"Lying is a defiance of the truth. Bullshitting is a wholesale dismissal of the truth." - Brene Brown

"Hunter," Mr. Turner spoke in a tone of authority, "stay for a minute, I want to talk to you."

Shit.

Shawn felt his heart drop to the pit of his stomach, a feeling he had grown used to in the past couple of years. It was the same every time. Before every test, every presentation, every date, his heart would seemingly dissipate from the left side of his chest and reappear next to his liver. That was the best way he could describe it. Eventually he figured out that holding his breath did the trick, and so he did just that. He held his breath, in a desperate attempt to slow down his heart rate, in a desperate attempt to get away from the situation before him, in a desperate attempt to run away from his english teacher, and ultimately run away from himself. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four. Five. Six. Seven seconds. Fuck, it's not working, he breathed out, feeling his entire world collapsing on top of him with every exhale. How he hated these episodes, when the world felt like it was exploding and his entrails turned on their sides. The first time Shawn experienced one was many years ago, right before he had to give an oral presentation on a subject he knew jack shit about. At the time, he had thought it was a heart attack, but now, he knew all too well the feeling of having his organs rebel on him, often causing him to lose control of his body, as it ferociously shakes against his will, and tears begin to accumulate without his consent.

He could feel Turner staring at him, as if he were trying to read his mind. Shawn wanted to vanish, to close his eyes and reel back time to earlier that same morning, back to before he even left the trailer. He wished he would have just stayed hidden in the bathroom, he would have made some excuse, hell, maybe he could have made himself throw up and that way his dad would have let him skip school. What am I going to do? What am I going to tell him? What do I say? What the fuck did I get myself into? In moments of panic Shawn often questioned whether time was truly linear, or whether it's just an illusion he'd been coerced to believe in by the grownups in his life. In panic, he could feel time begin to slow down, ultimately coming to a sudden halt. Past, present and future merge, as if they existed as a singular and overwhelming force of nature. It was only in those moments that Shawn wished for time to race forward, for he understood that the 'future' was the only place he could escape the intolerable overload of feelings of the present. But in such moments, time doesn't move. That is the really terrifying thing. Realizing he is completely subsumed, buried, as if beneath an avalanche, by the weight of simultaneous events crashing into each other.

This was one of those moments, Shawn knew, so much so that he didn't process Turner's voice the first couple of times he called his name.

"Shawn," Turner started, "Hunter."

Nothing.

"Hey kid, you with me?"

Shawn shook his head, in an attempt to snap out of the trance he had been imprisoned by for the last couple of minutes.

"You with me?" Turner asked again, in a tone resembling a warm hug, something not many others seemed capable of pulling off.

"Yeah, sorry," Shawn rushed. It was obvious that the boy was eager to get the hell out of the classroom, and even more apparent that Turner would have to work extra hard to get the kid to open up. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

He could feel himself begin to shake as Turner eyed him from head to toe, concern written all over his face. It's okay, it's fine, he urged himself. All you have to do is act like everything is fine, like it's a normal Monday morning. All you have to do is act like you are normal, and everyone will start treating you that way. Shawn Hunter doesn't know a lot of things. He doesn't know why he always found himself in situations seemingly impossible to escape. He did not understand why he could not just go on with his day like a normal 15 year old. Why his life didn't really resemble that of a normal 15 year old's at all. Or why it took him so long to register what his father was doing to him. Why he never tried to fight back when he still stood a chance. But he did know a thing or two about people. He did know that human beings, most of them at he very least, despised silence. It was their kryptonite.

Awkward silences rule the world. People are so terrified of awkward silences that they would much rather go to war that face an awkward silence. It almost seemed like a defense mechanism, something we all learned to detest at some point during our many evolutionary stages. Perhaps it is due to how loud silence appears to be, at the end of the day, we are our loudest when our words seem to fail us, and our voices fall beneath a whisper. People are scared of that, they're scared of truth, and how loud it appears to be when it presents itself through a silent approach. Shawn understood that silence often does not literally mean remaining silent in speech, he learned that a person could very easily keep their mouth shut and still communicate thousands of words to the universe. He also understood that that fact alone was enough to make anyone begin speaking and never shut up. So maybe, he thought, maybe if he stayed quiet for long enough Turner would fall victim to the very thing that made him human, his inability to stand silence, and maybe then, it would be him running for the hills.

Turner paused for a second, reassessing the situation with caution. He knew he had to come up with a way to address the bruise on the Hunter's face without causing him shut him out for good.

"Well," Turner started, propping himself up on his desk. He wanted to make sure Shawn knew he wasn't his enemy, that right here, right now, he was not his English teacher. He was not a figure of authority to be feared, he was his friend, and his confidant, and he knew he needed to drop to the kid's level if that was the message he was trying to convey. "I wanted to ask if you were okay."

"Why wouldn't I be?," Shawn said with urgency, not daring to look his teacher in the eye.

Turner wanted to scoff at the kid's obvious attempt to deject the question with one of his own. He doesn't think I'm that stupid, does he? Turner found himself questioning.

"For starters, I haven't seen you move an inch in the last 40 minutes," Turner began, "and frankly, I find it concerning that you didn't have a response to the little comment I made earlier in class."

"I'm moving now, aren't I?" Shawn said, abruptly moving his arms by his side, with a sardonic grin plastered across his face.

Turner wanted to comment on the kid's attitude, but he figured that would only give Shawn what he was looking for, a way to get out of addressing the real issue at hand, so he chose to ignore it.

"Kid, I'm serious," Turner said gently, "you know you can come to me if there's anything wrong, right?"

Nothing.

"Right?"

"Right."

Shawn didn't believe himself. A part of him wanted to believe the words coming out of his mouth, he wanted to believe Turner, but deep down he knew he couldn't.

"So," Turner interjected, "talk to me."

Just tell him, a part of him urged, he can help. Shawn wanted to scream, shout, allow his knees to give out for once in his life. He wanted to cry, and yell at the top of his lungs, he wanted to spill his guts shamelessly, he wanted to trust Turner like he had never trusted anyone before. But thats the thing about trust, trust starts with truth and ends with truth, and he wasn't quite sure he was ready to face the truth just yet. He was terrified of allowing Turner to see through the tough iceberg layer, he was terrified of seeing beyond that layer himself, because he understood, he understood that beyond that layer he would not find a happy-go-lucky and careless kid, he would not find a soft, and sweet kid, he would find an ugly fucking disaster. And with that realization, forbidden thoughts that only crept in during his darkest hours begun flooding in, without warning.

Slow thoughts that always start quietly, like whispers he isn't always sure he hears correctly. And then they get louder, and louder, and louder, and louder, until they become every sound in the entire world. Thoughts that could not be shaken, thoughts that could not be undone once they appeared. Would anyone care? Does anyone even fucking notice? Would anyone even notice if one day I just wasn't here anymore? Would Cory notice? Would Feeny? Turner? Would his dad? What if one day everything just went quiet? What if everything just stopped and never started up again? What if? What if? What if? What if? He noticed all the most terrifying what ifs of life involved people, and with so many of them swimming around his head, part of Shawn wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, 'what if' was really just another way to say 'hope.' If he were a different person, hell, if he were Cory Matthews, he might even dare to say that this was all a terrible metaphor for life in general, what ifs, being what ultimately allows the world to go round.

No, it couldn't be. It couldn't be, because in his heart Shawn knew he couldn't be helped. He knew, he knew, he knew he wasn't the kid Turner thought he was, the kid he desperately wanted him to be. Because whatever he thought Shawn was, he wasn't. Whatever he thought he knew about the boy, he didn't. Whatever he thought he understood about his life, he never could. Because his life was a torture chamber, a fucking crime scene. He is, and will always be someone who is defined, first, by what he does not have. A family. A future. Hope. He wasn't salvageable, he was, as many of his previous teachers called him, a lost cause. He knew it was a matter of time before he ended up like his father, a drunk, or maybe alcoholism would skip a generation, and he'd end up having to turn to drugs instead. Maybe. He just hoped he wouldn't end up beating his future kids, if he had kids. He couldn't, he wouldn't, but what if he did? What if he did?

He also knew that Turner wasn't who he wanted him to be either. Not even close. His arms, his hands, maybe they could hold his broken pieces in place temporarily, maybe even for a long time, but Turner couldn't put him back together. Not entirely. Nobody could. That isn't his job. He isn't a hero, he isn't a god. He's just a teacher, just a man trying his best. And Shawn? He was just a boy, who couldn't bear the weight of his own brokenness, and couldn't expect others to do so for him. Nobody could save him. They could certainly try, again, and again, and again, but like all broken things, he is bound to shatter again. And then there was the possibility that if he told Turner, he wouldn't care, at the end of the day nobody really wants to listen to other people's stories, they just want to tell their own. Maybe Turner be one of those people. Maybe he would agree with his father. Maybe after spilling his guts, Turner would turn to him and say, "that's what you deserve." And maybe he'd be right to tell him that. Maybe he'd tell him, "if you were my kid, I'd do worse," and maybe he'd also be right to say that.

Shawn Hunter doesn't know a lot of things. But he does know a thing or two about his life. He knows that trust, real trust, is an extravagance, one that he could not afford. An impossible state to maintain, mostly because it was so difficult to articulate to begin with. He knows that trust, like silence, rules the world. He understands that 'what if' and 'maybe,' are just another way to say 'hope,' and he understands that trust and hope are just another way to say 'truth.' And truth, well, in order to speak it, he had to first live it, and Shawn Hunter wasn't prepared to do that just yet.

Nothing.

Turner sighed, "Shawn," he knew that spoon feeding the kid wasn't going to get him anywhere, and so he asked something that neither him nor the boy expected.

"How'd you get the bruise?"

He could see Shawn tense up at the boldness of the inquiry.

He stepped forward, invading Hunter's personal space, and asked again, "how'd you get the bruise kid?" This time with more insistence. Shawn recoiled, stepping back as if to run away from Turner, as if to run away from the truth.

Just tell him Shawn.

I can't.

You can.

But I-

His thoughts were interrupted by Turner's voice once more, "I can't let you go unless you give me something to work with, Hunter."

"I ran into a door," he started, but before he could finish his thought, "you don't actually expect me to believe that, do you?"

Shawn shrugged. Turner stared at him. Really stared at him, and it was then that he realized the kid was struggling to stand.

"Shawn please sit down," Turner began, reaching out his hand and guiding him to an empty chair to sit on. Shawn was wobbly on his feet, like a small duckling just learning how to walk as he made his way to the empty desk Turner pointed at. With that, Turner reached for the nearest chair, placing it in front of the boy, and taking a seat of his own. Turner sighed as he leaned forward, trying his best to make eye contact with Hunter without invading his personal space, something he had been avoiding ever since their conversation started. Shawn sat unusually still, staring at his feet the entire time. Maybe if I pretend this isn't happening, it will go away, he thought. Maybe if he closed his eyes tight enough, when he opened them he would be back in his bathroom. And so he closes his eyes, for a slight second, as tight as he possibly could. Hoping. Praying that once he opened them again Turner wouldn't be sitting inches away from him. Hoping that once he opened his eyes again he'd realize it was just a terrible nightmare, and last night didn't actually happen. He doesn't have a bruise, his father didn't hit him, and he no longer has to lie about it. But when he opened his eyes again, he was still in his English classroom, and Turner was looking more concerned than ever before.

He could feel himself start to get desperate. He wanted to run, run as far as his legs would allow him. He wanted to run and never look back. In his desperation, Shawn felt his eyes begin to water. Not this again, he thought. Stop. Stop it now, he willed himself. You can't cry. You can't cry because there is nothing to cry about. Because this is just a dream. You are dreaming Shawn. A bad dream. A nightmare. This isn't real. Not real. Not real. Not real. That's what he kept thinking.

Not real. Not real. Not real. Not real. Not real. On repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Like a mantra, like a desperate prayer.

But Shawn wasn't stupid, no, Shawn wasn't stupid at all. He knew it was real, as real as it could possibly be, and once again he felt time stop as his realities crashed into one another, suffocating him. In his 15 years of life, Shawn Hunter has never felt so little, so small, so weak, so ashamed, and disgusted with himself. And worst of all, he was almost certain Turner was disgusted by him as well. Here he is, nearly bouncing off the walls, unable to catch his breath or use his words, as if he had reverted into some kind of rabid dog that needs to be put down. He could feel his saliva thicken, and his limbs go numb, as if his mind were giving up on the rest of his body. And he wanted to run, but he didn't trust his feet to get him further than a couple of steps without collapsing.

"Woah," he heard Turner say, though his voice seemed to be miles away from him, "breathe, Shawn, breathe."

Oh yeah. Breathing. He had forgotten how to do that.

Turner reached for him, placing his hands firmly on the kid's shoulders, forcing him to look at him. To hell with personal space, he thought as he turned Shawn so that he'd be facing him. He could see the tears threatening to fall in Shawn's eyes, but he knew better than to point it out, as he was sure Hunter was well aware of his current emotional state.

"You gotta breathe with me kid," Turner jested, in hopes of camouflaging how awkward the entire situation was, "we can't have you passing out in school, now can we?"

Shawn let out a breathless laugh, but there was no humor behind it, rather it was a laugh signifying indigence. He could not believe he was doing this here, in school, of all place, with Turner, of all people. It was pathetic in every way, shape, and form. If anybody walked in, it'd be the end of his career, he could kiss his reputation goodbye. He was Shawn Hunter for fuck's sake. Shawn Hunter does not cry, he thought, but soon that thought was interjected by another, If Shawn Hunter does not cry? Then, why are you? He didn't have an answer.

"That's it," he heard Turner say. He was too busy pitying himself to realize he was starting to calm down. "That's it."

They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity, Turner not once moving his hands from Shawn's shoulders, out of fear that the minute he did the kid would fall out of his chair. Shawn didn't seem to mind, or at the very least, he was far too lost in his own thoughts to even bother noticing. Shawn focused on his heart beat, it was so loud, he wasn't sure Turner couldn't hear it. But Turner was far too preoccupied calming his own heart rate to even think about Shawn's. It was then that he realized how unprepared he was for situations like these. Turner knew that a career as a teacher definitely required more than just sitting at a desk and feeding kids information they may or may not use in the future, but he surely did not expect this. And it terrified him a little. But he couldn't worry about that just yet, Shawn needed him, he could freak out on his own later. Right now, the kid needed him, and he wasn't about to run out on him.

"Shawn?" Turner finally inquired, breaking the silence between them.

Shawn looked at him, with a defeated look in his eyes, and Turner felt his heart shatter for the first time that day. Everyone knew Shawn to be reckless, a rebel without a cause for lack of better words, but they also knew he was of strong character. Never allowing himself to break in the presence of others. This wasn't the Shawn Mr. Turner knew. This wasn't the kid who was always late to class, always cracking jokes during the most inappropriate of moments, always with a smile plastered on his face. This wasn't the kid that always carried himself with confident, drawing the attention of every room he walked into. This wasn't the Hunter whose eyes glimmered with jest, this wasn't Hunter at all. The kid sitting in front of him was a broken one. With nothing to offer, and it terrified him. For the first time in his career, Turner did not know what to do. He did not know what to say. He didn't know how to help Shawn, how to make whatever was bothering him go away.

"Kid," Turner tried, "what happened?"

Shawn looked at him, "I told you," he sighed, "I ran into a door." This time Hunter did not look away, but rather stared into his teacher's eyes, silently begging him to not accept his answer.

Please, he pleaded silently, Ask again.

Please don't give up just yet, Shawn found himself hoping. That's the funny thing about hope, it is the last thing to ever be lost.

Turner breathed in, he was not letting Shawn go without getting the real reason out of him, even if it was the last thing he did.

"Shawn, no matter what it is, you can tell me," Jon said, "I don't pretend to know what you're going through, but I can promise you, that whatever it is, I can try to understand. I'm not leaving you in the dark, kid. No matter how much you want me to, because I know part of you does. I'm here to help," he continued, "I got your back kid, no matter what."

"So please," Turner pleaded, "what happened?"

Just tell him.

Tell him, the voice inside pleaded.

And for the first time in his life, he listened, because this time around he understood, what ifs and maybes are just another way to say hope. With a shaky breath he begun, finally, facing a monster he'd been so desperately trying to get away from: truth.

"My dad..."