Dark wood stared agonizingly back at red-rimmed eyes, tears slipping off lashes in a ceaseless stream of all-consuming guilt. Tacky sign hung from a pin in the door, your name printed into the annoyingly extravagant design, the prospect of you mocking the flow of tears hanging precariously on the edge of his eyes before inevitably breaking its composure, dropping.

Foolish decision on his part; placing himself at the doorstep of someone who thrived on his weakness, exploiting them as though it brought unfathomable joy. He’d coerced his mind into despising you just the same, ruthlessly stuffing down any unhelpfully contradictory thoughts pleading to crack the surface of faux hatred. Though maybe your relentless distaste for him was what he craved, anticipating the door slamming in his face, torturously mimicking his own decision to send his mother away.

Fist hovered tentatively over the wood, base of his hand shielded in the sleeve of his mother’s cardigan, bringing more stinging shocks to his eyes, tightening the noose around his throat. His hand twitched, knuckles inclined towards the wood before pulling back as though heat emanated from the door, burning him back to a momentary lapse of sanity.

What did he stand to gain through this? Pathetically offering his shaking-with-tears form, feeding into whatever hatred you deemed necessary to fill the gap between your seat and his — racing through tests, debating over minutely differential answers, comparing the half-point difference in test scores, ridiculing teachers for 'misunderstanding' the answer written compared to the others correct score.

The misery you instilled in his entire being was his fix, apparently. Perhaps therapy was a far healthier idea, requiring some form of professional help to fix the masochist that wanted your hate.

A sigh passed through his lips, acquiescing to the notion of staring at the empty seat where his mother should reside at home. Swallowing a rough cry for help, he disregarded the idea of accepting help, even from the horrifyingly worst choice he could’ve thought up.

One dreadful step from your door, the haunting panic and sheer desperation on his mother’s face flickered in his mind. She cried for him, arms looped by eerily patient supervisors, escorting her to what he once assumed would be a wondrously helpful destination. His mind warped her screams into the truth, believing just as she did; that he’d just sent her to a prison lacking an escape, forced under the microscope of doctors forcing pills and medication upon her without the safety of family, of him.

Blinded by false ideology, his knuckles rapped tediously on your door, begging for your biting behaviour as his knees buckled beneath the force of unyielding guilt. His breath shortened, vision splotching as strained sobs he was unaware of escaped his lips. The last of his conscious understand could nearly comprehend the confusion in the click of the lock and twist of the door handle, revealing his wrecked form wrapped in wrinkled clothes and women’s cardigan hung loosely off his shoulders.

A thud rang in his ears, completely incomprehensible in his mind as he failed to realize that noise was him, knees breaking under his weight and landing uselessly on the ground. Embarrassment hid behind clawing agony, forcing more ragged sobs to tear at his throat as he clung to the doorframe to futilely stable himself. Useless, considering he’d already dropped under fragility, on his knees at your doorstep.

"I’m sorry," he choked out through sobs, words scarcely designated to you, far more intended for the mother being dragged away upon his word.