a lil fact about this story is that i started writing this novel bc i was inspired by the hunchback of notre dame and i have always felt that he deserved immense love and care. when i was a kid i wanted to date the hunchback of notre dame and i never understood why the girl never got with him. 

also i like clowns so i combined them

(cousin does not have a hunchback, i just feel like i need to specify)

(unless you want him to have one. imagine whatever you want to imagine i am not judging)

Chapter Thirty-Two

"You have no broken bones. You got incredibly lucky." The ER doctor went into a deep examination all over my body, pulling my limbs, bending my joints, checking my head for bumps or scratches. "You're going to be sore for several days. I can give you some medication for the pain, but I advise you don't try to walk much on that leg."

I nod, barely listening, "Thank you."

She turns to Cousin, who is sitting on the bed with me. He's sat inches away from me, but makes a point not to touch me.

She had previously tried to ask him if he was alright, and when he didn't respond, she asked me. Clearly she knew something was wrong with him, whether it be mentally, or physically. With the blood all over his clothing, and with mine all torn up, Katie had retrieved some clothes for both me and Cousin. It didn't help much since we were both still filthy with dirt and grime.

I didn't fail to notice how the nurses, and the doctors would stare at Cousin, his bones protruding sharply on his shoulders, his fingers curved and pointed.

His eyes were very dark today. He looked angry. He always looks angry when others are around. I know it is because he doesn't trust anyone else, I really can't blame him for that. Still, it's hard to act normal when he's throwing mental daggers at every stranger we come across. 

The truth is, I'm scared, not of him, but what he's capable of. I never would have considered him to be dangerous, and to me, I know he's not. But to others? 

He killed that dog, and he did it mercilessly. 

It is hard to accept the fact that I may have been underestimating his rage.

When the doctor was finished, Katie was allowed to come back into the ER room. The first thing she did was hug me, which was something she's already done several other times today.

With her arms around me, Cousin watched her squeeze me, his eyes locked on her hand as it ran through my hair, slowly she began to brush the tangles out with her fingers. 

She noticed his glare, and frowned, "You're boyfriend is plotting to kill me again." She makes a poor attempt at a joke because she feels just as awkward as I do when he looks like that.

"He's not going to kill you, don't say that." I can't bring myself to say he's not my boyfriend. He's not, but I also don't want to say that he's not.

"You know what I mean."

I twist my head over, and look at Cousin. His eyes never leave Katie. He looks repulsed, and the anger pulsating out of him is so evident that I wince.

"Are you alright?" I ask him, because he doesn't look alright.

He blinks once, then twice. His eyes slowly moving from Katie to me. The question hung between us like a bridge, and I knew as well as he knew that no, he was not alright. 

He won't speak to me when Katie is here, when all those people are out in the halls of the hospital. There are too many people near us. 

I tell Katie we are both fine and we should go home. 

"Before you ask," Katie starts, we check out of the ER, and begin to slowly exit the building. Her hands are grasped around my arm, making sure I walk steadily. My leg is in excruciating pain, "Mom doesn't know."

I whip my head to look at her, "How?"

"I lied."

"You lied?"

"I told her you were so tired from hiking, that you fell asleep at Jace's place."

"What about the police?"

"I told them you belonged to me -which isn't a total lie." Her eyes softened when she saw how skeptical I looked, "You're seventeen now, Bex. You have less than a year before you're can finally belong to yourself. How many times am I going to have to keep waiting to bail you out of mom's rage? I think we really need to start looking for a career for you."

"I know that." I snap at her, a bit too harsh, "I already have it planned out."

Her eyebrows lifted, "Oh? What's this big plan of yours?"

"I'll work as a tutor like you said, while I finish highschool online. " We get into Jace's car, as he pulled up to the front of the hospital. "After that, I'll tutor full time until I can afford my own place and get Cousin some help."

There was a pitying look in her eyes as she got into the passenger seat. "Well then." She says, her tone clipped, "So be it."

Jace was wisely quiet. Smart enough to know when not to intrude into the conversation. I know that Katie doesn't agree with me taking all responsibility with Cousin, but if I don't, who will? He needs help and nobody else is going to give it to him. It has to be me.

The ride home is uncomfortable. I keep trying to catch Cousin's attention, but his eyes are glued to Jace and Katie. His fingernails digging into the palm of his hand, harder and harder until I see marks. Both Jace and Katie were busy conversing about moving into his apartment, that they didn't even notice him glaring at them.

Without thinking I grab his wrist, and pull his hand away from his other. There are small marks of blood from where his nails tore through the flesh of his palm. His eyes widened and he turned to look at me with sheer surprise. 

"You're hurting yourself." I tell him because I don't know what else to say. I nod to his palm, and he looks down as if only just now realizing that he was, indeed, hurting himself.

I couldn't wait to get home. I think Cousin is tired, he has had an incredibly long twenty-four hours. His anger seems to be something he is having a hard time controlling. It has been too stressful for him. Too many people around him. Too many people talking to him. 

Too many eyes on his body.

When we returned home, I didn't see mom's car in the driveway, which meant she was still at work. Relieved, we all got out of Jace's car and entered the house. 

"I'll make you guys something to eat. Bexley, you and Cousin need to get cleaned up, especially you, before mom comes home." Katie says, as she moves to the kitchen.

I nod, though she already left the room, and guide Cousin up the stairs. My leg was on fire, as I slowly climbed up the stairs, and I desperately tried to not let it show. I don't know how I'm going to hide it from mom. I run him a bath first, provide clean clothes, and then I say, "I'll be right outside the door. I'm not goin to close it all the way, but I'll be right here, okay?" My trust in him had expanded immensely due to what he did when I was unconscious. He didn't run from me. He didn't try to kill himself. He stayed alive, he hunted for me, and he waited beside me the whole night.

If he didn't think to kill himself then, I don't think he will now.

I hope that my assumptions aren't entirely false.

I sit behind the door in the hallway. It doesn't take him long to finish. I don't know if I zoned out, or if he got in, engulfed his body in water, and got out. The door slowly opened, and Cousin appeared. He was staring at me with his hair dripping wet. He crouched down and sat in front of me. We were facing each other, sitting on the floor. The anger he previously housed on his face, was gone, and instead his usual expressionless look had returned.

We blinked at each other, and then, as several drops of water fell onto the floor in front of him, he says, "Now you."

I realized he meant he was going to sit there while I bathed, and I decided not to point out that he was sitting on the bathroom floor, and that would mean he would be in the same room with me.

Instead, I nod, and try not to struggle to pull myself off the floor as I move over to the tub, run some clean water, and take off my own clothes. He keeps his back to me, as he stares at the cuts on his palm that his nails had made earlier.

I wash, shooting several glances at Cousin. Not sure why I think he'd peek, but I've also never bathed with a man in the room before.

I scrub my hair quickly, my body aches in the process, but the warmth of the water does ease the pain slightly.

When I finish, I dry, get dressed into clean, softer clothing. "You can look now." I say, and he turns his head, staring at me curiously.

He stands, and together we move to my bedroom. He doesn't return to his tiny bed I made for him on the floor. Instead he stands in the middle of the room, and watches what I do.

I force myself to smile at him, as I sit on my own bed. "I wonder why we are always destined to sleep in the woods. I'm so used to sleeping outside in places we shouldn't that my bed feels almost too soft."

He says nothing, not that I expect him to, and instead, he sits beside me on the bed. His thin fingers gently touching the mattress. His fingers trails the stitches of the mattress, and then they move near my hurt leg, but stop not an inch away from my knee. 

"The woods. They are better." He says so delicately, staring at my leg. His voice is light and airy, and I'm transfixed at how easily he can change his aura. All day he was someone else, similar to a wild defensive animal. Now, he is quiet, curious, almost child-like.  He is a different person around me.

I'm unsure which version of him is the most honest, and which is a wall.

I'm about to answer, but I get cut off by Katie's voice downstairs. "Bexley! Come here, you're on the news!"

My heart sinks.