This chapter is a bit different then the others, and even though it was hard work to write it felt like it flowed so easily. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and reckon I may write in Zanthus' point of view a bit more often from here out!

Please-give review/critique where necessary. I am learning the best approach to write in his head and would love all the pointers and recommendations I can get! Enjoy loves. xx

Zanthus POV

I can't do anything to hinder the tears streaming down my face as I sit in the front seat of my car outside of my empty house. I never wanted it to be like this, I sure as hell didn't want for that whole ordeal to go how it did. I thought I would just be with Angel, and yes I know it's still hard for her to deal with me not talking all too much.

My relationship with her is different. Well, it has to be really, that is until I feel comfortable enough to talk to her on a regular basis. Of course, I can do the minimum, small talk, and short conversations, but I don't know if it'll ever get too far past that.  Honest, I'm not sure if I even want to do that anymore. The whole situation with her brother was absolutely mortifying, and I wouldn't be surprised if Angel never wanted to see me again because of it if she thought I was some sort of freak for how I acted.

I hate that I can't be confident in myself, that I can't just walk back in there and explain everything to her, to William. I wish I could, but my mum's words won't stop ringing in my head and I can't help but regret ever going inside in the first place. I can't help but regret ever expecting the night to go well, ever talking to Angel, ever thought I'd be good enough for her. I truly hope I never have to say a word to her ever again.

Though it's not that I don't want to talk to her, I do. I want to talk to her an awful lot.

I want to ask her what her favourite colors are and I want to tell her how exquisitely beautiful she looks every day. I want to greet her in the mornings and ask her what she had for breakfast, how her morning's been. I want to ask her what she liked to do growing up, what she likes to do now. I want to ask her about what things make her happy, what makes here her. I want to with every inch of my being.

I want to but I just cannot.

I never thought it would be this difficult. I never dreamt it would be, and at first, it wasn't

At first, it was just a child thing. Sure, the other kids in my classes were already having fluent conversations and I really wasn't, but I was only five years of age. Just a late bloomer. I'd catch up soon enough.

Maybe it was odd that I turned six and still struggled tenfold to all my peers, and some, but it would all be fine. Maybe it was odd that I could barely go a second without stumbling over my letters, my words, but it would all be just fine. I still had some time to fall into line with everyone else, that's what the school told my parents when my first-year teacher had called a meeting

It didn't sit particularly well with my mum, though. I don't think my mum ever liked me too much in all honesty. I reckon she stayed with my dad for the money, but that's nothing to worry over anymore. Of course, I was her son, but that wasn't of much value in her eyes, or at least I don't believe it was with how she acted.

One day I was doing exceptionally awful, my speech that is, and she was exceptionally fussed by it. I was trying to tell her about the new game Xander and I had made up at school, and she lost the plot. She screamed, and she screamed, and she screamed until my ears felt like they were under attack. She told me I was useless, I was stupid, a piece of work was what I was, a nuisance to everyone in my presence. I barely knew what half the words she sent my way meant, but all I knew were they weren't nice, not at all.

Then she stopped screaming and I thought it was over, but she stocked my way and the next thing I knew there was a sharp burning sensation on my cheek that hadn't been there when she was still standing across the room. And then I was crying, I was crying and I cried for my daddy, I cried for him over and over, but he was working, he was out and he was working so he couldn't be any help to me. This only upset her more because I was talking when I called for my dad, and I wasn't very good at talking and she didn't like that at all, so the burning on my cheek amplified. That only made me cry harder, which only made the burning worse again.

She sent me to my room soon after and I complied because my cheek really did hurt and my ears were still ringing and I just wanted it all to stop. I remember after she hit me while he was gone and called me all those awful things, she told me not to tell dad because he would be disappointed in me, that if I told him he would be upset.

I was six, and I didn't really understand what was going on in full, and I really didn't want to upset my dad.

Any more than I already did with all my issues, of course.

Xander asked me later that day when he came over to spend the night why my cheek was so red, I just told him I'd bumped into my telly stand. My dad asked the same thing when he got home for supper while my mom feigned concern by his side, and I quietly muttered the same thing to him. He told me to be more careful, which I nodded to in response.

I barely talked the rest of that night, only the simplest responses. I barely laughed either, barely smiled. Xander asked me if I was alright after a while. I just nodded my head and told him I had a headache, which he said made sense because I'd hit my head on my telly stand. Though it really didn't because I hadn't hit my head on my telly stand and I had made that up, but it worked so I continued to lie to him and everyone else who ever questioned me.

That went on for a while.

It was quite stressful, the fact that at the age of seven I was still unable to speak like all the other classmates I had. It was quite stressful, constantly hiding the marks and bruises my mum left on me. It was quite stressful, smiling and laughing when I felt nothing but extreme despair on the inside. It was quite stressful, having the only child of the highly esteemed businessman Darius Black with the speech and learning abilities equivalent to one of five years was absurd. It was quite stressful, especially considering the brilliance my father exhibited by my age in his own studies.

It was alright though, all they had to do was take away my own extracurriculars. No more hanging out with Xander after school, no more footie, no more singing, no more drawing, none of it would do. I came home from school and went straight to studying, a tutor and a speech therapist by my side constantly at this point. I'd have supper, go back to work, and I'd be kept up until the hours of nine, sometimes ten to work to fix my issues.

It didn't really do much, to be quite frank. Most days I would be sat in tears for hours, hyperventilating because I couldn't get the sentence, or the word out like they'd been having me practice. That meant there was a lecture, and then mum would come in and she was yelling, screaming at me. I recall one time she'd hit me for it in front of everyone, and then my dad was yelling, and I just slipped up to my room and cried until my chest hurt and I couldn't breathe and I passed out.

He thought that was the only time she hit me. They sat down with me while she cried into his arms and apologized profusely and then she held me close while he reassured me it would never happen again.

My dad wasn't aware it happened before, and it happened again after that.

And again. And again. And almost every day really.

It was when my dad was out that she'd come for me, which was quite often considering how busy he was with his only increasingly successful work, and she'd get unbearable. She became someone else, really. When dad was home she'd give me kiss and tell me how much she loved me, but when he wasn't the kisses were replaced with slaps and the 'I love you's' were replaced with countless demeaning words and names.

I had long ago stopped talking much unless it was necessary. Mum reminded me when I was still the age of six after every time I had tried to share a story at the table, or when I had got home from school that my voice was ugly. No one wants to listen to a boy who has to spend minutes in order to get out a few sentences, and ones that are all broken up and nowhere near fluent in addition to that. No one could ever love something so atrocious, and she was right.

I hated hearing myself talk just as much as she did, even more, might I say. Xander got a bit worried, which shocked me because we were still so little and I figured he wouldn't think much of it. I thought he'd just think I was being moody, I was seven so the immaturity card would fit, but he didn't buy it. Always tried to get me to talk at school since I'd stopped doing it the second week of year one and we were now halfway through year two.

Eventually at break one day while he was pestering me relentlessly about it, I crumpled a bit. I told him I didn't want to tire him or hold him up whenever I wanted to talk because it took so long, and he just laughed at me. My heart fell to my feet and I reckon my face did too, which he picked up on right away. He threw his arm around my shoulder and told me he didn't mind it at all, and when I protested and said sounded odd and I seemed stupid when I talked anyways he turned and punched me.

He truly punched me in the middle of the field. And when I asked him why he'd done it while I held my arm, he just glared at me and told me he quite enjoyed listening to me talk. He scolded me and went on about how I wasn't to say anything bad about my stuttering and stammering anymore because it wasn't something I chose to do and it sounded cool anyway.

He assured me he wasn't just saying that because we'd been friends since we were born and he had to be nice, but that I really did sound cool when I talked and it was like a superpower and he hated that I had gone so long thinking otherwise.

I talked to him a little bit more after that, he smiled brighter whenever I did, so I kept doing that. I started to do better in speech therapy since I was more willing to talk to the lady who had been coming over every day for what felt like ages at this point. I started to stutter over my w's less, and then my j's. We got all the way through my y's, m's, a's, and n's for the most part.

It wasn't good enough for mum, though. It wasn't good at all to her.

I was still worthless. I was still a waste of time, of money, of space. I was still nothing but an added trouble to everyone. My voice was still ugly. It was absolutely horrid. I was ugly too now, but I should have already known that. Everything I did was wrong, nothing met her standards.

Nothing ever pleased her, no matter how many new bruises she added to my body in private, to my mind. No matter how many countless hours I worked trying to talk like a normal kid. Trying to read my book without the words flying all over the page, trying to sit still when my body was screaming to move and doing everything in its power to keep me from being able to contemplate anything at all. No matter how hard I tried, how much I suffered, it wasn't good enough.

At the age of seven, eight months and sixteen days, my mother really had her fill with me, she really did. It was the eleventh of June, and I was just about done with year two. It had been going smoother to year one, but in comparison to where Zander was and where I was the gap was notable. My mum really, really despised that.

Xander had offered to help me study English since I had been extremely behind in that subject, which I of course originally rejected the offer to. He still ended up in the backseat of the black range rover, I think it was, on the way home from school with me that day.

His reasoning was that he had excelled in the subject, as well as the fact that we hadn't had a proper hangout about besides school all year long, and some, which wasn't false. So with two punches to the arm and a stolen box of coloured pencils I gave in, which he had responded to by saying he would've gotten in the car sent for me anyways.

I hadn't asked my parent yet of course, though I didn't think of it too much at the time since dad had always loved Xander and mum loved when I studied. Well, she approved it, but it's not like I deserved to be loved anyway.

We got home and ran all around the trails in the backyard like we had about two years ago, and it wasn't odd and it didn't take time for us to fall back into our normal habits around my house. We ransacked the kitchen for a good portion of its snacks and laughed when half of them fell from our arms and essentially made a trail to my room. We were too preoccupied with each other to care and eventually plopped down on my bed to get work done.

Being best friends who hadn't hung about outside of school in quite a while, we really didn't get much work done. We chatted about whatever popped into our heads at that time, shouting out the most absurd words and phrases periodically, then proceeding to laugh or debate about them for some time after. Xander had insisted he'd go to get some juice for us an hour or two after we'd gotten home, while I stayed with my back gracing my duvet and my eyes focused on the ceiling.

My mum had stormed in to find me that way.

I don't remember exactly what she was on about considering how fast her shouts had been coming, something regarding me missing a session or something.

It was then it dawned on me I had skipped my daily tutoring and therapy, unintentionally of course and completely innocent, though she didn't mind my numerous apologies at the time. I remember I had barely flipped back onto my stomach before I was being pulled upright. A few slaps to the face and tons of screaming, nothing I had not undergone before.

Though the tears still fell instantly and quickly, because I was seven years, eight months and sixteen days old and I was really sorry and I was really sensitive.

I know she pulled me off the bed at some point because half my memories contain me on the floor. There was kicking, all over my body, which wasn't new either, and more slurs and screaming and the familiar panic settled in my chest. For some reason this time it all seemed more harsh, more intense, more painful.

The kick to the face was new, and so was the second, and the third one. Being practically thrown across the floor was new too, but figures we would have arrived at such extremes at some point in time. The strength she used during the, well beating to call it, was definitely new as well. She'd never been to such as level during them before.

But then I heard screaming, and it hadn't been my own, and it hadn't been my mums so I had been awfully confused. My mum had been too caught up in her assault on me to notice, to my surprise. But I remember turning my head, and through my tears and seeing one hundred thirty-five centimeter and thirty-five and two kilogram Xander charging towards my mum with two juice pouches in his hand.

I recall my instant screams in protest as he neared, and my even louder cry as he jumped in front of me, effectively ending up with him receiving a few blows from my enraged mother. It was all so chaotic, and the next thing I remember is juice being all over my mum, all over the floor as Xander screeched at her. And then my dad was in the room, and his eyes were wide and he was screaming now, and I was still on the floor. A bit light headed and a bit disoriented, but that soon made sense when I looked down to see I was partially pooled in blood, my blood of course.

My mum had stopped her attacks by this point and she had been pleading my father as he shouted something I couldn't hear, because my ears had been ringing that quiet yet deafening screech they played before I would pass out when I panicked too much. I'm pretty sure Xander had gotten on the floor with me as well and was calling my name, but it's quite hard to recall clear memories when I was on the verge of passing out throughout majority of them passed this point.

All I can recollect is that when I woke up, my mum wasn't there anymore.

She hadn't gone out for tea with her friends though. She hadn't gone out for another shopping spree. She hadn't gone on a day trip, and she wasn't going to be home that night for supper. And she wasn't there for tea or breakfast the next morning. She wasn't there for dinner the next afternoon, and she missed supper again as well. And well, that was all indefinite.

I stopped talking after that day. I stopped talking on that awful eleventh of June, and I didn't begin to talk again for three years. I didn't speak a single word for two years, two months, a week and four days. Her words had really hit me. Her hands had really hit me. Her feet had really kicked me, and I wasn't really up to talk anymore.

I didn't want to be hurt like that again. I didn't want to embarrass myself every time I tried to speak a word.

My dad stayed back at home almost every day. He stayed and worked from home for three years, four months, two weeks and six days. The first time I spoke again was the twenty-sixth of August, I remember it vividly. My dad cried a lot, I remember him holding me tight as ever as he told me how much he loved me, reassured me how he would never hurt me.

Xander cried a lot too, to my great surprise. He'd stuck by my side almost every day since that horrible eleventh of June, two years, two months a week and four days prior. Of course he was my closest friend, my only friend really, and of course, my selective mutism had affected him because we had been friends since before we could choose to talk, but I didn't think it did so in such great measures. He cried for a good while, then he punched me and yelled at me a bit weakly and told me if I ever stopped talking to him like I had again that he would hit me tenfold harder.

I cried as well, I can summon that up firmly. I cried because my dad was crying, and I cried because he still told me how much he loved me even after I spoke. He wasn't meant to do that, and I thought maybe he'd hit me too, tell me how disgusting I sounded. He didn't, though, he held me while tears fell from his cheeks and told me how much he cherished me and cherished my voice and how he wished I'd never stop talking again.

I cried when Xander cried, and he let me use his shoulder as a rest for my head because I was tired, and I was nine and I was emotional. I cried because Xander kept on repeating how much he'd missed hearing me talk, which he wasn't supposed to say because my voice was ugly so it made no sense why he missed it. But despite my inward thoughts he continued to tell me how much he really did enjoy listening to me talk, and it only made me cry more when he told me I was essentially his brother and he'd always love me no matter what I thought.

I cried because my voice was repugnant and I sounded like a proper halfwit when I spoke, and I could barely read the words on my pages, though I hadn't told anyone that yet, let alone speak them and I was just all around a proper failure. I was a disaster, a wreck with no redeeming qualities that still held scars from when my mother would tell me all these things that held as a reminder to me as to how unloveable I really was. I would never amount to anything, I would never be worth anything, I would be nothing more than a nuisance.

I cried because I didn't know how I was going to pass year four of primary school when I practically failed year three. I cried because my dad and Xander were treating me so well when I deserved everything but that. I cried because I didn't understand why they kept telling me they loved me and I sounded better than alright when I talked and none of those declarations made sense to me. I cried because my mum left me when I was seven years, eight months, and sixteen days old and I missed her. I cried because I deserved everything she did to me, but I despised her for it at the same time.

So I cry now, with my head in my hands while I'm sat in my car parked outside of my large empty house,. I cry more than I think I have cried before. I cry more than I did when my mum beat me that awful eleventh of July because the scars and bruises might be faded from that night but they're still visible and it hurts so, so much replaying it all over every time I see them.

I cry because even though I'm eighteen years, three weeks and two days old, I still feel just as feeble as I did when my mum left me at seven years, eight months, and sixteen days old. I cry because I can't get her words to stop ringing through my head like mantras, and I hate it so much but I know I need it at the same time. I cry because I hate myself so much and don't know what I'm meant to about it. I cry because I can't just speak like everyone else around me and I had to be given such an atrocious speech impediment and no one will ever be anything less than repulsed and burdened by me.

I cry because I just made an absolute fool of myself and wrecked my chances with Angel and that's not what I wanted to do at all. I cry because Angel must think I'm some freak now, and even though she thinks so with the reason I wish I could just be normal.

I cry because I'm not even strong enough to say a few simple sentences to William and I hate my mum for making me so weak but then I love her so much and I know she was right in what she did so I don't know how to feel. I cry because now that I've finally worked up the courage over the past six years to reach out to Angel, I'm of course the one who ruins it.

I cry because I'll never be able to ask Angel what her favourite colours are and I'll never be able to tell her how astounding she looks on a constant. I cry because I can't greet her in the mornings and ask how her breakfast went. I cry because I'm not able to ask her what she fancied doing when she was growing up, or what fascinates her now. I cry because I'll never be able to understand what makes her who she is, and I'll never be able to ask what makes her happy so I can do just that, I cry and every inch of my being heaves in my own personal misery.

I cry, and I cry, and I cry until that familiar restricting feeling builds up in my chest. I cry until I can't breathe and I'm choking out for air and choking out for some sort of help from my dad, or Xander, or even my mum. But I'm alone, I'm alone and I'm having an anxiety attack and my chest hurts and I can't breathe and I feel like I'm dying, but then again maybe I deserve it.

I'm not sure if when I say that I mean I deserve the pain or I deserve death, but I don't have time to ponder it because I really need to focus on breathing since I really don't want to pass out in my car outside my big empty house. I cry broken sobs while my chest aches and my breaths barely get through and my bodies in pain and I feel lightheaded and I'm alone.

I cry because I always end up alone.