CHAPTER NINE: THIRTEEN

We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote all the book.
-Anatole France

Calum's

For so very long, Xavier Wolf was nothing short of a beating bag. 

His father's own little piece of the scenery—the scenery being a two star broken down apartment where a drug addict and a pimp lived on either side of him, where the only view was a trailer park, the scenery being a beaten down wife, a half-dead son and a baby girl they're both struggling to protect—that he could control, he would have stand in a certain way or curl in a ball, flinch when he raise his hand, shut his mouth when he talked. 

Look scared.

Xavier was his father's infinite source of entertainment in what he himself saw as a bland and monochromatic world.

For yellow, Xavier's arm would be gripped tight and his night would be spent with him being able to be seen from the corner of his father's eyes. It would be the slips his teachers gave him when he acted out, not knowing why.

Then when it came time for blue, he walked through the woods in the middle of winter in nothing more than shorts and flip flops because  while Xavier claimed to like to watch the snow fall, he just rushed out of the house after a shower because he'd rather be cold than get beat. 

And for red his father beat him, and beat him, and beat him until he was nothing but a submissive puppet in the sick show his father seemed to have on repeat. It was something that happened every night, a play like no other, but Xavier can't quite remember what his lines were and he's too scared to ask.

For purple, he stayed up enough nights listening to the footsteps downstairs as his father drank countless bottles of liquor that it caused the skin under his eyes to blossom out in shades of flowers. It's the color those same bottles look when hit by the sunrise's light just right, and it would be the first picture Xavier ever took.

But shouldn't he be grateful? Xavier's the one that likes photography so much.

He's the one that, for Christmas the first year at the Hilton house, was given a new camera after Calum told his mom—that his best friend refused to ask for anything—how much he wanted one. He's the one that saved up his money just to buy everything he needed to print out his pictures, to save them permanently in his room.

At twelve, for the first time in his life, Xavier Wolf had his own room. And he felt unbelievably guilty about it.

Xavier hated it.

And of course, he'd been raised to think kindness and normalcy was wrong, it has been ingrained into his bones in the way of heels and fists, into his mind by screaming and threats that when anyone is nice, if anyone gives him anything they're only doing it so when they're mean later or take something anyway they can say it's your fault—

I did what's right—I've treated you good—I've given you what you need but it's your fault that now things are different—you've lost the privilege to have nice things—you messed up and that's why I'm mad.

It was part of him and you could tell.

You could go five years knowing Xavier Wolf without seeing him cry. This was a fact that Calum Hilton knew because he had. He had met tiny eight year old Xavier on the play ground picking at the soles of his shoes instead of playing tag with everyone else and decided to start a new game by shoving him over.

And so they became best friend.

So it was jarring at thirteen watching Zay open his Christmas gift, the first one he's had in years unless new bruises or a piece of store bought pie counts, and suddenly storm away, causing a pulse of fear to enter through Calum.

His best friend's eye had been glazed over as he dashed out of the room, empty camera case thrown down onto the cushions and not even Macy—Calum's mom, who Xavier took three years to call 'mom' too—reaching out to try and comfort him stopped the tiny devil.

Calum was the first to stand, to dash after Zay who had stopped in the hallway between Calum's room and his own as if confused about which one he wanted to go into.

This was when Xavier wasn't quite healthy yet and hadn't outgrown his abuse, when he was still shorter than Calum and didn't appear much stronger. He wasn't scary yet, he wasn't the Devil. He was just a boy who had obviously been hurt.

"Zay." Calum remembers calling him, never Xavier, never Wolf, always Zay. 

It was a healthy change from what he was called at home and school, and the angel boy didn't want to remind his best friend of his home life more than he already did. But Xavier pulled his arm away from the palm his best friend placed there and took off again, just a blur of classical black hair, tears and pajamas.

Yet he went right to Calum's bunk bed, pushing past the comforter he hung up to act as a light shield and climbed under what was and still is Calum's favorite blanket—a red and white quilt his grandmother knit him.

Not that he would ever admit that though.

Macy and Jack both stood at the end of the hall, her mouth twisted down into a frown and his green eyes sad. He waved his parents off and followed Xavier into the room, careful not to shut the door with any audible sound.

Even at twelve, he had a good sense of what would trigger his best friend.

Calum said nothing as he climbed under the quilt with Zay and grabbed his hand. The heavy blanket made it dark and everything was overwhelmingly warm, but it felt further away from the rest of the world than was healthy.

And they stayed there for hours, Calum talking about nonsense things that happened at school until his best friend finally replied.

He was sitting there, the boy who hated physical touch, fingers pressed into Calum's palm and his legs tucked under him like he was trying to be smaller, side pressed into his best friend's in a way that let him feel every one of Xavier's hitched breaths as if they were his own.

Xavier had his other hand pressed over his eyes and Calum could only assume it was to hide his tears.

If he was honest, even looking back, Calum still felt extremely awkward about not knowing what to do. He never thought he'd be in the position of having to comfort a crying brother, let alone one he thought didn't cry in the first place.

On one side he wanted to hug Xavier like he hugged his mom when he's sad, arms around his stomach and telling him "It's alright Zay!" even though he didn't know what was wrong, but on the other side he was just a kid too, and he was scared of doing something wrong again, he didn't know back then what his best friend needed.

This was just too much, too big for him to do anything and him be wrong.

"Cal," Xavier had finally whispered, head bowed. His voice was thick with tears, and it seemed to physically pain Calum. "I'm fine, it's... I'm okay, y'know."

He can still remember the drop in his stomach and odd throbbing against his ribs as Calum plainly asks, "What happened?"

"I just wasn't expecting, I wasn't expecting anything Cal—" His voice wavered and already crying but trying to not let his best friend know he's crying—and failing but Calum would never tell Xavier that—Xavier cut himself off. Taking a breath, turning opposite of Calum, he continues. "It's just that my parents never... cared. My dad-"

"I know." Calum said simply, not elaborating. He didn't need to, they both knew what went on behind the closed doors of the Wolf house, and it wasn't anything that needed repeating. "You don't have to be okay you know, not for me anyway. Not for Mom either."

Xavier's eyes were still close but he squeezed his best friend's palm in reply, eyebrows drawn together as he settled down further on the bed, allowing Calum to face him. 

Without saying anything else, the Wolf boy pressed his hands into the quilt above their heads and tore down the blanket before grabbing onto Calum's wrist, and placing the camera into his hand.

"My little sister loves taking pictures." He says simply, wet lashes brushing against his cheek as he stares down at the lens. "And we... as messed up as we were, we were family. And I miss her. I'm so worried, and I saw the camera, and I just—it reminded me too much of everything. I don't know."

Calum asked if he was overwhelmed and his answer was yes.

As the night went on, all Calum had to say was a simple reminder, "Liv doesn't hate you, why would she hate you? You both had a lot to deal with."

"And I left her in the system." Xavier's tight grip clashed against his distant voice, telling Calum he was more upset than he let on. He still didn't know what to do. "I left her and I'm, I'm her big brother, Cal. And she's in the system but I'm here and now I'm your brother instead."

Guilty, Calum realized. Zay feels guilty.

Calum didn't know what to do then and if he still felt guilty about that, well, he'd never tell Xavier that either. He had enough to worry about. Three times after that did his best friend apologize for crying, for talking to him about it, and once for nothing at all.

"Should we go back out?" Calum had suggested, awkwardly giving the camera back from Xavier—who looked like it was the last thing he wanted to be holding in that moment. "Mom probably made something when we were in here, and we can go take it to the treehouse if you want. Open the rest of the gifts tomorrow?"

"You didn't get to open anything." Is all the tiny Devil had to say in reply, his counterargument not very effective.

Calum just grins at him, "Are you kidding? That's not a problem, I already ate like, most of the cookies and got all the money out of my stocking and letters. Christmas can be a two day celebration from now on! Doesn't that sound better than just today anyway?"

"Yeah. It does." Surprisingly, Xavier took hold of Calum's wrist again after standing. "C'mon then."

"Alright, let's go!"

It was that night that Calum realized the way that Xavier showed his trust was physically, that being able to touch someone on his own accord—have consent—and that also meant Zay truly trusted him.

The angel boy wouldn't forget that any time soon. It's the kind of knowledge about someone you're supposed to keep.