#1 - Failed Attempt 

#2 - Oh That...

...

#5 - Tea

*Time Skip*

>(<>)<

He had three weeks to make things right.

     Skylor wanted to bang her head against her wall in frustration. Of course this happened. She should have seen it coming. Kai and her barely ever hung out before their whole relationship began since he was always so busy with his friends and the football team. She had been stupid enough to believe that things would change when they started dating.

     The thing was, school was out. Kai had told her he was going to wait a year before starting college so he could have extra time to save up for it. Skylor was ecstatic about this because this was exactly what she planned to do. She had imagined the summer after their senior year being filled with trips to waterparks, window shopping downtown, and generally having a great time. They wouldn't have to worry about applications and finding a college to go to until later. 

     It had been a week since Kai last texted her.

     A week.

     This wasn't the first time this happened. When school let out, Kai would mysteriously be 'busy' nearly every night each week. He was constantly doing something, but it couldn't be with his football buddies because football was out of session. And Skylor knew for a fact that Kai despised most of the members of his team and would never consider hanging out with them outside of school.

     She tried to get ahold of Nya, but Nya was just as unresponsive. She made vague excuses about how Kai had to babysit a family friend's nephew since said family friend was always super busy. Skylor knew about Kai's responsibility over the bratty little Lloyd, but that never took up as much time during the school years as it did now. Lloyd was almost eleven. He shouldn't need to be watched 24-7.

     Skylor had eventually gotten fed up with the lack of attention and called Kai out on it. He tried to make the same vague excuses Nya did (which made Skylor all the more suspicious), but Skylor shut him up with an ultimatum. Either he prove that he was willing to spend time with her in the next three weeks, or they were done.

     After that phone call, things became annoyingly silent.

     Skylor ended up binge-watching Netflix romcoms on her bed, stuffing her face with pints of gelato she spent her whole paycheck on. It had been a week. She was becoming more and more certain by the day that Kai was trying to let her off nicely.

     Skylor shoved a huge spoonful of mint chocolate chip gelato into her mouth as she browsed the homepage for more shows to watch. To think she actually enjoyed her best friend's company. She had never been supremely close to Kai before their senior year, but he had always been a constant in her life. He had been the one familiar face in the building when she first started high school. He had visited the noodle shop with his friends several times when he heard she was working there, just to check in on how she was doing. Even when they were forced to work together on a science project, he was always witty and over-the-top, letting her joke around without much complaint.

     They were good friends before anything else, and Skylor supposed it was that part of their relationship she would miss the most. She didn't have a lot of other friends due to the demanding nature of school and her job. Yet, through all of it, Kai was always there.

      And now he wasn't.

      Skylor hovered her mouse over a particularly cliché-looking movie, preparing to click when she felt her phone go off. She considered ignoring it (she received a lot of spam calls), but eventually curiosity got the better of her.

     Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw who was calling.

      "You better have something to say for yourself you... you—"

      He mumbled something from the other side of the line.

     "Speak up." Skylor demanded, wondering if hanging over the side of her bed was really the best position to start chastising her boyfriend in. She could already feel the blood rushing to her head.

     Static.

     "Kai? Kai! What's going on?"

     "...help... I need help." His voice sounded way too strained to be in a decent condition. He sounded winded, like he had just run several miles.

     Skylor fell off her bed, taking the computer down with her. She grunted when the gelato spilled onto the carpet, but right now she was too concerned with throwing on a decent set of outside clothes to care. "What's going on? Where are you? Why—"

     "I'm bleeding...bleeding... it's not the worst thing..."

     "Where are you?" Skylor practically yelled into the phone, rushing to the garage—only to remember she neither had a car nor a license. "What happened?"

     "...it's not that bad..."

     "KAI!" Skylor yanked open the front door to the cold night air.

     A body slumped against her legs.

     Skylor yelped in shock when she noticed both who the body was and why said body was bleeding.

     "WHY ARE YOU AT MY HOUSE?"

     "The door was locked." Kai weakly said, hesitantly smiling when he met her eyes.

     Skylor couldn't believe this. First, she was nowhere near ready to be seen by her boyfriend (she was wearing a gelato-stained, I-haven't-been-washed-in-a-week sweatshirt, her hair was tangled and greasy from nights of being unwashed, and she had left all thoughts of makeup behind because who was she trying to impress?). Second, her boyfriend was not only seeking shelter at her house, but he was seeking shelter because he had been BEATEN UP BY SOMEONE OR SOMETHING. And furthermore, her supposed boyfriend was coming to her after ghosting her for a week without context or warning.

     What in the living world was going on?

     Kai coughed, spitting up blood all over his face. She noticed one of his teeth was missing and nearly had a mental breakdown.

     "You're lucky my father is out of town," Skylor growled, pulling her sleeves over her hands to dab at the blood. "Because if he weren't he would have finished whatever was started."

     Kai's faint smile vanished. He closed his eyes and leaned against the doorframe, looking more tired than Skylor had ever seen him. Then, she noticed the curved scar over his left eye. That was odd. Kai's face was always very well taken care of, without many blemishes or scratches. She wondered why she had never noticed it. Perhaps it was because it was always covered with—

     Makeup.

     Oh no, oh no, oh no.

     Skylor reached up, wiping at Kai's face with her sleeve. More cream came off, revealing bruises and scars she had never seen before. Some were fresh, some were older. Kai had been hiding these wounds, which meant he might continuously be being beaten.

     Kai's hand wrapped around her wrist, silencing the terrified noises leaking through her mouth. Skylor watched him open his eyes and attempt to sit up.

     "Skylor... there's something I need you to do for me."

     She heavily considered slapping him for his word choice, then decided against it for his well-being.

      "But first..." Kai muttered, his gaze focused on her cream, gelato, and blood covered sleeve. "...but first I think I owe you an apology."

>(<>)<

A/N

I finally went over the plot to this AU in my head last night. It's still really vague, but there is a plot and a basic idea confirmed now. The best part about this AU is that I can randomly update it whenever the prompt fits, and no one will judge me if it never continues. After all, this is just a challenge. The problem is, now that I have a half-decent plot in mind, I kinda want to turn it into a book. Lol, I guess we'll see what happens. 

In case you all were wondering when this takes place, I'd say the July/August after the end of their senior year. 

Make sure to go check out therearenooptions to see her post!

See you all next week!

~squidneyxd