Writing Sins and Tragedies.

There was a time when you, John O’Callaghan, were John Alexander and you weren’t the big shot popular guy you are now. When you were John Alexander, you were my best friend, my partner in crime, my brother, my everything. Our mothers had gone to high school together—they were best friends; everybody knew Lindsay Alexander and Amy Ingle as a whole, not individuals.

It was by some miracle that our mothers got knocked up during the same month in their senior year, and both giving birth within the same week that summer. You were two days, four hours and nine minutes older than me and never let me forget it. Mom found it endearing. I found it annoying.

Preschool and up through third grade were the easy times, the good times. The almost carefree childish naïveté that shaped us was shattered by the summer of our almost-eighth year.

The month before you turned seven, your dad left you. He left your mother and you and your baby brother. I remember when you showed up at my house, wearing your usual scruffy jeans and your hair a usual greasy mess, but you were crying. You weren’t sobbing, weren’t weeping, but water streamed down your cheeks.

“My daddy left us.” You had said. My mom heard you and ushered you into the house. She told us to stay in the living room and she rushed across the street to your house. My mom stayed there for a long time. A few days, at least. She came back to my house and picked us up and took us over to your place. Your mom didn’t leave her room; you would stand at the doorway with the door cracked open and you would watch your mother cry and scream and sob. My mom would always lead you away by your shoulders and sit you on the ratty old couch. She would kiss your forehead, kiss mine and disappear into your mom’s bedroom again.

“Momma never stops crying now,” you would say, “she cries more than Ricky now.”

I would nod and look down at my tattered Chuck sneakers. You would sigh and lean back on the heels of your hands and look up at the water stained ceiling. I knew that the roof was still leaky. The last rainstorm your dad had promised your mom that he would fix the roof before it rained again and he would repaint the ceiling so it looked pretty. He never got around to it, because he left you guys.

“You’re real lucky, you know that Chris?” You asked me once; we were eight now. Your mom didn’t cry all the time, but she wasn’t the same Ms. Alexander I remembered her to be.

“How am I lucky, Solo?” I asked. I’d been calling you Solo since Star Wars came out in theaters and your dad took us to see it at the cheap theater down the street from the strip mall. You had a variety of nicknames when it came to my family; my mom called you names like sweetie and sweet pea and honey, like she called everybody. Her boyfriend, Markus, called you—and me—sport or tiger, but I called you Han Solo, or just Solo. Your name rhymed with his to my six year old ears and it became your new nickname; Johnny had left my vocabulary after the first few weeks.

“You don’t got a dad to lose like I did.” You told me. I shrugged and brushed it off. We would be turning nine in three months.

By the time we were nine we weren’t as close as we were before. Your mom had started trying to date for the first time since your dad walked out on you guys. When we did talk, you told me about all the men she brought home. You told me about the one guy, who had seemed nice and reminded you of your dad, with short brown hair and blue eyes. The man had turned out to be mean; you wouldn’t tell me why, but you had a nice shiner on your left eye and no story behind it. Teachers didn’t ask about the bruises you collected over the weeks that your mom was dating the man with short brown hair and blue eyes. The teachers were used to kids from rough families—half the kids here had been through some kind of abuse and most of those kids had scars and bruises and trauma to show for it.

One day I had asked you where a dark bruise on your arm came from.

“I got it wrestling with Ricky,” you had replied. “No biggie.”

I scanned your eyes for a moment and eventually nodded. I was too young, too naïve to know what the abuse was. You didn’t seem like those other kids who got hit at home. You had a nice mom, nice little brother. You would have told someone; you were never good at keeping secrets.

“Hey Mom,” I had said one night, when she had placed a plate of spaghetti in front of me, “how come John’s got so many bruises on him?”

She looked at me funny and asked, “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

“Whenever he comes to school he’s always got another bruise or something. He says it’s from wrestlin’ with Ricky but I don’t think his baby brother is that rough with him.” I mumbled on, pausing ever so often to scoop a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth.

My mom frowned but didn’t ask any more questions. After dinner, she got on the phone and I think she called your mom. I never knew who she called until the next day, when you confronted me.

“You know that your mom called my momma and asked about my bruises?” You asked, sounding angry and hurt and betrayed. I shrugged and told you that I didn’t know she had called.

You narrowed your green eyes and said, “I told you they were from wresting with Ricky. Why’d you tell your mom?”

Again, I shrugged. You sighed, annoyed, and slumped back in your chair. Our teacher, Mrs. Campbell, called on you to answer the math problem on the board and you stood up, walking towards the chalkboard. You didn’t glance back at me with a mischievous smile like you usually would, even if you weren’t up to no good. I frowned and rolled my shoulders.

Mrs. Campbell praised you when you got the right answer to the problem and gave you a gold star to stick on your t-shirt. You wore it proudly just above the small logo for the catering company down the street, next to the movie theater and next to the strip mall. Mrs. Campbell smiled at you as you walked back to your seat, right next to me, and you were smiling too. I hadn’t seen you smile in a while, but I didn’t know why.

That day, after Mrs. Campbell helped everybody pack up their bags and the dismissal announcements came on, we walked side by side out the front doors and down the stairs. We walked home every day; it wasn’t unusual. Ricky was usually at the corner with the crossing guard by the time we got there but that day was different.

That day a tan colored Chevy Camaro pulled up to the sidewalk next to us and you stopped dead in your tracks, staring wide eyed at the car. The driver got out and slammed the door roughly behind him. It was the man with short brown hair and blue eyes—the guy your mom was dating. He grabbed your arm roughly and cussed at you a few times before going off about how your mom had told you that he was picking you up and that you would be sorry later. He shoved you into the car and you almost dropped your backpack. I waved sadly, almost stupidly, as he got back into the car and drove off. You waved back for a while but stopped after only a few seconds.

I sighed and shoved my hands into my pockets and strolled over to the crossing guard. I watched the tan Camaro speed up and turn the corner in the direction of our houses and kicked a stone across the sidewalk. The crossing guard walked out into the street, holding up the red stop sign, and ushered the kids across the street. I walked in the same direction as the Camaro had gone and couldn’t help but wonder why the man with short brown hair and blue eyes was so rough with you. Didn’t he know you were just a kid and so much smaller than him? Maybe he didn’t realize how tiny you were compared to him, and didn’t realize he was rough.

I wondered if he was rough with Ricky too.

The tan Camaro was in your driveway when I got home. I walked into my house and dropped my backpack by the door and put my shoes by my bedroom door. My house wasn’t big, but neither was yours. Our houses were both one floor, condo-like homes with small kitchens and small bedrooms. There was one bathroom with a shower and, last year, Markus had built a small porch on the back of my house and set up a swing on the tree in the backyard.

“Chris?” Mom called as she came into the house. Her shift at the salon ended at three-thirty, ten minutes after school got out. It usually took her a while to punch out and get to her car and drive down the street from the strip mall, where the salon was.

“Yeah, Mom,” I called back, walking out of the kitchen and into the entry hall, where she was.

“How was school sweetheart? Do you have any homework?” She hung her small purse and keys on the rack by the door and locked the front door behind her. It had become a compulsive habit of hers to do that after someone broke in a few months before. I lied about how school went. I lied about the homework I didn’t do. Lying to my mother had become a normal thing for me; lying was completely normal at my house. The only honest person in my house was Markus, and that was after I learned that he wasn’t my birthfather.

I learned he wasn’t my father when I was six; Mom told me and I stopped calling Markus dad and my trust issues started. You became the only solid thing in my life at six years old, but you never knew. No one knew. I didn’t tell anyone; you did, after all, say that you couldn’t rely on anyone but yourself and that no one could make something out of you.

Mom sounded tired when she spoke. I felt tired as I stumbled into my room. I spent the night in my room, away from my tired, hard-working mother. She had told me that she would get me when our usual dinner of spaghetti was ready.

I couldn’t sleep at all that night. The walls of our homes had thin walls and most sounds were impossible to block out. My room, so close to the street, was vulnerable to the loud shouts and screams coming from your house. I was scared. I couldn’t sleep because every time I started to fall asleep I would hear another shout, another scream, emit from your home just across the street from my open window. I didn’t get any sleep until the shouting, the screaming, stopped and I crashed into exhausted sleep.

The next day I showed up at school with purple circles under my eyes so dark that someone might think that I got punched or someone broke my nose. You showed up with a real black eye and the impression of a ring scabbed onto your temple. Small, ugly red burns made small blisters on your arms. Your greasy hair matted against your forehead as you tried to cover up your eye, your temple. You yanked your sleeves down over the burns and looked at me through your long, unkempt hair. Your eyes were so dead, so lifeless but still green. You looked distant and scared.

“John?” I had asked, tilting my head to the side.

“I’m f-fine, Chris,” I could tell you were lying but I didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t want you to be more scared—I didn’t want you to be scared of me. Mrs. Campbell had stared at you longer than usual—she always smiled at each of us at the beginning of the day before starting her lessons. Her smile faltered for a moment before she turned her gaze to me, smiling again.

“Alright class, today we’re going to get a new list of spelling words and we’re going to read a story from the literature books.” Mrs. Campbell walked over to the chalkboard and started to write down the spelling words. “Get out a sheet of paper and copy down the words, please.”

You winced every time you moved your hands; I guessed it was from the burns on your wrists. They looked painful. Your breath was shaky as you wrote—I could hear the unsteady, quiet gasps. You would breathe sharply whenever your arms touched your desk and whenever you move your arm to write.

“Solo? Are you okay?” I asked gently, carefully.

“I-I told you I was fi-fine.” You mumbled. I nodded and went back to copying down the simple words.

The years after fourth grade got worse for you. The burns on your arms—they were from cigarettes, I knew—had left pretty half-moon scars that were only joined by more and more similar scars and burns. Bruises never left your arms, face, legs. Shouts and screams came from your house almost every night. It scared me. And, in the fifth grade, something happened and you missed an entire week of school. When you came back, you were different. You didn’t laugh the same, didn’t smile the same, didn’t talk the same. Your eyes, they stayed green, but that lifeless, dead, expressionless look within them never left. You had changed; you have changed.

When we entered junior high your mom broke up with the man with short brown hair and blue eyes.

The bruises disappeared after that. No more cuts, no more scrapes, no more unexplained injuries. I wasn’t stupid or naïve anymore—I could put two and two together and I damn well did. I knew that the man, your mother’s boyfriend, had been beating you, burning you, cutting you. It made me angry; angry that someone would hurt you, angry that you didn’t tell me, angry that I couldn’t and didn’t do anything about it.

Your mother was depressed again, after the break up. My mom went over to your house a lot, and she helped out. You and Ricky came over for dinner a lot. Sometimes you and Ricky would stay the night, and we would end up asleep in my bed, tangled in the sheets. Sometimes, when this happened, I would wake up and your fists would be bundled into the sheets, or my shirt, and you looked like you were in pain or scared or both.

I never tried to wake you when that happened. I would just wait until you looked okay again or let you grip onto the sheets or my shirt until I fell asleep. Your mom would walk over to our house, usually dressed in holey sweatpants and a sweatshirt. You would smile at my mom and say goodbye. She would kiss your head and ruffle your hair before starting to talk to your mom and going to wake Ricky.

You and I would stand and talk until your mom came over and said that it was time to go. She would lead you out of the house; hand on the dip between your shoulder blades.

Every time I would watch you leave until my mom closed the door behind you and I couldn’t see you anymore. I would hang my head and scruff my toe against the carpet. Mom would suggest that we get some breakfast and I would smile and agree.

Every day I thought about you; I knew that you’d been abused. I knew that you were broken, but I didn’t know how badly. You obviously had nightmares. I wanted to ask you all about it, but I didn’t want you to be angry with me and not say anything about it, ever. Mrs. Campbell never talked to you about the bruises or the cuts or the burns. She always looked at you funny, but never said anything. None of our teachers did.

It didn’t take as long for your mom to start dating again after she dumped the man with short brown hair and blue eyes. You told me that the new guy, William, was really nice and lived in a big house on the good side of town. You said that your mom met him through her job as a maid and she cleaned his house before they started dating.

William sounded a lot better than the other boyfriends. You never showed up at school with bruises or new burns or cuts. You seemed happier. I was happier.

Everything was great, for a while; you moved unexpectedly and neither you or your mom told me or my mother that you were moving. Mom said that you must have gone to live with William and his son; she said that your mom and William were engaged to be married.

Eighth grade was torture without you. I didn’t have my best friend to eat lunch with and play video games with and talk about girls with. I was never as into girls as you were, but I still talked about them. I wasn’t really interested with anyone.

I made new friends without you, though. Nick and Pat and Leo became my best friends after they sat with me at lunch on the first day of eighth grade. They were cool, and they seemed to like me. They never quite took your place—I was sure no one could, but it was nice having other friends.

“So, are you guys ready for high school?” Leo asked once, as we sat outside in my yard during the last week of summer vacation before ninth grade.

“I dunno,” I mumbled. I took a long drag of the cigarette Nick had swiped from his mother’s purse and smiled goofily.

“We’re goin’ to Breakview High, y’know,” Nick said. “There’s gonna be rich kids there, too. There’s only one high school here.”

I shrugged, “It might not be bad. I mean, we’ve got the kids from our neighborhood there, so we won’t be loners.”

The name hit hard, coming from my own lips. Loner. That’s what I was—what we were. All we had was each other and we didn’t need anyone else. Part of me hurt, ached, to think of you. I hadn’t seen you since the before eighth grade. The same hurt, ache, grew more irritating as I remembered the night that I found out you were gone, when I saw the for sale sign in front of your house. I cried myself to sleep that night; it was the first night that I had cried in such a long time.

“I’m gonna head home,” Pat said. He left soon after and Nick and Leo followed suit. I was alone. Part of me wanted to look up from the grass, from my cigarette, and see you, standing in my yard and grinning that lopsided grin of yours. Most of me, the part that wasn’t wanting to see you, ached.

“Chris, come inside!” Mom called from the house.

“Alright,” I called back. I took one last long drag of my cigarette and put it out on the sole of my shoe. Markus sat at the head of the square table, spaghetti hanging out of his mouth and the paper on the table in front of him. Mom handed me a plate of the spaghetti and I sat at my usual seat.

Mom attempted small talk. She asked if I was excited for high school, asked Markus how his day was, asked me if I needed a new pair of sneakers. I said I didn’t, but she still promised to get me some new shoes and clothes from the thrift store at the strip mall. As I slowly ate my dinner, I stared at the ring on my mother’s finger. It was a small, gold band with a small diamond in the center. It was her engagement ring; I didn’t know when the actual wedding was going to be, even if it’s been almost four years since Markus proposed to my mother.

On the first day of school I felt sick to my stomach. I stood outside the high school, next to Pat and Leo, and took deep breaths. The school was too clean, too new, too nice. I wasn’t used to a school that wasn’t run down. Our elementary and junior high schools weren’t the greatest. The paint of the walls was peeling, the doors squeaked, and the bricks were faded and more orange than red.

Some kids were like Pat and Leo and I; matted, greasy hair and scruffy up jeans. Mom had gotten that new pair of sneakers for me along with new to me jeans and a plaid shirt.

“C’mon, Chris, let’s go.” Leo tugged on my sleeve and started towards the entrance of the building. We picked up our locker assignments, schedules and maps of the school at the front lobby. We walked from the lobby and to the freshman hallway together and I swore I saw you. I stopped dead in my tracks, craning over people’s heads and trying to catch the glimpse of green eyes and shaggy brown hair.

“Chris! What are you doing?” Pat called, noticing that I was behind. I stared for a second longer, looking for you, before tearing my gaze away and looking at Pat.

“I… Nevermind,” I shook my head as if I had done something stupid. I knew I had—you were gone, you weren’t coming back. It wasn’t like you would move back to Tempe after you and your mother and Ricky left to go live with William and have a better life. You were better off than I was with William.

I twirled the lock on the navy blue locker that had been assigned to me this year. The lockers at junior high were puke yellow and the locks were sticky and hard to open. Mom had taken me school shopping earlier last month—I had binders, folders; everything I needed for the year. I knew that I wouldn’t need to go school shopping again for high school, since I had all the new books and money was tight.

But money was always tight.

“Hey, what classes do you guys have?” Nick asked, catching up with Pat, Leo and I before homeroom.

“Baker for homeroom, Winchester for English, Matthews for Algebra II, Victor for Biology and Lewis for Spanish,” I read off my schedule.

“I have the same except Franklin for homeroom and Andrews for Algebra.” Leo said; Pat and Nick nodded in agreement and added their additions to their varied schedules. I walked to Mr. Baker’s room for homeroom. I took a deep breath before walking into the unfamiliar room.

A group of kids littered the desks in the back and I guessed they were older by how comfortable they looked. A few other kids sat towards the front and looked less comfortable and more nervous. I walked over and sat at the last desk in the group of tables and stared down at my books. Another boy sat next to me but didn’t say a word. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and he wore jeans, as I did. I sat up and leant back into my chair. I tried to look natural, calm, cool.

“Hey,” the boy said. “I’m Kennedy.”

“I-I’m Christofer. Or just Chris. It doesn’t matter,” I made myself shut up as I started to ramble. I blabbered on and on when I was nervous or uneasy—you had always teased me over that. Usually, when you would talk and gently tease me, I would calm down. I wouldn’t ramble, wouldn’t stutter.

Kennedy was nice. He and I had English and Spanish together. He wasn’t from the same side of the tracks as I was, though. He was pretty high up in middle class, from what I could tell, but he didn’t comment on my matted hair and shabby clothes. He didn’t care.

I never knew that Kennedy was friends with you. He didn’t talk about his friends—neither of us talked about our friends. He’d been to my house, since the first day of freshman year, many times but I’d never been to his. He said that his parents weren’t home often and he had the worst tattletale for a sister. My mom liked Kennedy, though. She said he was a nice boy. Markus liked him too.

The first day of senior year, Nick, Leo, Pat and I were driving in my beat up Buick to school. We met up with Kennedy outside the school , but he wasn’t alone.

I raised my eyebrow when I saw the tall figure standing next to Kennedy in the shade. I gasped when I saw that it was you. You looked different than you did that summer five years ago. You were taller, lithe, but you still had your shaggy brown hair and green eyes. You didn’t recognize me.

“S-Solo?” the nickname slipped past my lips before I could stop it.

You furrowed your eyebrows and looked at me for a split second before the realization hit you.

“Chris?” you asked. Hearing your voice made my throat dry and constrict; a feeling in my gut exploded and I suddenly felt dazed and dizzy. I didn’t know if that had been there the entire time I had known you, and that it was coming back because you where here and in front of me and tangible, or if it was something new, alien, foreign.

“Yeah,” I squeaked out.

You started to hang out with me more after we met again. Kennedy asked me how we knew each other one day. I told him that we were old friends—that you had lived across the street from me for thirteen years and then you just disappeared off the face of my Earth.

I asked you time and time again how everything had changed. You told me that you had moved in with William five years ago. You told me that it was better with him; you weren’t in the tough spot that I was stuck in anymore. You were free, you were out, but you had left me behind. You finally admitted to being abused by the man with short brown hair and blue eyes. You didn’t tell me everything he did to you, but you did say that you would never tell anybody some parts of that year. You still had the pretty half moon scars from the cigarette burns on your forearms. They had faded slightly, but they were still there.

When I stopped asking questions, you asked me how Mom was, how Markus was. I told you we were fine.

I didn’t tell you that I missed you. I didn’t tell you how I cried in my sleep the first few months after you left. I didn’t tell you how broken up I was because you were gone.

“Hey, Chris,” you said one day during Spanish, “you should, y’know, come over sometime this weekend. Momma hasn’t seen you in forever, and I know she misses you and your mom.”

I smiled, “Uh, yeah, I can probably come over.”

I tried not to sound too happy, too excited, because I didn’t know why I was so damn excited, happy, on the inside. It wasn’t really that different—before you moved, we were either at your house or my house every day. It wasn’t unusual. Why was it different now?

Your new house was at least twice the size of mine and had two floors and a basement. My eyes grew huge as you pulled into the driveway in your Honda.

“This is your house?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” you shrugged as if it were nothing. I blinked stupidly a few times before forcing myself to pull together and snap out of it. We walked into your house and I felt underdressed and out of place. My shoes were tattered, being almost four years old now, and my jeans were scruffy and had dark grass stains on the knees. My hair was a mess and I didn’t belong in such a nice house.

“C’mon, Chris,” you tugged on my arm and lead me into the kitchen.

“Mom?” you called into the kitchen.

“Yes sweetheart?” she called back. Your mother’s voice hadn’t changed. She did sound happier, lighter now. It was nice to hear her old, happy voice and not the depressed, distant voice she had after your dad left you.

“You remember Chris Ingle?” it took her all of two seconds to put down whatever she was doing and hurry out of the kitchen and into the living room.

“Christofer!” she exclaimed, pulling me into a tight hug.

“Hi, Aunt Lindsay,” I smiled, hugging her back somewhat awkwardly. Your mom held me at arm’s length for a few minutes as she asked questions about my mother, Markus, me; everything.

“Mom,” you spoke up, “I was hoping to hang out with Chris today.”

Your mom laughed and strolled back into the kitchen, promising to visit my mother sometime soon.

“She’s so embarrassing.” You muttered, scratching the back of your neck. I shrugged and followed you upstairs.

I thought quietly to myself about how quickly you had leaped back into my life. You disappeared with the snap of your fingers and you reappeared the exact same way. I was happy to have you back, though, because you were my best friend for thirteen years, and I want that back.

And I did get it all back, eventually. We began talking, being close, together, every day. My awkwardness, nervousness, went away with time. You didn’t notice; you didn’t notice how different I was from when we were still talking, still living across the street from each other. Kennedy noticed. He said I seemed happier, brighter, calmer, when I was with you, near you. Nick noticed too. He was bitter.

He said I spent too much time with you, forgave you too quickly, welcomed you back into my life too easily. He said I should have held leaving without a word against you—he said that I shouldn’t have been so easy for you. I should have shown you what it was like. But you already knew what it was like without me—you had lived those five years without me as I had without you.

So I didn’t listen to him. I didn’t speak up when he brought it up; I just let him rant on and on until he was done and a bit red at the cheeks from speaking and anger. Leo and Pat said that he was being stupid, possessive, childish. They said that he had trust and abandonment issues. He thought he was going to lose me, his best friend. I knew where he was coming from; I had lost you, after all. I didn’t plan on going through that again.

Mom was ecstatic about us being friends again and talking and going to the same school. She seemed to know everything, even the parts I hadn’t told her. She brought up the usual event of my crying myself to sleep nights after you were gone one night after you were driving down the street in your barely used Honda. I asked how she knew, and she replied by saying it was mother’s intuition. I didn’t understand, and she said I wouldn’t; I wasn’t a mother, I didn’t have children.

“Honey,” you put your hand on my shoulder and shook me back into reality. I forgot when, why you started calling me honey. It wasn’t weird, awkward, odd for you to call me that. I didn’t care; I actually kind of liked it, in a weird, unexplainable way. We were close. Maybe too close, I don’t know.

“Hm,” I asked sleepily. I fluttered my eyes partway open and focused my gaze on the movie playing on the flat screen television in your basement.

“Stay awake,” you murmured. I shifted uncomfortably and leant my head on your shoulder again. You told me not to fall asleep on you, but you twisted my greasy hair around your fingertips and didn’t move your shoulder or my head. Your breathing was steady and louder to me than the movie. I didn’t even pay attention to the film and closed my eyes again. Maybe we were too close, closer than two teenage boys should be. But it didn’t feel too close. It still felt far. It didn’t feel wrong, because it felt right.

“Chris,” I groaned quietly as your voice pulled me out of my slumber. “Chris, c’mon, wake up.”

“Five more minutes,” I mumbled. You sighed and told me to wake up again.

“Damn it, Chris, wake up!” you shook my shoulder again and I, finally, sat up, more awake than I was barely a minute before. I don’t know if it was when my bleary, sleepy eyes met yours or the moment that you moved closer that the sinning started. My half-awake brain couldn’t comprehend what exactly was going on until it happened. Our lips clashed and everything was rushed and uncertain and different. My eyes flew open, shocked and curious, before closing in cliché.

My mind was racing and quite possibly running faster than my heart was beating as you moved your lips from mine. Red faced and breathless, I opened my eyes. You looked about half as nervous and frazzled as I was. You looked calm, collected, smooth. It still didn’t feel wrong, but surely someone would argue with that statement. In anyone else’s eyes, this would be wrong, weird, bad. It didn’t seem all too bad to me.

“Chris?” you sounded nervous, small now.

“Y-Yeah,” I sounded smaller.

“Was that… okay?” You asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

I wasn’t quite sure when exactly you decided to do that, to kiss me. I wasn’t sure when exactly I started to want you to kiss me more often. I wasn’t sure when I exactly fell for you, either. For all I know, it could have been when I was too young to remember, just a baby. Or maybe it was when your dad left you and you were so broken up but trying to be strong for everybody but yourself. Or when I saw the burns, the bruises on your arms.

For all I know, it could have been the first night I cried in my sleep after you were gone.

Everything was too jumbled together to think straight; all I knew was that I was confused and so were you.

We were silent for a while, and you offered to drive me home. The car ride back to my side of town was deathly quiet. It was obvious that it was a bit awkward and too tense between us. I gnawed on my bottom lip and stared out the windshield, watching cars and people go by. Some stared; they wondered what a rundown kid like me was doing with you and in a nice, new car. We passed by Nick and he didn’t wave or even acknowledge your car go by. Leo, who was with him, shouted a hello to us before scurrying after Nick into a convenience store.

I shrank back into the stiff leather of the seat and I dug my teeth into my lip to keep it from trembling. Nick was angry with me; I could tell. It always upset me whenever Nick or Pat or Leo got angry with me or each other because it made me think of how one of them, or us, would say something we would regret and never make up. I didn’t like fighting with anyone. I hated arguing more than anything. I saw what it did to your parents, what it almost did to Mom and Markus, and I just didn’t want to go through anything like that. We had never fought. Never once had we gone through an actual fight where we shot insults and angry words at each other until one of us stormed out or threw a punch.

Those kinds of fights came into my life once when Nick was drunk and yelling at Leo about something and it pressed my buttons and made me yell at him. Nick was too intoxicated to think about what he was saying or doing. He threw the half empty bottle of beer at me and it shattered against the wall. He didn’t apologize until Pat told him what he did. He hasn’t had beer since.

“Look, Chris,” you started. I snapped out of my thoughts and let go of my bottom lip. My eyes darted to you and you continued, “About what happened…”

“It’s fine, really,” I assured you when you trailed off. You smiled softly and told me that you’d see me at school on Monday. I nodded and said the same before closing the car door carefully and stepping into my lawn. You pulled out of the driveway and I started to tread over to the front door. I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

“Mom?” I called, closing the door behind me.

“In the kitchen,” she called back. I locked the door before kicking off my shoes and walking across the room and into the kitchen.

“Did you have fun at John’s?” She asked with her back to me as she retrieved a cutting board from atop the refrigerator.

“Yeah,” I said, sitting at one of the chairs to the kitchen table.

Mom stared at me funny for a minute, as if she could tell that something was off about me, before washing the vegetables and setting them on the cutting board. She asked if something was wrong and I lied; I told her everything was fine, I was just tired. She told me to go to my room and take a nap so I wouldn’t be as tired when my aunts and grandmother came over. I had completely forgotten that my mother’s sisters and my grandmother were coming over tonight for dinner. I hoped I wouldn’t have to give up my room for them like I had to last time they stayed the night, when I was nine.

I rubbed at my eyes and walked to my room slowly. I kept the lights off and pulled the blinds down as soon as I entered the room. My head had begun to pound and pulse. I closed the door and collapsed onto my bed.

“Damn it,” I muttered into my pillow. “Damn it all.”

I didn’t realize that I really was tired. I tried not to think about anything but sleep as I laid in the darkness, tangled halfway into my sheets. Mom came in when I was halfway to sleep; she pulled my sheets over me so they covered up to my shoulders and she kissed my forehead. I slept through dinner and my aunts and grandmother’s visit. They didn’t stay the night.

The weeks following that weekend weren’t as different as I thought they would be. No one noticed anything odd about either of us on Monday, but I could feel the tension still between us. I wondered if it was maybe a onetime thing, something that wouldn’t happen again anytime soon. You still sat with the rest of the popular kids at lunch. Kennedy sat with us, at least. He didn’t care about the social boundaries set up by parents and where everybody lives.

As far as I knew, neither did you, but you couldn’t sit with us. I had asked you once and you had replied quietly, saying you just couldn’t. I didn’t understand. Maybe people didn’t know that you used to be just like me, from the wrong sides of the tracks and without the perfect, happy family. Maybe you didn’t want people to know. Did people ask about the scars? The pretty half-moons on your forearms? I doubt it.

“Just give up on him, Chris,” Nick said one day. “He’s obviously not going to sit with us.”

“So I shouldn’t be friends with him because he sits somewhere else during lunch?” I asked, making Nick scowl. He didn’t like you all too much. He didn’t take to Kennedy too nicely either.

“Stop being a smartass,” he snapped. I shrugged and decided to ignore his bad mood. After four years of knowing and befriending Nick, I had come to realize that he had his moody days when it was best just to ignore his nasty remarks and overall harshness.

Halfway through senior year, you showed up on my doorstep unannounced and without a car. It was late and looked like it was going to rain, so I let you in. Mom and Markus were out at dinner with his parents. You apologized for just showing up and I brushed it off. It was a Saturday night and almost ten o’clock; anything went, right now.

Anything could have happened, but barely anything did. You had kissed me again; that time around, it wasn’t as uncertain and different and shocking. I melted into it easier. You also offered, with that lopsided grin of yours, to take me out the next day. I didn’t know if you meant as a date, but I accepted.

And that is when the snowball effect came about.

Nick saw us up at the movie theater next to the strip mall on Sunday. He gave me a suspicious look and shot you a glare. I rolled my eyes at him and ignored him. I was glad that he only worked at the theater and wasn’t there to see a movie, as we were.

When we walked out of the theater, I was still a little shook up from the horror movie you had insisted on watching. You promised not to take me to another horror movie, but I didn’t expect you to hold up on that promise.

“Hey Chris,” Nick’s voice, harsh and angry, called after me, “having fun with your boyfriend?”

The way he said it and the way he implied it made an angry shake run up my back. I turned around and stormed over to the counter, where he stood with a smirk. I grabbed the collar of his uniform polo and told him to back off. My voice shook with what might have been anger and I threw his collar back, making him stumble.

“Fuck off, Ingle,” he spat. I would have punched him right then and there if you hadn’t pulled me out of the theater by my sleeve. I settled on shouting a few choice curses at him before we were out of the front entrance.

“Just ignore him, honey,” you told me. I sighed shakily, still angry, and nodded.

Nick only got worse. He wouldn’t leave me alone about everything; he liked to criticize me, it seemed. He’d tell me that I looked stupid, sounded stupid, was stupid. He teased me over little things and, most of all, made continuous, never ending insults about my sexuality and you. Leo told him to lay off, but he didn’t. Pat told him to leave me be, and he didn’t. Kennedy didn’t tell Nick to do anything. Kennedy shoved him into lockers after lunch and retorted back at Nick when I stayed silent. I never said anything back to Nick, save for the one time at the movie theater.

Two weeks after the movie theater incident and Nick was worse than ever. He never left me alone, even when Kennedy shot back at him, and he liked to knock my books to the ground and push me into walls and land punches on my arms. While school life was bad, home was worse. Markus had gotten hurt at work and was bedridden for at least a month because he had hurt his back so badly. Mom had to take up double shifts and I had to get a job at the cruddy old gas station down the street where I was more likely to get held up than have a customer actually come in and not take something illegally. The only good part about life was that you and I were more than less unofficially official. The smaller things like that were keeping me going.

Nick showed up at the gas station one day. He had a stupid smile on his lips and a bottle of beer in his hand. He slammed it onto the counter, so hard I feared it would break, and laughed at me.

“How’s your boyfriend, Ingle?” He asked mockingly. “Or did he abandon you again?”

“John’s not my boyfriend,” I lied without even looking up. I just wanted him to go away. I didn’t want him to stay and make fun of me and ask anymore stupid, mocking questions. He stayed, of course, just to tick me off.

“Right,” he slurred. He started ranting on, throwing in insults and anything else he could think of until I got too fed up with him.

“Nick, buy something or get the hell out.” I snapped. He looked surprised. He knew that, after two weeks of doing nothing but torturing me, I wouldn’t say a word back. Right now I was too pissed off to deal with him; it wasn’t any better that I was irritated, hot from the lack of air conditioning, and gaining a pounding headache with all of his blabbering and teasing.

“Whatever, Chris,” he was obviously unhappy as he glared and walked out of the gas station. He would have slammed the door if he could. I rolled my eyes and glanced at the clock on the register. I still had another hour until my shift was up. I leant back into the computer chair behind the counter and wheeled back a little. I wanted a cigarette. I pursed my lips and spun around, looking at the various packages of cigarettes for a moment before spinning back around and propping my elbows up on the counter and resting my head in my hands.

The next hour went by slowly. Nick hadn’t come back into the store, but he did hang around the parking lot, drinking the rest of the beet from the bottle he nearly broke on the counter. He left, eventually, but not before you showed up. You had a habit of showing up at my work during my shift. You’d always buy something small, like a pack of gum or a bag of chips. Always a candy bar—you’d say it was for your sister, Lucy. I didn’t know you had a sister. You said she was four and usually sleeping or in her room whenever I was over. She was a quiet kid, you had said, she kept to herself.

I laughed a little, just barely, after you told me that. You were always a loud, outgoing kid. You talked too much during class and to anyone.

You showed up a half hour before my shift ended. Nick was still in the parking lot and I had a bad feeling in my gut.

“Hey Chris,” you said. I smiled and you dropped the usual Hershey’s bar onto the counter. You handed me three wrinkled one dollar bills and shot me a crooked smile. I rang up the chocolate bar and put the money into the register. I started to hand you the change but you shook your head, “Nah, keep the change.”

I shrugged and let the coins fall back into the pockets of the register. You left with me when my shift was over and I had punched out and Matt, the guy whose shift was after mine, came in to take over. You insisted on driving me home. You talked to me with one hand on the steering wheel, one tangled with mine. I was tired, but I still tried to converse, tried to keep my eyes open.

“So, I was thinking that maybe… maybe you could s-sit with us a-at lunch…” My voice began to shake and I kicked myself for stuttering and growing nervous.

“Of course, honey,” you said, giving my hand a comforting squeeze. “See you at school.”

I smiled, “Yeah, see you then.”

I closed the door quietly and scurried around the car and onto the sidewalk outside my house. I waved to you as you started to turn around and earned a wave and a crooked smile back.

School the next day was torture. People moved to the side when I walked in the hallways; usually, I had to fight my way through crowds and to my locker. Today, more people stared at me and kept at least a foot away from me. The muscles around my ribs shook and trembled; my hands were shaking so badly by the time I got to my locker I couldn’t even spin my combination into the padlock. I bit down on my lip as I walked into homeroom. Kennedy was already there, and he sent me a small, sympathetic smile as I entered the room. A group of girls started to whisper to each other when they saw me and my hands and ribcage started shaking worse. I thought I was going to puke as I felt the stares burning into my back.

“D-Do you kn-know why everyone is st-staring at me?” I asked Kennedy as I took my seat next to him. Kennedy winced at my stumbling, nearly breaking voice.

“Nick… he, well,” Kennedy hesitated. “He said something about you. Posted it up on some social site.”

My stomach dropped and I swallowed hard.

“Wh-what did he say?” I asked. I didn’t know if I wanted to know. My hands and ribs and bottom jaw trembled as Kennedy wavered.

“Chris, he called you a fag. He wrote on his profile or whatever that you’re gay.” Kennedy spoke quickly and didn’t stop to pause or take a breath. He looked guilty for even knowing.

“Well shit.” I muttered. I really wanted to do a few things in that moment: punch something, yell at Nick, and get the hell out of the school and hide in my house, away from the stares and rumors. I bit down on my lip to stop its trembling and leant back.

“Are you okay, Chris?” Kennedy asked.

“No,” I mumbled, “but I should be. I mean, it’s true after all.”

I didn’t explain myself because the bell rang. I was the first one out of the classroom and one of the few people littering the hall. I knew I needed, wanted, to find Nick. I wanted to yell at him and scream at him and slam him into a locker or the wall and hit him.

I found Nick laughing and talking to Pat and Leo. I wondered if they knew.

“Nick!” I shouted angrily from across the hall. Nick stopped laughing, stopped talking. He smirked at me and asked what I wanted. I grabbed his collar and slammed him against a locker. He shoved me back, his hands hitting my shaking ribcage hard, and I hit the wall. I clenched my fingers into a fist and dug my nails into my palm. I swung my arm and my fist collided into Nick’s cheek. Nick hit me back and soon enough we were both throwing punches every which way.

“Hey, hey, hey!” a voice shouted; the next thing I knew, a teacher was pushing Nick and I apart. Breathing heavily, I glared at Nick. My lip was bloody and my jaw ached.

“Both of you, principal’s office, now.” The teacher led us both by our shoulders down the hall and to the office. I sank down in the uncomfortable, orange chair outside the principal’s office while Nick talked to him. The secretary threw occasional glances my way and I felt bad for hitting Nick. I regretted punching him, but it still felt good to just hit him and get back at him for spreading the stupid rumor—no matter how true it was.

I bit down on my tongue and squeezed my eyes shut.

“Chris?” your voice filled the silence and I cursed at myself. I opened my eyes and met your curious green orbs.

“I punched Nick.” I stated blandly. “I’m in trouble for it.”

You raised your eyebrows and I looked down. You were disappointed, I could tell. I knew that you didn’t want me to hit Nick and I knew that you were probably mad at me for doing it. You probably wouldn’t sit with us at lunch, like you said you would last night.

“Mr. Ingle, I’ll see you now.” The principal’s voice sounded menacing and intimidating coming from within his office as Nick walked out. I swallowed hard and clenched my teeth together.

“Christofer,” the principal, Mr. Walker, starts, “Mr. Santino has told me that you punched him for no reason whatsoever and that he simply hit back in self-defense.”

“That’s not true!” I interrupted. “He started a rumor that I’m gay and called me a fag. No one is ever gonna look at me the same thanks to him!”

Mr. Walker furrowed his brow. He asked me to tell him what happened and I did. I told him about how Nick had showed up at the gas station last night, and how everyone acted funny around me this morning. I told him how Kennedy was the one to tell me about the post online and how betrayed I felt and how mad I was at Nick. Mr. Walker understood, but I still got three days worth suspension and was told that Nick would be talked to. Never once did Mr. Walker ask if the rumor was true. He seemed to not have to ask.

Markus picked me up at the front office despite his injured back. He didn’t seem angry with me when he walked into the office and signed me out. He gave me a half smile as I stood up. I walked a step behind him until we reached the car. As he drove, he asked about why I was suspended.

“I punched Nick,” I told him. “He tried to spread something ‘bout me, so I punched him.”

“I thought you two were good friends.” Markus said.

“Guess not.” I sounded disinterested. I just wanted to get home and curl up on my bed and sleep the day away.

I did exactly that when we arrived at our cruddy little house. My house seemed so small, so inefficient, so rundown compared to yours. Your house’s bricks were new and red while the paint on the siding of mine was peeling. Everything about your house was new and clean and shiny while mine was old and dirty and falling apart. I woke up at around eleven, breathing heavy and gasping for oxygen. It felt like someone was pressing a weight against my chest. I coughed, rubbed my hand through my hair and got out of bed. I took a shower and cleaned all the sweat and grime off of my body and washed the grease from my hair.

I felt better as I pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. I was tired again. I slept until Mom got home. She came into my room and told me that the school had called her at work and informed her about my suspension and why I was suspended. She had called Nick’s mother. I felt like a child with my mother trying to fight my battles for me. You called at around seven. I was asleep again.

I was exhausted; I was thankful I didn’t have work tonight, because all I wanted to think about was sleep and getting a bag of chips from the pantry. I wouldn’t be back in school until Friday and I hoped that it would blow over by then. I knew it wouldn’t, but I didn’t stop myself from thinking it would. I didn’t dream when I slept. I saw nothing but darkness and black.

I woke up at noon the next day. You had called again, left a message on the answering machine. There were two other messages which I deleted before I even heard the end of the first few sentences. One was from Nick, with some sappy apology that I’m sure his mother made him call up. The other was from someone from school, stupid enough to call up my house and leave an insulting message. I sighed and stumbled into the kitchen. I pulled open the pantry door and groped around for the half empty bag of potato chips. I was still tired.

I had no idea whatsoever where Markus was and, at this point, I didn’t care too much about anyone.

You showed up a few hours after I got up. I was curled up in my sheets and unable to fall asleep again. Classic rock played loudly on my old radio and I barely heard you knocking on the front door. I rubbed at my eyes sleepily as I opened the door. You smiled but I could see the sympathy and sorrow in your eyes. I didn’t react.

“How’re ya holding up?” You asked me when I let you in.

“I’ve been better.” I muttered. Your fake smile faded and you sat on the couch. I flipped the TV on and plopped next to you with a loud sigh. I could still hear the classic rock blasting from my bedroom. I didn’t move to turn it off.

“How is everything at school?” I blurted out. I bit down on my lip and glanced up at you nervously. I could feel my ribs start to shake again and my hands began to tremble against my knees. You set one hand on mine and it stopped shaking.

“Bad.” You stated simply. “Everyone’s gossiping about you and me. More so you.”

I sighed and leant back into the worn cushion of the couch and rested my head close to your shoulder. I knew that there was more than just gossip, just by the way you seemed to strain your voice and how you bit your lip after telling me. I clucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth and stared blankly at the television.

Friday, my first day back at school after the fist fight with Nick, was pure and total torture. Everyone stared and whispered more. I slammed my locker closed so roughly it hurt my eardrums. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and picked my books up off the floor. The voice from the bad message on the answering machine yelled some sort of insult at me as I walked past whoever he was and I came face to face with you. You made an apologetic, sheepish face and shrugged your shoulders. Your friends called you over and you left me standing in the middle of the hallway, dumbfounded and more than a bit angry. I walked to homeroom alone and took a deep breath before entering the classroom. Kennedy was already there and the girls who whispered before just stared, like everyone did.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek nervously as I took my seat.

“Hey Chris,” Kennedy greeted me as if nothing was going on. I was glad that at least one person was treating me normally. I hadn’t even talked to Leo or Pat since last week. I’m sure that they’d have Nick’s back before they’d have mine. They’ve known him longer, been friends with him longer. I just hoped that they didn’t think the same as Nick and everybody else did.

I tried to ignore the stares and the whispers and the insults and the graffiti on my locker. The kid from the message on my answering machine popped up everywhere. I never caught a glimpse of his face, but I heard his voice behind me in the hallway.

Nick didn’t sit at the lunch table. He sat with some other kids from our neighborhood. I didn’t know their names, but I knew they lived on the same side of the tracks as I did. Pat and Leo still sat with me, and they tried not to seem awkward around me. I didn’t even want to know what Nick had tried to pump into their heads about me, so I didn’t ask. I didn’t even mention his name and when Pat brought him up, I ignored him and tried to change the subject or just stayed quiet.

School couldn’t end fast enough. After last bell I all but ran out of the school and to the car. The beat up little car never looked anything more like a savior, my shelter than right now. I got home five minutes faster than I normally do. Ten minutes after I had thrown my bookbag onto the table and ran my fingers through my hair, the phone rang.

“Hello?” I asked as I picked it out of its cradle.

“Chris? Are you okay?” It was you. “I didn’t meet up with you at your locker like normal… You weren’t there.”

“I… I was just in a rush. I’m fine.” I lied. I was far from fine and I knew it and I’m sure you knew it too. We talked for a little while until I used the excuse of homework and work to get off the phone. AP Calculus was harder right now than ever. I didn’t want to solve the twenty two problems my teacher had assigned us and I certainly didn’t want to get started on the essay that was due for English on Monday. I bit down on my lip and pulled at my hair as I worked out the problem in my spiral. I didn’t even understand what I was doing, but I seemed to get the right answers. I didn’t even care right now. It felt like something—or someone—was trying to drill out of my chest, my stomach. I chewed on my lip until it began to bleed and I sighed.

I barely finished my Calculus homework before I had to start off for work. The cruddy gas station was the last place I wanted to be right now, but I dealt with it and punched in for the day.

“Only three hours left,” I muttered to myself. “Only three hours.”

You didn’t show up during the last thirty minutes of my shift, like you usually did. I had to lock up tonight and it was dark and I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. My hands shook as I walked away from the locked up, closed down station. I shoved them into my pockets and hurried across the street to get into the light of a street lamp.

Crossing the street without a crosswalk or a light was the most foolish thing I could have done. Everything happened so fast; the headlights hit my eyes just a fraction of a second before metal collided into my hips and I hit the asphalt with a sickening crack. I groaned in pain and grabbed at my side with the arm I hadn’t landed on. Dark spots started to fill into my vision as door slams and rushed footsteps and curses filled my ears. One guy shouted something about hitting someone. The other cursed and said he would call an ambulance.

“Hey, are you alright?” My eyes started to roll back and I didn’t answer the person.

Although I was unconscious, I can remember every event after that. An ambulance came, the paramedics put a neck brace around my throat and loaded me onto a gurney. One said I had a broken hip, cracked ribs, a skull fracture. It didn’t look too bright for me.

But it wasn’t bright at all. It was dark and desolate.

“He’s not going to make it.”

I knew the words killed my mother. They broke her down to the very core and I think she hurt worse than your mom did when your dad left. You didn’t find out about me until the next day, Saturday. Mom called you. She told you everything. I just sat there, unseen, unheard.

The tragedy was only to a few, select people. My mother and you. Sure, other people were sad, other people said they missed me, but no one hurt as much as you and my mother did. Mom never stopped crying, and when she did her eyes were glassy with tears.

You just winced whenever someone mentioned me. Winced at the sight of my old house, my old car, my old friends. You did visit my grave a lot. The tombstone was white and had my name engraved into it in clear text: Christofer Drew Ingle.

I knew that your family paid for it, and most of my funeral. Your mother considered me one of my own, and it was sure as hell that my mother and Markus couldn’t pay for a funeral with everything that mine had.

You told only a few people about me and you. You told your parents, my mom, Markus, and your friends. Some of them left you, but none of them stabbed you in the back and spread crazy rumors that were scarily true. Nick was even sad about my death. Kennedy and Leo and Pat were upset. You hurt the most, though. You didn’t show it though, except on rare occasions in the first few weeks of me being gone. I hated just sitting there, watching you so upset and crying, and I couldn’t do anything that really affected you. No matter what I did, you were still upset.

That was a while ago. I’m still here, but I’m not. I come to visit you from time to time, but I mainly stay around my house. Nick isn’t so bad anymore. He doesn’t spread rumors about anyone online and doesn’t pick fights with his friends. The cruddy old gas station closed down half a year ago. Mom is married to Markus now and they have a baby girl—my sister, she’s barely a year old.

I miss you a lot. Do you miss me too? I hope so. I think so. You have a picture of me tucked behind your driver’s license in your wallet. No one knows about it, not even your mom or Ricky. But you haven’t talked to either of them since you graduated. No, now you live far away, in downtown Phoenix, in a little one bedroom apartment with no one but yourself. It’s a quaint little place, from what I’ve seen of it.

I’ve noticed that, over the years that I’ve been gone, no one talks about me anymore. I suppose that you think of me, and so does Mom, but no one talks about Chris Ingle, the kid who was called a faggot and got killed by a car. But really, who would miss the kid who sat in the back of the classroom with greasy, matted hair and a whole past with John O’Callaghan? Who cares about the kid who knew where the half moon scars came from on your wrists and who cares about the kid who lost his best friend to the right side of the tracks? I may have gotten you back in senior year but I never got you back completely. You didn’t do anything about the gossip or even talk to me in the hallway. You never kept your last promise to me and I’m starting to look back on it. I was too engrossed with you to care about any of that.

You never became John Alexander again. You were always John O’Callaghan in high school and you were never going back to John Alexander because John Alexander was a kid from the wrong sides of the tracks with a depressed mother and an abusive man in his life. You were better off as John O’Callaghan.

The sin is gone and the tragedy is over with for most people. Maybe you and I should move on too.