A small smile made its way to my lips when I heard his story, what are the chances of two fucked up people consoling each other in the middle of the night in a cafe?
"my parents divorced when I was two..." I started but Noah stopped me placing a finger against my lips. "Vanessa, you're not under obligation to tell me your story just because I told you mine." He said staring at me intensely with his beautiful gray eyes it made my heart flutter. "Noah I don't feel obligated to tell you just like you didn't have the obligation to tell me, I just want you to be my listening ear, just like I'm yours." I replied him and he gave me a grin that made his eyes sparkle under the dimly lit cafe. "Go ahead Nessa, I'm more than happy to be your listening ear." "Yeah well, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, my parents divorced when I was two. My dad was quite the womanizer and lived a really trashy life so my mom won custody over me but it turns out that my mom was no different from my dad. She'd get married to a rich man old enough to be her father and then divorce them taking with her half of their wealth which she'd squander on drugs. She was a die hard drug addict I tell ya, anyway whenever she gets a hold of a rich man she'd dump me in a foster home and pay the lady a huge sum to keep me for sometime while telling me how much of a shame I am to her for being really ugly but I didn't really mind it as I naively thought she still loved me inwardly even if she never showed it because she'd keep coming back to pick me up from the foster home but boy was I wrong, the only reason she kept me was for the child benefits offered by the government which was always available whenever she ran out of cash. That didn't matter though because she couldn't keep up with that life style as she was soon diagnosed with lung cancer the news meant she would have to put an end to her precious lifestyle. She was suddenly filled with so much rage and hate which she took out on me but she was careful not to leave marks on parts of my skin which would be exposed whenever I was going out, I was constantly abused day and night even by some of her friends who came around. It was like a living nightmare sometimes I felt like just killing myself but I was too much of a coward to do so besides I still had a friend the foster home care taker Beatrice who cared for me or so I thought in the end she only cared because my mother was giving her a large sum of money to take care of me so she thought my mom cared and that was until she visited me and saw the skin on my back nearly peeled off completely. That day my mother had in her rage placed a burning hot iron against my back and Beatrice had just so decided to pay us a visit, she saw what happened but could hardly be bothered she simply bid my mother farewell turned around and left. It was then I began thinking maybe I truly was hideous that's why everyone keeps leaving that's why mother hates me. She died when I turned ten and during her funeral I didn't feel any sorrow or pain I just felt a kind of liberation and freedom overwhelm me like a heavy burden had been taken off me, the feeling was so great that I laughed out loud and the people around thought I probably couldn't understand or process the fact that my mom was gone. Those feelings didn't last long though, my father was pretty much stable already so he took me in again and this time he gave me attention and cared for me. I was glad to finally be loved but the memories of my mom just wouldn't go away they were vivid and inescapable no matter how much I wanted to forget them I couldn't, I would feel so much pain in my heart that it drove me crazy it was at those times my father would appear to console me or so I thought until I later came to realize that it was out of pity. Everything he did for me was out of pity and guilt for leaving me with that woman even though I was a burden to him, I'd heard him tell that to one of his many girlfriends and it was then I understood that all the love the care and support he showed me was simply like an obligation, a repayment he had to give to me. I began to notice the guilty sighs and pitying glances he threw my way and that hurt more than any physical abuse ever could the fact that both my parents never truly cared about me. In school I'd see other students bragging about their parents proudly or complaining about how overly protective they were and how they planned to run away little do they know how much I long to have their kind of life. I tried as much as I could to remember the feeling I had at my mother's funeral, my first feelings of joy whenever the traumatic pain arrived but they never appeared it was like nothing would ever give me joy, nothing... You'd think that after all this I'll have an aversion for physical pain hehe. It's pathetic really isn't it?..." I finished my tale with a small sad smile plastered on my face, I'd finally told someone my story and it felt good. Was this the kind of feeling you get when telling a friend your secret? It felt quite nice though I don't think I'll be doing this again. "Well I guess we both have something in common, a shitty father." Noah said with a small laugh diffusing the intense atmosphere. "I guess so." I replied back laughing along. "Noah how did I get here?" I asked seriously while playing with his fingers, they were so long and pretty, perfectly suited for playing the piano and how could a boys hand be this soft? I was moved by the softness of his hands so much so that I wanted to ask him what lotion he used and the warmth from his palm made my stomach tingle slightly. "I was just about to lock the shop when I saw you jogging down, I thought it was because you wanted to pay the bill for your coffee and I planned to tease you about it before telling you that it was on the house but you just didn't say anything when you got to me you just stood in front of me squeezing your stress ball. It was obvious something was wrong when I saw how red and puffy your face was, I pulled you into the shop and asked what was going on but you just kept quiet muttering something about taking this pain away before bawling out loud in a very ungraceful but cute manner might I add. At first I was confused as to what I should do but when I noticed that you kept clutching your chest and trying to scrape yourself I kind of realized what was going on." Noah said while scratching the back of his head, poor Noah I must have troubled him alot...