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I pushed my curly hair out of my eyes. I sat next to Herc, intertwining our hands I looked up and gazed around the table. Alex, my dear was sitting next to Frenchy, his curly hair was pushed over his shoulder as he listened to Alex rant about something, I had no clue what he was ranting about, but it as making him happy so I didn’t mind.
“What do you guys want to do today?” Herc asked, “I’m fine with doing anything.”
I gazed up at him, pushing the rest of my food around on my plate, a silence etched in the area around the four of us.
“I don’t know, we could go to the park, but we went to the movie yesterday, so that may not work,” Laf said, his hand reaching for my plate, his fingers just slightly grazing mine.
“We could just hang out at home, watch a few movies,” Alex offered, reaching for his laptop at the other end of the table. his eyes looked tired but extremely wise.
“That works, but I have a meeting at 2:00 and you have to study, how about after we all finish that then we turn on the movie? It could be nice to just sit with you guys for a little bit instead of being alone,” I offered, taking back my plate from Laf, shaking my head at him.
“Here, I can take out our plates if you want, although I was going to anyway,” I laugh, the quietness seeping back in as I leave to go back to the kitchen and wash the plates.
As I put the plates in the kitchen I reach for a few of the glasses, they were gifts from Lafs mom, before she passed of course. Everything was going well, they were easy to wash, surprisingly As he moved to the last one, putting them in the cabinet, he felt his hands starting to get a bit slippery, he could only hope for the best.
That is when the worst happened.
The glass fell, the stained glass slipping to the ground, he froze, he could hear Herc running over to him followed by two other people, probably Alex and Laf. He felt tears falling off his face, the tears staining his face.
All he could remember is what used to happen when this used to happen. He could hardly hear Herc telling him everything was okay. Sure they had all dropped glasses before. But he had never felt like this before. He could remember everything perfectly now that he was thing about it.
“What do you mean you dropped the glass!” His dad would shout at him, tears filtered his vision as his knees buckled, he could feel the glass shards sink into his skin.
His cheek stinged, phantom pain he learned it was called later, he was remembering exactly what his dad did to him when he dropped a glass in the past before he rain away.
He flinched slamming his head against the cabinet behind him, his heartbeat speeding up, he wanted to talk, yell at them to get away from him, but he couldn’t he didn’t know how. As if the power had just been stripped away from him, tears glistening there way down. Was it sweat or blood that was pouring down his back? He wouldn’t know.
“Your sister can pay for this, you brat,” his dad had spat at him, why did he still like his dad? He couldn’t remember, maybe it was because he was still somewhat in his life, unlike a lot of people.
“Your sister will pay for every mistake you make, and you can’t stop it,” he laughed, he laughed! Tears fell down his cheeks again.
“John, my love, breathe, your safe it’s okay we have all l made this mistake before, and you know we all have.” Lafs voice broke through, tears glistening down his cheeks, now leaning against Alex, who had at some point, moved toward him.
“Let me look, looks like you have some pretty nasty scratches on your legs, come here, I can make sure you are alright now.” Herc said, putting him on the couch, rolling up his pant legs, reaching for the med kit that they kept near them.
“Ow,” was the only thing I would manage to get out. Leaning on to Alex. Then I switched to Laf. His chest was warm, like a blanket.
I could feel the scratches being tended to very slowly, the quietness now in the room was eating me up. “What movie should we watch,” I force out through gritted teeth, I hated that sound but of well, not much I could do.
Herc stood up, nuzzling between Alex and me, letting me lean on Laf just a bit more. He swinged his arm around me, his usual love language was speaking French to us, his accent was utterly adorable. And when he tumbled over his words and described what it was in such a vague way that it was confusing.
“I vote any musical, like mean girls,” Alex joked, it was a small joke we all had, since we caught Herc watching mean girls at 3:00 AM.
I remember about my meeting, checking the time it was about 12:30, I had awhile but I may just call out sick for it, I didn’t feel up for it quite yet.
“You have been called out of the meeting already, Laf took care of it for you,” I smiled, softly, before closing my eyes and letting his smell wash over me, his coffee-stained shirt still smelled like coffee, his hair was playing with my hair, the quietness of it all was insane. Tears glistened in the main characters eyes as the movie played, reminding me I was safe with everyone in the room, people who would never betray me no matter what. People who loved me, inside and out. “I love you,” I muttered out.
“I love you too,” They murmured before I dozed off.