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Hunter is still.
Very, very still.
“Get out of my sight.”
It isn’t spoken aloud, that sort of thing never is. Its one of those things you have to guess at, one of those cues they all expect you to pick up on.
Camilla is giving him that cue, now, because she’s holding up Hunter’s kit with a rigid expression etched into her soft features.
“Hunter.” Her voice is fuzzy and buzzing in his ears, quiet past the roaring of blood in his head. He can feel his cheeks burning.
“I want you to explain this- ay, dios-“ Camilla places the kit down with a dull thud on the countertop. She pinches between her eyebrows. “I want you to explain this to me, all of this. When did it all start?”
He wants to speak. He really wants to, wants to spill out those half-truths and lies he had always been so adept at performing. It’s my friends at school’s, i’m holding onto it for them- i just tried it once and hated it, honestly i forgot i even had it- i was prescribed those pills, and the powder is vitamin C dust—
Hunter’s throat is swelling up. He’s stopped breathing, which he notes logically. It’s all very logical. He just needs to open his mouth and convince her-
Convince your adopted mother of two years that you’re not a fucking junkie? Fool her the same way you used to lie to Belos?
“Mijo.”
Hunter gasps. His head is full of that rushing sound, that panic of a lie found out, that gut-deep twisting of guilt— and he can’t, he just can’t-
Camilla has said something else, and Hunter can see the trepidation in her caring eyes. She’s seen his panic attacks before, but this time was different. He’d truly fucked up, this time. Maybe it would be the last time. He’d go back to living on the streets. It wouldn’t be hard, really. Living off of trash sandwiches and hard drugs didn’t sound like too bad an idea.
Rational. Right. He was being irrational. Hunter loved this life, loved his sisters and his school. Loved everything except for the twisting, aching in his stomach, that tremor of anxiety and the past that coursed through his veins- he loved everything, except for the little kit that soothed that tremor.
So maybe it was rational. To leave, leave Camilla, Luz, and Vee- maybe it was the only option. Thats what they wanted from him, anyway. Maybe he’d move back home. He would drink his uncle’s whiskey and sit on his cracked throne, drinking until he forgot what Camilla’s birria tasted like and the smell of Luz’s detangler and the sound Vee’s late night facetime calls.
“Mijo.” She’s desperate now. Her hand is on Hunter’s.
To lead him to the door, away from her lovely home where a broken boy does not belong.