5 Chapter Five

"I have bad news, your daughter has been diagnosed with terminal cancer" Collin stands there in shock, Charlie's parents burst into tears, Charlie stands there in shock with tears rolling down her face. Collin doesn't know what to do, to comfort Charlie or to join her and be in shock crying as well. "We have some treatment we can perform to help her live the longest she can. The longest she has is six months but that's if she and her body accept the treatment in the first place." Six months left. Why did this have to happen to her? Why couldn't have it happen to me?

"Collin I know what you are thinking and I don't what to do the treatment. I don't want to do the treatment because I want to live my life without having to be in and out of hospitals all the time. I want to be free and not have to go through pain. Before you argue with me I'll take the treatment for you and Matthew but you have to promise not to tell Matthew I have cancer. If you tell him I won't take the treatment do you understand?" What am I supposed to say? Say yes, let her live longer and not tell Matthew his best friend is dying or say no, tell Matthew and let her kill herself by letting it consume her?

"Fine, I won't tell Matthew. The second you stop taking treatment even though you can still take it then I will tell Matthew got it?" Collin says with a stern voice to let Charlie know that he is actually serious.

Charlie nods, "Thank you for understanding, happy birthday Collin." Charlie says with a half smile and hugs Collin. Charlie felt a huge guilt for ruining his birthday with bad news but was glad to have him by her side.

Time passes, Collin is in his room with tears rolling down his face but no expression is really shown. He remembers the good times and misses them, he remembers his father and despises him. He remembers his mom, knitting and singing his favorite song but he also remembers his mom's funeral. Remembering all of the words said by the horrible person he once called father. He remembers his mom yelling for help while his father choked and beat her to death. He tried to help but he stabbed him and almost killed him too. He wished that they would have been able to prove his dad killed her but there was no proof. He remembers the day his dad died, beginning to sob just remembering what he wanted to do.

Flashback

"Get over here boy!" his father screamed from downstairs. Collin runs to his closet upstairs and does his best to keep it closed tight. He tries to even his breath but his heart is racing with so much fear, scared that he will be found.

"Where are you, boy!? I will find you, and when I do you will do what you were meant to do." Collin was hyperventilating, wishing and hoping that he would give up and leave him alone. He hears him close, too close for his liking and gets into the closet the furthest he can away from the door. He shakes, just wishing that he will leave and never find him but he knows he will eventually.

"Collin, I can hear you breathing. I can smell your scent in here. You can't hide from me, you can't hide from me no matter how hard you try" Collin was just praying, even though he had a few doubts about God being real he didn't care for that matter, not anymore. He was just hoping that by some miracle he would be heated and his father would leave. He was just hoping that maybe someone would come to his rescue but it was too late. Collin had thought he had left and gotten up. He opened the door to take a peek to make sure it was safe but to his luck it wasn't. His father was right in front of the closet. He tried to close the door but he was too weak, his father pulled him out of the closet sending him falling on the floor.

"Please, please leave me alone. Please no, Ethan please don't hurt me, father please no, get away from me!" His father punches his face and kicks his stomach. "Please stop, I beg of you, if you still have a heart in there then please stop." Ethan picks him up to his feet and shoves him, Collin trying to keep balance but falls anyways on his own bed. Ethan grabs his arms and ties him up to the bed. Collin keeps kicking and squirming but it's no use, Ethan had no intention of letting him go anytime soon.

"Now you are going to be a good son and listen to your father." Collin shakes his head, tears roll down his face with tears and anger.

"You were never a father, you only care about yourself! How are you willing to live with yourself when you do things like this?" Ethan slaps him and laughs, sending shivers down Collin's spine about what is going to happen next. Ethan started kissing him and touching him in places he didn't want to be touched. He screamed and cried for help but one could hear him. He started kicking and yelling at him to stop but he didn't. Actually, it seemed like he was just encouraging his father to keep on going.

Ethan started undressing himself, making Collin cry and turn away from the disgrace he had as a father. He tried to free one hand from the rope and it didn't work but the other one was not as tightly held by the rope. He tried and tried to release that one hand because his phone was on the nightstand right next to him. While his father starts touching Collin's lower region he decides it the perfect time to release his hand and call the police while he was distracted. Although he could have tried to hit him it was better to call for help then to try to fit off someone who could clearly beat him.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, he takes out his hand from the rope and reaches for his phone. He couldn't reach it was too far but he still tried. When he finally reached his phone he screeched in pain as he realized that he wasn't a virgin anymore. He cried in pain and finally calls the police.

"Please, please stop it hurts, please let me go!" Ethan punches him, harder than he had done before across his face causing him to bleed. He tried to get him off with his free hand but it was no use, he was too heavy and strong. He tried and tried to free his other hand, causing his hand to hurt by the rope making his wrist raw. He frees his other hand, takes the vase that was on the nightstand and breaks it on his head. Ethan screams in pain letting his guard down enough for Collin to push him off of him. He tries to run out of the room not caring about the pain because he knew if he slowed down there would be more pain. As he is about to leave the room, Ethan pulls him by his arm towards him and place a gun right on Collin's temple.

"You better do as I say or I will shoot! Don't you think that you being my son will make me hesitate from shooting you? Now get on knees and do as I say!" Collin stands there in shock, his father pushes him down on his knees with the gun pointed to his head. He needed to get out, he wanted to be free and have a normal family that supported his decisions but instead he has a father like Ethan that would hurt him just cause he wanted to. He would understand a little if he wasn't in his right state of mind drunk or high but he wasn't. He was sober knowing exactly what he was saying and doing.

"Please, please for once listen to me and stop hurting me." Ethan laughs like what Collin was saying to him was something that was unreasonable.

"In all the years I've raised you, you never wanted to listen to me, you would run off to disobey me and talk back to me when I asked you to do something. It only seems right that I get to not listen and do what I want now."

Collin shakes his head, how could have he been so unlucky to get a father like Ethan "You are crazy aren't you? I listened to you after I apologized, I thought you had forgotten and forgiven me for my mistakes."

"You thought wrong, you're just like your mother and if you don't listen to me you will end up just like her." In that second something clicked inside of Collin. Anger filled him up completely and consumed him entirely. At that moment he didn't care anymore, he knocked the gun out of his father's hands and picked it off the ground. He got up quickly, loaded the gun and pointed the gun straight at his head. Ethan walks towards him, ignoring the gun completely and pins him up to the wall by his throat. Collin hears the sirens outside the house. Ethan tightens his grip on Collin's throat, mad that he called the police. Collin could feel himself losing more and more air by the second and points the gun up to Ethan's head.

"Shoot, I dare you. I know you won't do it. You are weak, and just like your mother you will come down too." tears rolled down Collin's face, losing consciousness bit by bit. His last thoughts are his mother as he pulls the trigger. They both fall on the ground and Collin finally notices that the police saw him shoot but at that moment he didn't seem to care, all he saw was a police officer asking him if he was okay and going unconscious.

End of Flashback

The memory finishes, Collin is surrounded by clothes and furniture all over the floor. He realizes what he had just done, he took it out on his room and was sitting on the same bed his father had hurt him with blood going down his thighs along with a bloody knife in his hand. Tears roll down his face not because of the physical pain he put himself through but because no physical pain could compare to the pain he was feeling deep down inside.

He looks down and read the new word added to the list of words he had on his thighs, Boy. It hurt but he had other words that were longer that were on his thighs too. The words Boy, Ethan, Listen, and Lisa. Lisa was the only word that was on his thighs that didn't cause him as much pain as the rest. It didn't cause him that much pain because Lisa was his mom.

After what seemed like forever, Collin convinces himself to get up and go to the restroom to clean his next cuts. He enters the restroom and washes the knife along with his thighs to get rid of the blood on them as he takes a shower. Once he gets out he put the knife back into the box just remembering it was the same one that his father had used to stab him before. He opens the alcohol and cleans his cut only wincing once or twice because after so long he was so used to doing it to himself. Not only did he have words but he also just had random cuts on his legs when he was just trying to get out of an anxiety attack. He only ever cut words on himself when he was truly desperate and upset.

He finishes getting dressed and cleans his room to make it seem like nothing ever happened in the first place. Washing the sheets and organizing his room neatly so his uncle would never suspect that he would do such a thing to himself. He lays down on his bed, gets on his phone and sees a text message from his uncle saying that he wouldn't get back from work until two in the morning. So instead of waiting on his uncle like he usually did, he fell asleep, with his mother and Matthew on his mind.