Blood Brothers

I decided the city was simply too much for me at some point. The constant storms and generally pessimistic demeanor of it all finally drove me to sell my small apartment and move far away from the gray buildings stacked on top of each other. In contrast, the town I ended up in had bright, colorful houses that were clearly spread out with endless green fields serving as the collective backyard.

I managed to secure a job at the local high school working as an English teacher. They seemed more than relieved to hire me, and I soon discovered why once the school year started; they were in extreme need of teachers. Several people doubled up on subjects, and it was always difficult for them. I managed to escape this since I was new, but I could have handled an extra class if necessary.

“Take out your journals and open them to a new page,” I told the class of freshmen. All except one of them obliged. I sighed. “What is it now, Olivia?”

“Can’t we just write on the back instead of wasting paper?” she said with a glare. I shook my head.

“Ink shows through paper. Writing on the back of a piece of already used paper is messy and hard to read.”

“Then why can’t we write in pencil?”

“It smudges.”

“I’ll erase it.”

“Use whiteout. Which means you use pen.” I gave her a firm glare, trying to hide a small smirk as I walked back to the front of the room. “Write whatever you feel like,” I said, studying their faces. Most seemed completely uninterested. “A story, a poem, a journal entry, anything.”

“You’re not going to give us a topic?” one student asked. I shook my head.

“Why would I do that?”

“That’s what every teacher we’ve ever had does,” another one answered. The others nodded in agreement.

“And do you like having only one topic to write about?” I asked. I received the shaking of heads I expected. “Then don’t complain. I want to see how far your writing skills are, not have you all give me the same answer to a question.” I walked back to my desk to do some writing of my own, making sure to check the clock in the process. For once I chose to look over the list of students to see if anyone was missing.

And for once, I noticed Michael Way’s name on the list. I suddenly glanced up and looked around the room to find him, wondering why I had never seen this before. Usually I was more attentive than that, or at least I tried to be. Unfortunately, none of them looked the least bit like him. I tried to add in the fact that I hadn’t seen him for seven years, but it didn’t help.

The door opened suddenly. Everyone in the room glanced up as two boys walked in. One looked incredibly sloppy, his shirt untucked and brown hair purposely messed up. The other seemed to be his complete opposite, looking almost as neat and proper as someone in the military.

“Why are you boys late?” I asked, folding my hands on top of my desk.

“I have a pass,” the neater of the two said hurriedly, walking over and dropping a perfectly folded triangle of paper in front of me. I studied him for a moment. He looked strangely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place the feeling.

“Have a seat, then. And you?” I directed the question to the other boy. He just shrugged before returning to his slumped position.

“Just got moved into this class because I’m too stupid for honors,” he mumbled apathetically before walking off to the other side of the room. The first boy watched him with widened eyes as if this was the most horrific thing he had ever witnessed.

“Well, go take the empty seat by the window, then,” I told him. “We’re just doing a freewrite today, so don’t worry about missing anything.”

The room was eerily silent, something that always unnerved me. Luckily I had brought my own CD player for this exact reason. Some of the students looked up when they heard the quiet music echo through the room, but no one said anything. I felt more relieved once I realized that this had to be a new list of people. Maybe I wasn’t losing my mind after all.

I collected the journals at the end of class and began reading through them once most of the students had left. I was suddenly aware of someone standing near my desk and looked up to see one of the two new kids staring timidly at the pile of notebooks next to me.

“Can you help me?” he asked shyly. I smiled and closed the journal I was reading.

“Sure.”

“I… Here’s my schedule.” He handed me a perfectly straight sheet of paper with a list of numbers and names printed on it. “And I don’t know where to go next… I mean, we took the tour and stuff but it’s really weird around here because everything looks the same.”

I frowned when he said this. “What do you mean, ‘everything looks the same’?” I asked. He glanced around to see if anyone else could overhear his words. I wondered why he seemed so afraid of everything.

“Well…I used to be at private school…then my mom decided we should move here and there’s only one high school and I don’t want to go to boarding school so my parents had to send me here-”

“Calm down,” I said, interrupting him. He looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack. “What’s your name?”

“Frank Iero.”

Now it was my turn to worry. I sat back in my chair and took a moment to study him. He seemed about the same height as Mikey, and I could now see the resemblance between them. A thin gold chain hung around his neck, holding what I assumed to be the locket Ms. Way had given him all those years ago.

“Well, your next class is gym. It’s on the other side of campus. I’ll write you a pass so you’re not counted tardy.” I grabbed a small square of paper and scribbled a note on it, then handed it to him along with his schedule. He thanked me profusely and scurried out of the room. I had to take a second to breathe and realized what had just happened. From what I could tell, they hadn’t recognized each other yet. I thought about telling them, but I was too afraid I would slip and mention the fact that they were brothers as well, and with the strange glimmer of that superstition hanging in the back of my mind, I decided that wasn’t the best idea.

I returned my attention to the journal in front of me. It took me a moment to realize that it belonged to Mikey.

Where do I start? I don’t want to be here and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. I want to go home. I want my life to go back to the way things used to be, before my best friend started acting like she likes me and made me not want to be around her. I kind of do like her, but I have no idea how to act around her anymore.

I had this friend once when I was little. I don’t remember his name. He used to give me candy and stuff like that because his family was rich. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had been like him, with no brothers and sisters and nothing to worry about. Sounds nice.

I sighed heavily as I closed the notebook. I knew how close he had come to living that life. Perhaps it was better if he didn’t know after all.

The next one was written in perfectly neat handwriting, so I wasn’t at all surprised when I saw Frank’s name at the top of the page.

I wonder what we’re supposed to have for lunch today? I haven’t heard anything about it yet, but I hope it’s not going to be some kind of mystery food that no one’s ever heard of.

I couldn’t help but smirk. He was in for a surprise.

I’ve never been very good at writing like this, so this probably sounds really random or stupid. The girl next to me keeps drawing trees all over her page. It’s kind of annoying.

I know this is only my second day here, but I kind of wish I could go back to my old school. I didn’t have any friends there, but at least I could just blend in and go unnoticed. Here everyone’s staring at me and whispering about me. I think it’s because they know my family’s wealthy. My mom said it’s because they’re just jealous and I’m being a good person by associating with them because they’re not as good as us. It kind of seems like she might be right, since everyone seems to hate me already.

Especially that boy that I followed here. He seems familiar, but he won’t say two words to me. He looks a little bit like this friend I used to have. My mom wanted us to stay away from each other because his family was poor, but we would run around and play anyway because I had no other friends and his older brother was mean. He cursed a lot, but I didn’t understand that at the time.

I wish I could be more like him. He was always great at sports and had a bunch of brothers and sisters. His mom seemed a lot nicer than mine, too.

It doesn’t matter. I’m probably never going to see him again anyway.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to think after I finished reading the entry. Having them both in my English class would only mean more tension on me, but I couldn’t just have one of them moved without a good reason. I would just have to erase it from my mind and do my job.

I left early for lunch; I lived a block away from the school, and judging from the food they had served to the teachers so far, I decided to save myself from the torture and eat at home. As I headed down the hallway, two kids walked out of a classroom and continued on ahead of me. I recognized Mikey by now, and I assumed Alicia was the girl next to him.

“I can’t believe you just got us suspended,” she said flatly, lightly hitting him on the back of the head.

“Hey, it’s not my fault! Mr. Holmes talks funny!” Mikey said defensively. I held back a laugh. He was right.

“You didn’t need to tell him that though.”

“And you didn’t have to back me up, but you still did.” Mikey smirked triumphantly. “It’s only two days anyway. My brother’s had worse.”

Alicia laughed. “Your family’s weird, Mikey. Hey, have you heard anything from Eliza lately?”

“Yeah, my mom said she’s already got three kids. I think she’s crazy.”

I followed them as they turned down another hallway and continued down to the office. The soft sounds of someone sniffling and crying filled my ears as I approached the reception area, and I was startled to see Frank sitting in one of the chairs, holding his head in his hands and trying in vain to hold back his sobs. I sat next to him and quietly asked what was wrong.

“I g-got suspended,” he said without looking up. I was shocked. He was the last person I thought would do anything worthy of suspension.

“Why?”

“Well…I have this locket that s-someone gave me a long t-time ago…and the gym teacher s-said I couldn’t wear any jewelry because I’m a guy and when I w-wouldn’t give it to him he yelled at m-me and sent me here.”

I was in the midst of trying to think of something to say when the front door of the office opened and Mrs. Iero walked inside. She gasped when she saw the state Frank was in and rushed to his side.

“Franklin! What happened? How did you get suspended?” she asked in a frenzied voice. Frank miserably told her the story as he tried to calm down. She sighed in exasperation. “Where did you get that locket from, Franklin? Why do you wear it?”

“I can’t tell you that, mom. I’ve explained this already. It’s a secret; I can’t tell you.”

Her face fell. “But…but I’m your mother, Franklin.”

Frank rolled his eyes. “I know, but I still can’t tell you.” He frowned. “It’s just…it’s just a secret. Everybody has secrets. Don’t you have secrets?”

At that point I decided to leave. It looked like it was going to rain soon, and I didn’t want to be caught in the middle of even the lightest storm. I reached my front door just as the first few drops of rain began to fall. I couldn’t get the conversation between Frank and Mrs. Iero off of my mind, so I wrote something short about it to keep it from taking over my whole brain.

Did you really feel that you’d become secure?
That time had brushed away the past?
That there’s no one by your window, no one knocking at your door?
Did you believe that you were free at last?
Free from the broken looking glass?