A World That Never Was

It was just another normal day in the rather boring life of Eddie Zagorac. The alarm clock next to his bed sang that excessively loud monotone beep for only a brief moment before he slammed his hand down on the snooze button to shut it up. Eddie hadn’t pulled the sheet from over his head quite yet and was only an instant from going right back to sleep before a voice came. Turning in his head to face the voice, he poked his head out from underneath the cover and looked dully at the abdomen of his sister, Sasha, who was standing over him.

“You better hurry up, Edward, or you’ll miss the bus.” She said warmly, calling him by what she thought was a more formal and intelligent form of his name, as she reached out and ruffled Eddie’s short black hair.

Sasha, Eddie’s older sister, must have been in a rather good mood for, even though she never treated Eddie particularly badly, she was never outwardly affectionate. As a response Eddie gave a low grumble before sitting up and watching Sasha walk out of his room.

It always took the apathetic seventeen year old male a long time to get out of bed in the morning and many times he had to catch a ride to school. Another minute or so might have passed before Eddie actually stood up from the bed and made his way, unwillingly, to the bathroom just down the hall from his room, directly in between him and his brother’s room.

Eddie James Zagorac III, or E-Z as his friends called him, was born into a family of five as the second child of his loving parents, Eddie Zagorac II and Duska Zagorac; their family was a mix of too many different ethnicities to count but his mother was mostly Polish as his father was a mix of Italian and Polish. Eddie had two siblings, a younger brother and an older sister; Sasha was easy to live with but Alex was like a walking, talking hernia. All three of the children looked fairly similar as they all possessed jet black hair and emerald colored eyes but only Alex acquired their father strong cleft chin and Sasha was blessed with those signature dimples that her mother had; Eddie got the short end of the stick there, nothing particularly special about him.

Flicking on the light to the bathroom and looking into the mirror, Eddie found himself to be decently attractive; Five foot five inches, athletically built, only mild body hair, and a rather mysterious looking scar down the left side of his face just passing over his left eye; he definitely wasn’t ugly. He took off the only clothing he was wearing, a pair of black sweatpants, and got into the shower. Just as Eddie was getting out of the shower a rather annoying voice came from the other side of the door, Alex’s voice.

“Hurry up, pretty boy!” He mocked.

Alex was twelve and extremely obnoxious around Eddie but in front of other people he acted like he was some sort of angel when in truth he was the spawn of Satan himself.

“Come on! No matter what you do you’re still going to be stuck with that ol’ ugly mug of yours!”

By this time Eddie was already out of the shower with a towel tied around his waist. He flung the door open and peered down at Alex who had almost fallen flat on his face, water dripped from Eddie’s body onto the tile floor below him.

“Say it now…..” Eddie dared Alex, his tone generally flat.

Alex looked up at his older brother and didn’t dare say anything else smart so he just decided to push past Eddie and move into the bathroom with a mumbled ‘whatever’. Eddie proceeded to his room and dried off before getting dressed. He pulled on a black wife beater and a pair of loose fit black jeans along with his black, white and gray shoes and his favorite Boston Celtics sweater jacket; the school Eddie attended, Highcliff High School, was really lax on dress code and as long as you wore clothing that didn’t show off anything explicit you were in compliance.

Green, obviously, was Eddie’s favorite color and this was true for all three of the Zagorac children; though, they adopted their own shade of the cold tint color. Eddie enjoyed the darker shades of green.

“Five minutes, Eddie!” The voice of his mother called from the bottom of the stairs.

Quickly finding his comb and combing his hair, he gathered up his things along with his wallet, cell phone, I-Pod, and house key before rushing to the bathroom and pushing the door open. He ignored his brother’s screams as he grabbed the mouthwash off the counter and swished a swig around in his mouth before spitting it out.

“Do shut up.” Was all he said before he closed the door.

Eddie rushed downstairs and into the kitchen where his mother was cooking and his father was sitting at the kitchen table.

“You had better get going.” His mother said without looking at him.

“Sup pops”

“Don’t ignore you mom, son.”

“She knows I love her.” Eddie grinned as he walked to his mom and kissed her on the cheek as he reached around her and took a slice of the French toast she was cooking.

Eddie had gotten his average height from his mother and all of her children carried her smart-tongue. It wasn’t uncommon to hear their parents trading words and every time, whether she was wrong or right, their feuds ended with her victory.

Lightly shaking her head, Eddie’s mother went to grab another piece of bread and began to ready it for cooking.

“Alright, you pest, go ahead. Get.” She shooed him away with a spatula.

“Aw, mom, that hurts. It really does.” He joked as he began out of the kitchen “Bye, pops.”

His father waved at him absentmindedly.

Outside it was relatively cool, maybe around 65-70 degrees with a light breeze and the sun was hidden away by thick clouds that foretold an oncoming shower. The walk to where the bus would be picking him up from was about five minutes so Eddie guessed that he would be running to catch the bus this day, that or returning home to hear his mother bicker and his father just look at him and shake his head.

Sasha drove to school every day but she picked up her friends and didn’t have room for Eddie in the car, not that he really minded anyway; Sasha’s friends were kind of annoying. Eddie walked like he had nowhere to really be, a sort of slow stroll with his hands shoved in his pocket. Nobody else was seen walking because they had probably already gotten to the bus stop or had gotten their rides to school. It was common for Eddie to be the last person at the bus stop.

There it was, the big rectangular yellow hunk of metal that was to be transporting him to his destined location and Eddie was a little bit more than half a football field away as the last couple of students were walking up the steps. Eddie gave a lazy sigh as he made a few hop type steps and then broke out into a full run trying to clear the fifty yards between him and the bus. Just as the door were about to close, Eddie reached out a hand and stuck it in between the door to stop it.

Sighing, he looked up at the bus driver who was peering down at him with what seemed to be hate-filled eyes. You learned not to take the look Mrs. Coalstein gave you personally because to be truthful she always looked that way. She was old and mean, that’s all there was to it.

“Are you going to get on? Or would you prefer riding on the outside of the bus today?” Her old scratchy voice hissed at Eddie “Hurry up, boy!”

Eddie just smiled at her and pulled his arm back before walking up the steps and onto the bus, stifled laughter came as he walked down the aisle in search of a seat when suddenly he was pulled by his arm into a seat. Eddie sifted uncomfortably for a brief moment and leaned down to fix his pants legs and shoes before the face of Aliyah Sanchez lowered down next to his own.

“What happened?” She questioned.

Eddie perked an eyebrow as he turned his head to face her and their faces nearly touched, noses just inches away from each other. Aliyah blushed and pulled back, looking away from Eddie and to the back of the bus seat in front of them. She had always acted this way ever since he had know here in the 8th grade but, being the guy he was, Eddie didn’t understand why. She was too shy for her own good and guys tried to take advantage of her often therefore Eddie treated her like a sister and watched out for her.

“Well?” She posed her question once more.

“With what?”

“You know. Between you and….” She rose a little bit and glanced back before turning back to him “you and Jasmine.” She finally said.

Eddie didn’t respond at first and he sat back in his seat, slouching down slightly before giving her a light shrug like he didn’t really care. He and Jasmine had broken up the other day because Eddie had began to feel like the relationship didn’t mean much to Jasmine and that she didn’t really care about him. He felt like he was wasting his time so he talked to her and broke it off. Eddie put on a hard outer shell about it and just went on with life like normal.

“So that’s it then? It’s just over?” Aliyah asked, a serious demeanor showed in those light brown eyes of hers.

“Yup.” Eddie answered flatly, no longer wanting to talk about it.

Shaking her head, Aliyah sighed and looked out the window of the bus. Eddie truthfully still had feelings for Jasmine but he would be damned if he wasted his time trying for something that she didn’t want as well so he pushed away his emotions.

“E-Z,” A familiar voice, belonging to that of Damian Stone, came from the seat behind him “She was a bitch, man. It’s damn good you got rid of her.” He said. Damian was one of Eddie’s best friends and he was just trying to make him feel better about it in his own Damian way.

That angered Eddie but he didn’t let it show much “She wasn’t…..” He said lightly.
“Hm? So what? You still like her or something?”

Eddie looked to Aliyah to make sure she wasn’t looking and he nodded his head lightly. Aliyah would only pester him if she found that out.

“Oh…well why didn’t you say that? I was only saying those things because I thought you hated her.” He admitted.

Eddie scoffed and shook his head at his friend.

Damian grinned “Hey, I’m your boy. If you don’t like something I don’t like it either. And you know this.”

“Yeah…I know man. It’s cool.” Eddie responded. ‘Good old Damian’ He thought.

Damian sat back in his own seat and Eddie pulled out his I-pod to make pass the rest of the time on the bus. Something in his mind told him that that day was going to be interesting; something in his gut.