was on his hands and knees looking for the alarm. The sound led him to a pile of clothes and he threw them aside before retrieving the annoying mother fucker. Still too sleepy to remember how to shut it off, he just threw it halfheartedly across the room. From the pile of clothes he was slumped across, he dragged an old Smashing Pumpkins shirt and some blue skinny jeans from the mess. He slowly stood up, trying to shake the sleep from his body.
Ryan stripped down, removing his clothes from yesterday, and putting the new, albeit still dirty, ones on. He looked to his clock to see what time it was, but seeing the cracked screen, just nonchalantly made his way to the bathroom and hoped he wasn’t running too late. It didn’t really matter. His dad didn’t usually regain consciousness until around noon, and it’s not like school was the top of his to do list.
He grimaced at the reflection in the mirror and half-heartedly combed his hair down. It was still shaggy and messy, but he had managed to tame it into a somewhat acceptable look. The crack on his lip was barely visible, healing quickly.
His old converse’s and backpack lay by the door, and he scooped them up before making his way to the kitchen. Ryan’s shoulders slumped with a defeated sigh. The floor was covered in glass shards and the counters were sticky from dried alcohol. He looked through the pantries, before settling on just grabbing an old granola bar. It’s not like they had much food anyway. He walked out of the house and shut the door quietly behind him, as not to wake his father up. Ryan chuckled darkly to himself as he made his way to the bus stop, it’s not like that would wake his father up anyway.
With his ipod, Ryan could face anything. The early bus ride by himself, the awkward maneuverings of a busy hallway, and the occasional insults tossed at him. With his earbuds, Ryan was oblivious to all, and jumped about a foot when the slamming of his locker startled him. He cautiously pulled out an ear bud to see a tiny 5’ 4’’ girl standing in front of him. He rolled his eyes.
“Hey Melissa.”
Melissa was like his personal stalker. And the poster girl for stereotypical emo. She had the black hair, the piercings, the dark clothes covered in skulls, and a particularly ugly face. Since last year this girl had had a fascination with Ryan, you could even call it an obsession. She seemed to think he was this dark quiet boy with a tortured soul, egging her stalker-like tendencies. She would often appear and make some comment about death or some other morbid topic. As if him wearing skinny jeans and eyeliner automatically joined him to her, and they could both suffer in a joint pity party. She started to talk him, but Ryan was not in the mood. He stuck the ear bud back in his ear, and walked away. She frowned, and turned to walk the other way. Maybe he should be nicer to the only other person to notice him and not completely berate him besides Jon, but really, she was just so.. creepy.
It was just another school day, filled with the same boring classes, stupid teachers, and obnoxious kids. Ryan had spent most of the day with his mind elsewhere. Not really thinking, more or less zoning out. When the bell rang, signaling the end of fifth period, Ryan made his way to the cafeteria. He stopped at his locker first to drop off some binders, glad to see that Melissa wasn’t there. He bent his skinny body down to lazily through some binders into the bottom of his locker and when he shut the locker door was surprised to be thisclose to a familiar pair of brown eyes.
“Hi!” The warm brown eyes crinkled at the corner as the face smiled.
“Oh…Brendon. Hey there.” His face flushed, being in such close proximity of Brendon.
“Can you tell me where the cafeteria is?” Ryan watched his eyebrows crunch in slight confusion. “I had to fill out some new-student forms at lunch and didn’t have a chance to find it yesterday.”
“Sure.” Feeling awkward, Ryan ran his hands through his hair, like he always did when he was uncomfortable. In response, Ryan got a 1,000 watt smile. He made his way to the lunch room, Brendon close behind him. Kid was so fucking hyper. Ryan noticed he like bounced with ever step he took. He led the boy, the hyperactive child, to the table where he and Jon usually sat. Jon’s scruffy head was hunched over yet another sheet of unfinished math homework.
“Jon.”
“Fuck this shit” his friend muttered and angrily crumpled the paper up before turning to Ryan with a friendly smile.
“Hey dude,” he greeted his friend with his normal chill attitude, “who’s your friend?”
“This is Brendon. He’s new here.” Turning to Brendon, he asked, “Wanna sit with u—“ only to stop short when he saw Brendon had already sat down and was talking easily with Jon. Where the fuck was this kid from again?
Ryan quietly sat down and observed their conversation, which had turned into a friendly argument of which Chuck Palahniuk book was the best.
“No, dude, I’m telling you Haunted is the shit!”
“There is no way Haunted can compare to Invisible Monsters!” Brendon countered. Ryan thought it was adorable, how passionate and somewhat flustered the boy was getting over a simple debate about books. Never one to talk much, Ryan let them duke it out, glad to see them getting along. He thought back to yesterday, and the strange incident in the hallway. Maybe Brendon was just a touch-y kind of person. Ryan didn’t like that. In fact, he’d cringe whenever someone ended up too close to him. The gaze he had received yesterday from the boy though was disconcerting. He had just felt so…analyzed. He wasn’t used to people paying too much attention to him.
“What about you Ryan?”
Brendon’s voice snapped him back to attention.
“Um..I’ve always like Invisible Monsters the best.” He said shyly, giving the awaiting boy a small smile.
“I told you!” Brendon exclaimed towards Jon, “Victory is mine!” His little Brendon smirk was adorable. Jon, as good-natured as he was, just shrugged it off with a “Whatever you say man”.
Meanwhile, Ryan just kind of sat there and stared at Brendon. Really, the kid was gorgeous. It was even more adorable because Ryan had a feeling that Brendon had no clue how cute he really was. He had on a pair of red-framed glasses, to match his red skinny jeans. Like yesterday, his tight pants and shirt clung to his body in all the right places. He was skinny, but with curves, and muscular, but it was subtle. Brendon leaned over to retrieve a sandwich from his backpack, and Ryan found himself blushing slightly, as he was checking out the boys perfect little apple bottom. He quickly turned his face downward as Brendon sat back up, not wanting to be caught creeping.
“Aren’tchu gonna eat?” Brendon asked Ryan, wide-eyed, mouth slightly stuffed with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Ryan laughed, seeing some bread caught on the outside of the boy’s mouth.
“What?” he asked, looking at the laughing Ryan, a little more crumbs falling from his mouth.
“Nothing. You just have a little food on your face.” He smiled.
Brendon unabashedly wiped the food from his face with the side of his hand and stared at Ryan expectantly.
“Food?”
“Nah, I had a big breakfast, I’m too full to eat lunch.” Ryan lied.
Brendon shrugged, choosing to believe Ryan, but it was still off-putting to Ryan to see the concern in the boy’s eyes.
“SHIT!” Brendon suddenly exclaimed, and quite loudly, earning their small group some annoyed glances from nearby tables. Ryan was starting to learn that this kid was just naturally loud.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I forgot to finish my French homework”. Brendon pouted. Oh god, he pouted. Brendon, with his large lips, pouted. He looked like a fucking adorable puppy. “I don’t even know how to do any of this!” he whined. Really. Ryan smiled. He was just too cute.
“Will you help me?” He asked Ryan, with big eyes. “If it says ‘Je mange le pizza’, what do I do to turn it into the past tense?”
Ryan explained the answer to him, and the rest of their lunch was spent trying to explain the process of passé compose to Brendon. When the bell rang, Brendon let out a huff.
“I’ll never get this!”
“Of course you will, you just need to keep practicing it.” Ryan consoled him.
“Can you help me? Please?”
“With your French?”
“Yeah! I just need to keep working on it and your really good at French and I know I just moved here but I can’t get bad grades or my parents will kill me and today is Friday so maybe tomorrow we could hang out and you could be like my tutor because I’m only in French one and you’re like a fucking French genius so with your help I could totally pass the class so I’ll give you my number my address so we can hang out and you can help me study!”
Ryan just watched the boy ramble, trying to comprehend half of what he was saying. Before he knew it, Brendon was shoving a piece of paper with a phone number and address into his hands. Ryan opened his mouth to speak but Brendon had already run off to his locker before seventh period.
Ryan turned to Jon with wide eyes and a “what just happened?” look on his face. Jon just laughed and said,
“He’s a keeper. Looks like you guys have a date tomorrow!”
His brain finally catching up with all the information Brendon had just spewed, he shoved Jon.
“Shut up.”
*
When he got home, Ryan trudged upstairs to chuck his backpack onto his bed, before making his way back downstairs to the kitchen. He got out an old broom and dustpan, and began to pick up the broken glass from last night. Seeing as his father’s door was open, he figured he wasn’t home. The boy picked up all of the glass, cleaned the counters from their sticky substances, and made his way up to his room. He was like a hobbit with all the time he spent locked up in there. With a content plop, he landed on his bed, glad it was Friday. Hopefully, his dad would be out late so he wouldn’t have to deal with him tonight. School seemed to have a way of always draining all of his energy, and Ryan found a nap in order before starting any homework. Ryan was glad to observe that though a little sore, he didn’t feel much pain from his ribs when he landed on his bed. He pulled his shirt up to see that the myriad of bruises had faded, and where now an ugly yellow green, instead of the angry purple/blue they had been two days ago. He pulled a pillow under his head, and let himself think about Brendon. The paper he had given him seemed to be burning a hole in his pocket. He’d have to remember to text him. Did he really want Ryan to come over? And Ryan even want to come over? He liked Brendon. Maybe more than he should of. As different as he was, compararatively to Ryan, his hyperness and loudness were almost endearing. There was a ghost of a smile etched on Ryan’s face as he fell asleep thinking about Brendon.
*
Once again, a loud slam of a door woke Ryan up.
Shit.
The heavy fall of footsteps made him sit up.
Fuck.
The meaty hands pulled him to his feet.
Oh fuck.
The smell of alcohol shook the sleepy fuzz from his mind.
“Wha didshe llleave?” his father slurred, his hands wrapped tightly around Ryan’s slumped shoulders. The boy bowed his head at the mention of his mother and quietly replied,
“I don’t know”.
“Speak up boy!” his dad’s voice getting louder, his grip on his shoulders getting tighter. Ryan raised his head to look his father in his glassy eyes.
“I don’t know.” He stated louder and more firmly. The older man’s eyes narrowed, Ryan could sense his growing anger. Still holding him, Ryan was unprepared for the knee that violently collided with his stomach. He sunk to the ground with an ‘oomphf’ and doubled over clutching his stomach. He had knocked the wind out of him, and was panting when he felt his dad’s foot collide with the side of his face, the toe catching on his cheekbone.
“She left us!” his father roared, the alcohol egging on his anger. “She left us. And I’m stuck with you!” Ryan was curled up in fetal position on the floor, unable to see with the pain and blurry vision. He could hear his dad’s loud exasperated sigh, and heard the floor creak and he stumbled and almost fell. It fell silent, except for his dad’s heavy breathing, before the silence was cut with a loud yelp. His dad had kicked him one last time, nailing him right in the ribs, same place as before.
“Little shit.” He could hear his father mumbling before he stumbled away, colliding with the door frame before crookedly making it to his room down the hallway.
Still curled up in a ball on the hardwood floor, Ryan alternated between panting and trying to regain his breath, and holding his breath to save himself the pain radiating from his lower chest.
But Ryan didn’t cry. He felt pain—physically. Emotionally, he was hallow. He was stuck living under the roof of the man he despised the most. He was worthless to everyone. He had learned to accept that from a young age, and keep his self hate bottled up. The boy maneuvered his hands to the sides of his body and tried to hoist his head and upper torso up from the ground. Pain seared through him, his arms gave out, and he collapsed with a thud to the ground. His head rebounded off the ground with a dull noise. Ryan’s vision started to cloud even more, as if a vignette had settled within his view. His phone lying on the ground in front of him read 11:35 pm.
He just lay there.
The boy could feel himself falling asleep and gave a small shiver, before passing out.
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