All They Know Is Misery

I walked into school and to my locker, spinning the dial. I just kept spinning and spinning it, staring into the pale-looking metal piece of shit, watching all of the horrible times in my life play out on it.

I felt tears building up behind my eyes and I slammed my head against it, dropping my books to the floor.

“Bee?” I looked up through my blurry eyes to see Johnny standing there, a worried expression on his face. “You okay?”

“I’m fine, Johnny,” I replied, bending down to pick my books up, I came back up and hit my head on my locker, falling backwards into someone who pushed me forward, ending up hitting my head against the locker again. I felt the world around me fading to black, the last thing I heard was Johnny calling out for help.

“Sean?” I called through the house, and waited for my younger brother to answer. “SEAN.” I yelled once more to the partially empty house. Our parents, were once again, gone on a business trip for a month. They were, what I like to call, workaholics. Their lives revolve around work, not their children. From what I guess, my brother and I were mistakes. From when I was a baby until I could stay home by myself and take care of my little brother, Sean, we had nannies, babysitters, daycares, whatever you wanted to call it; our parents didn’t take care of us.

When Sean never answered I decided to go look for him. I checked the kitchen for a note that he went to his friend’s house or something, there was nothing. So I went up the stairs to his room, right next to mine. I knocked on the door and waited for an answer. One never came.

“Sean?” I asked but it soon became a gasp as I saw my little brother’s body on the floor, dad’s hand gun in his palm, and his head bleeding. I rushed over to him and tried to find his pulse, but there was none. I grabbed him, hugged him to my chest, not caring about the crimson blood that was getting on my light blue t-shirt.

I sat up, screaming and felt someone’s hand touch my shoulder. I smacked them away and fell back on the bed I was laying in and gasped for air. I closed my eyes and reached up, wiping the sweat off my forehead.

“Sweetie, are you okay?”

I sat up again, slower this time as a searing pain exploded in my head. I looked up at the woman, recognizing it was my mom. I groaned lightly and looked away. “What happened?”

“You got hit in the head twice today,” I heard from the other side of my bed. I looked over and Johnny was standing there, Matt by his side.

“I did? I don’t remember,” I muttered, reaching up and feeling the warm spot on my head where a bump had formed.

“Yeah, the doctor said you have a severe concussion, so it might be hard for you to remember things for a while, but you’ll get over it,” Matt told me.

I nodded my head and sighed, relaxing back into the bed. My mom’s phone rang and she fished it out of her pocket, putting it up to her ear. “Yes? . . . Oh dear . . . Of course, yes . . . Okay. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She hung up and put it back in her pocket. “I’m so sorry, sweetie, but I have to go.”

“Of course you do,” I mumbled. “Bye mom.”

She kissed my forehead, making it sting more and quickly made haste to leave. I looked over at Matt and Johnny and Johnny smiled at me. I looked at the wall, feeling too weak to smile back and Johnny looked at my alarm clock. “Shit, I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow, Bee.”

I nodded my head and after he left, Matt climbed in the bed with me. “How are you holding up, Bee?”

I looked over at him. “I’m okay.”

“Does it hurt too bad?”

He was generally concerned for my well-being. That made me slightly smile, but I lost it and shook my head. “No, not that much.” But that’s a lie.

He smiled gently and kissed my temple. “Do you want me to stay here?”

“Sure,” I murmured as he snuggled closer to me. Never in my entire life had I imagined laying in my bed with Matt Sanders next to me. “So do they know who pushed me?”

“Yeah, some gay niner. I told him off, no big deal,” he said.

“Oh,” I muttered. “Hey Matt?”

“Yeah?” he replied, looking down at me.

“Why do you stay around me? Am I some special case to you or something?”

“No, of course not. You’d never be that, Bee. You’re a lot more than that.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

I sighed, knowing he was wrong. I was indeed a charity case, and there was no changing that.