Follow The Rules

Alone

He spent the car journey staring out the window, ignoring the questions and statements his mother made. His dad drove silently as well, probably unsure of what to say to him, since he wasn't able to hold a conversation under normal circumstances, why should this be any different?

"Are you sure you're alright, sweetheart?" His mother asked, and Oliver would nod silently, keeping his gaze on the buildings and people outside, who had no clue of what just happened to him.

No one knows.

And he sure as hell wasn't going to tell his parents what happened, not only because B told him not to. But because he couldn't. How could he have that conversation? How could he tell his parents that something so disgusting and horrible happened to him? Their son? He couldn't.

This rule would definitely be an easy one for him to follow.

As soon as the car pulled to a stop in the driveway, he grabbed his bag and went straight up to his room, ignoring his mother's offers and questions. He went to his ensuite and leaned over the sink, staring at his reflection in the mirror. His brown hair was messy and knotty. Tattered and oily from the sweat he worked up last night. His blue eyes were accentuated by a dark bruise that covered his right cheek bone, with a small cut that had already begun to scab over. He looked down at his white school shirt and hesitantly raised shaking hands to undo the buttons. How ridiculous, that something he had done several times every day for the majority of his life, could freak him out so much after one single moment. He watched his own hands travelled down his shirt, reminding himself that it was his hands doing it, not Georges.

Like a band-aid, he ripped his shirt off and quickly looked up into the mirror to get a glimpse and the second his eyes fell to the bleeding, red and raw bite mark on his collar bone he collapsed to the floor and heaved over the toilet bowl. He had worked out that it was around three pm on Sunday afternoon so it would have to have been just less than two days since he had eaten the macaroni and cheese George had fed him on the first day, so his stomach was empty. That didn't stop his stomach from practically trying to turn inside out, throwing up hot bile at the memory.

How could it have happened? Two days ago he was a normal kid and his biggest worry was his father's approval. Now he had to deal with all this and even worse, pretend like it never happened. How could he pretend it never happened when there is so much evidence that it did? So many reminders.

Once his stomach was done, he forced himself to stand up and look back to the mirror. Trying to ignore the mark on his shoulder he examined the bruises to his chest and stomach. The right side of his stomach and lower ribs was just one mass of bruising and his left shoulder had a bruise from the harsh kick he received while B was on the phone to his mother. He touched it gingerly, and winced in pain, but not from the contact. The pain came from his other shoulder and he decided that a shower was what he really needed right now. He reached for his pants, and again he had to remind himself that it wasn't Georges hands undoing his fly and pulling them down, but his own. George was gone. George was gone.

When he stepped out of his school trousers and boxers he looked down, and had he not already completely emptied the contents of his stomach, he would have been sick again.

Blood. And quite a bit of it. Dotting his boxers and coating his thighs. Instead of being sick, he stared, shocked by what he saw. Was it all his? Was he still bleeding? What damage had George caused to make him bleed this much? He kicked his pants away from him and jumped in the shower, the water scolding hot, and scrubbed every inch of his body raw. He ignored the pain that the bruises and cuts pulsated through his body and scrubbed to make himself clean, but even after the water had stopped running red down the drain, Oliver started questioning whether or not he would ever feel clean again.

"Oliver? Sweetie?" His mother knocked on the door tentatively. "Are you okay? You've been in there for an hour and a half."

Oliver got out a shaky "I'm fine," before he heard the footsteps walking away. Once he knew that this particular shower would not make him feel any cleaner, he turned off the water and sat in the shower a while longer, trying to find the motivation to get out and get dressed.

Clean hair and clothes definitely made him feel a lot better – long sleeved and high neck shirts were definitely going to have to be his wardrobe of choice for a little while - however the large house seemed too quiet and he hated having so much silence for his brain to think. He decided he needed to make himself busy. Give him a reason not to think about everything that had happened.

He scavenged through his bag and found homework he had planned to do over the weekend and dumped it on his desk. There was a lot of it, considering his subjects it wasn't a surprise. He took English, calculus, psychology, political science and P.E. Not the most exciting subjects, and all gave bucket loads of homework. Usually, Oliver had his weekend planned down to the minute. When he would study what subject, when he would have sports practice, when he ate, and if he could, he would try to plan in some free time, but only if his teachers hadn't given him much homework, all to cope with the work load and maintaining his A average in all his classes. This was going to be tricky. Everything had been thrown off thanks to George and B. There was no way he was going to get it all done.

Oliver sat at his desk and just stared at it. He'd never failed to hand in a piece of homework before. What would his father say when he found out?

Surely he'd be more angry to find out that his son had been r***d. Oliver suppressed a scoff. Would he? Would he be angrier to find out that his sons life had been destroyed or that his son had failed to complete his homework. Oliver wouldn't be surprised if the answer was the latter.

As he sat staring at his desk, the overwhelming silence began to eat away at him? Why was it so quiet? Was it always this quiet? Thoughts snuck into his mind. Memories that he tried to push away, but with nothing else in his thoughts, they continued to sneak through.

His hands, his breath, his sweat, his tongue.

Abruptly, Oliver shoved his chair away from his desk and stood up, closing his eyes and running his hands through his still wet hair, taking a deep breath in and out, fighting the thoughts out of his head.

Music. He needed music. He rummaged through his bag again and found his iPod, unwrapped the headphones he had a habit of wrapping neatly around the device. He shoved the buds into his ears, fell back onto his bed and turned the volume up almost completely. Maria would kill him if she saw him listening at such a high volume.

Maria.

He sat up and yanked the buds out quickly headed for the door.

Maria was a part of the staff, his father hired to keep the house organised and clean. Yeah, they were that rich. They didn't live at the house, but they were often there before Oliver woke up and way after he had gone to bed for the night. Oliver avoided using the term maid, because Maria had been around since before he was born and practically raised him. She took care of him and basically nannied him when he was younger, and now she was a friend. But that explained why things were so quiet.

Usually there were people around the house doing odd jobs such as laundry, vacuuming and dusting and because the three story house they lived in was so massive, it was a constant chore to keep the house spotless. But now the house was quite and still. No one was here.

He bounded down the stairs and along the halls, checking rooms on the way to make sure he hadn't just missed anyone, until he came to the living room where his mother was sitting on the long white couch, watching some talk show with a glass of red wine in her hand. When she saw him enter the room, she finished swallowing the mouthful of wine she already had in her mouth and smiled at him.

"Hi honey." She said in a way that most people would find normal, everyday conversation, but for Oliver this was a lot more friendly and motherly than he was used to. She placed her wine on the glass coffee table and beckoned her son over to the couch. "You look better. How are you feeling?"

"Where is everyone?" He said once he was seated next to his mother, but with much more of a distance than she had expected. He ignored her question, not knowing whether it was better to lie for her benefit or tell the truth for his own.

"We gave the staff the weekend off." She said, reaching for her glass of wine again, obviously this was more of a touchy subject than Oliver had realised. They really took the threat to not tell anyone seriously. "That really is a nasty bruise."

When she reached out to touch his face, Oliver instinctively flinched away and his mother pulled back, shocked. She didn't say anything though. She simply looked at him for an answer.

"I'm fine." He said, shaking himself out of the thought of that hand belonging to one of his kidnappers and back to his house where he was safe. "I just, um... When will they be back?"

"Tomorrow morning." She said simply.

"What did you tell them?" They've never had the weekend off before, and surely some of them will be suspicious.

"That we went away for the weekend." His mother replied easily, taking another sip of wine. "They don't know what really happened."

What really happened. She didn't even know what really happened. No one does. No one but him. Him and George.

"Ollie, do you want to talk-,"

"I said I'm fine." He said sternly, cutting her off and standing from the couch. He saw the hurt in his mothers eyes and immediately softened both his tone and stance. "I'm just tired." He explained, rubbing the palms of his hands over his eyes and wincing when he forgot about the bruise over his right eye.

"Okay." His mother said softly and nodded. "We're getting takeout tonight. Do you want anything in particular?" Takeout? Their family never gets takeout. It's more likely a three course meal than cheep takeout that's been cooked by hired chefs that know exactly what each member of the Tyler family like and dislike. Takeout? Unless Oliver planned a meal at a friends house, he never had takeout.

"I'm not hungry." And that was true. Even though it had been a while since he ate, he couldn't think of anything worse than eating takeout. He was almost sick at each and every memory that came to him, so it was just safer to keep his stomach empty until he got over it.

Without another word, Oliver turned and left the room, returning to his bedroom. He didn't know where his father was, but that wasn't unusual. He'd most likely be angry with him for asking to skip dinner, but if he really wanted him there, then he can come up to his room and ask Oliver to come down for dinner. Otherwise, his room seemed like the best place to be.

He looked at his desk and at the pile of books and papers sitting there untouched. He sighed, gathered them up and put them back in his bag. He was just going to have to deal with whatever was thrown at him tomorrow, because tomorrow meant Monday. Which meant school.

Fucking school.

That was a whole other hurdle he had no idea how to tackle. Friends, teachers, homework, f**k.

He crawled up into his large double bed, threw all the pointless pillows that Maria always tended to think made the bed look better, and snuggled down under the covers. It must have only been around six o'clock and the sun was still shining through his windows, but he closed his eyes and willed his muscles to relax, his brain to turn off and himself to sleep.