For the first time since we'd been assigned the project, Chase came over to my house.

Neither of us were thrilled about the discovery that we had to add a video presentation attachment to our slideshow, but it was what it was.

Chase had hardly said a word to me since the day in the arena. He'd made it his duty to ignore me. He didn't even glance in my direction, he acted as if I didn't exist. I couldn't shake that it bothered me. I'd defended him, tried to be there when everyone alienated him, even partially saved his life, but he had slowly but surely started to resort back to the boy I'd grown to hate over the years.

Vic grabbed the door once Chase knocked, almost jumping out of his body with excitement to have him in our house again. As I watched my little brother's happiness drain within seconds, I couldn't help but question if he had thought that Chase would be back to his old self by the time he saw him again. After letting him in and showing him to the bathroom my brother and I shared at the end of the hallway, Vic wandered back into the living room.

"So are you doing all this because you genuinely give a shit about him? Or are you just doing it because it's the right thing to do?"

I sat there in the middle of the couch, hand still buried halfway in a back of chips, staring at my brother with a quizzical look.

"A little of both, I guess."

"Well you better figure out what it is your doing, Ronnie. Because right now Chase needs someone, not just to be fake and pretend, but someone that genuinely cares for him if he's going to get better."

Unfortunately, my brother left that in his wake, disappearing to his room to leave Chase and I in the living room to finish our project. My parents still had a few hours before they were supposed to be home too, so we were going to be forced to actually talk to one another whether we like it or not.

The silence in the room made me shift uncomfortably on the couch. Catching my sudden movement out of the corner of his eye, he leaned back into the recliner across the room, eyes on the TV but somewhere so much further beyond it.

"You know, people always hear these stories of how people try and kill themselves. And most of the time those people succeed." He said bitterly. "But you never hear about the mental, physical, and verbal torture you endure if you don't."

He hadn't wasted any time. He'd gotten straight to the point and depressed the uncomfortable silence within milliseconds. When I didn't respond, he bowed his head.

"I was an asshole. Such a fucking asshole, Ronnie. I see that now." He gestured toward his broken leg, then himself as if he were referring to the scars that weren't visible. "Maybe I deserved this, all of it. Maybe this is some really shitty karma."

I muted the TV and sat myself upright, ready to interject but he wasn't done talking.

"But you, Ronnie, you don't deserve this shit. I don't like you, not at all, but I admire you. I appreciate you. All the backlash and shit you're getting for helping me is admirable. Everything you've done to help me, I appreciate. You give me a reason to live, even if it's outweighed by all the reasons I shouldn't. I want you to know that no matter what happens, you tried and did what you could, and you were one of the few reasons I woke up each day deciding to live."

At some point through the night Chase and I had switched places- and he'd ended up asleep across my couch. Rather than wake him up and send him home, my parents suggested just leaving him be. I let my own family head off to bed before grabbing a blanket from the closest in the hall and throwing it over him.

I should have gone to bed, ignored the words he'd said this afternoon, but I couldn't. I felt nauseous, like his words had been some sick suicide note. I hardly knew Chase Parker, he was just another broken teenage boy, one that the world and our peers had eaten alive and spit out. I had hated him with every ounce of my being.

It wasn't until after I heard about the suicide attempt that I had stopped in the halls as everyone else did to stare at the photos of every hockey game, the articles that had been put up in the trophy case after the team one the Championship last year.

Chase's smile had never met his eyes. His expressions were always forced. He always had some kind of bruised forming on his face or around it. All covered up by his arrogant attitude and the desire to meet the standards everyone had set for him. He'd spent a long time trying to be someone his father, everyone else wanted him to be, that it appeared he'd lost himself somewhere along the way.

"You're right." Chase's voice was so hushed it took me a moment to realize I had yet again spoke my words aloud instead of inside my head. "And as fucked up as it is, your hatred for me was the only constant."

I couldn't fight the small smile that broke out across my face. "What can I say? Being a bitch is my best quality."

"Why do you let them?" I asked when he only trained his eyes on the ceiling above him. "Talk shit, spread rumors. Why don't you fight back? Even if you can't physically, you can verbally. You don't have to let them treat you the way they do."

"What's the point of that?" he answered quietly. "That won't do anything but cause more problems."

I looked down at the grey carpet beneath my feet. "With your dad?"

"Yeah." I could tell by his tone he didn't want me to push it.

"You can't just let him push you around either, Chase." I thought about approaching him but decided it was in both of our best interests that I stayed away in case I triggered him in any way. "No, I haven't seen him actually lay a hand on you but it can't be coincidence that he talks to you the way he does and you end up with fresh bruises. You can't use hockey as an excuse anymore."

He grimaced, finally looking back at me angrily. "What do you expect me to do, Ronnie? Kick his ass? In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly in the position to do that."

"You didn't fight back before all this shit happened." I pointed out. "Why? You're stronger than he is."

He pushed himself up with a quiet hiss of pain. "He's my father, Ronnie. And he's right. I'll never be good enough. I will never live up to the standards he sets. I will never make my mother proud."

This was the longest conversation I'd ever had with him, and I wished at that moment it would just end.

"She was why I loved hockey. She was the reason I played, that I busted my ass to become the best player. Not for him. She loved the sport as much as she loved me, so I became one with the sport to make her proud." He looked everywhere but me as he spoke about his mother. "When she died, so did my love for the sport. I hated it. Every time I looked out into the crowd I knew I'd never see her cheering me on. It was a constant reminder that she was gone."

"I'm sorry, Chase."

He tried to stand, but of course tried to fast and collapsed back on the couch. He cursed loudly, throwing his crutches at the ground and burying his face in his hands. I craned my neck to look down the hall to be sure he hadn't scared my brother or parents, then started toward him.

"Chase." I tried to touch his shoulder comfortingly, but he pushed my hand away.

He looked up, fresh tears falling from his long, dark eyelashes and on to his cheeks. His hands had moved from his face to being buried deep in his mess of hair.

"Just fucking stop!" he pushed both my hands so I was hugging them around myself. "I can't keep doing this. I can't keep fucking living like this. I can't even walk, for fucksake. I can hardly breathe and if I say the wrong goddamn thing I get hit."

I knew that my parents would be making their way to us if he kept yelling if they weren't in the hall already.

"Chase-" I tried again, but he cut me off once more.

"I can't." his voice cracked and that was all it took for him to completely fall apart.

All the rumors that floated around the school were out the window the moment I sat beside him, watching his body ravage with sobs. This wasn't a boy that was out to get anybody, he wouldn't hurt those that hurt him, hell he wouldn't even hurt the man that had been abusing him for god knows how long.

He was nothing but a kid that was crying out for attention, for help, in any way possible.

"I don't want to do this." He turned to me. "I don't want to do this."

I waited until I was one hundred percent sure that he wasn't going to lash out physically and hurt me, and touched my hand to his bicep, not knowing what to say to comfort him.

Deep down I knew no matter what I said, the broken jock was far beyond repair.

"I'm sorry." I didn't know who he was saying it to or what for, but it broke the last bit of dignity he had left. He completely fell apart in my arms, burying his face in my oversized shirt, soaking it with tears. I could feel my own eyes stinging with tears as I held someone that had always been one of the strongest people I knew, become nothing.

I heard a quiet intake of breath and lifted my head, finding my parents in the dining room, my mom holding a hand over her mouth, dad hugging her against her comfortingly. It was Vic, still half hidden in the dark of the hallway, that made the tears I had been fighting finally escape.

He looked as he did the day we found out about Chase's attempt to begin with, broken, confused, and all around just devastated. When he realized I was staring he squeezed his eyes shut and faded into the darkness of the hallway.