RockScars

“Turn on the lights!” Twyla was screaming at the top of her lungs while Vengeance held her down on the bed. “I can’t see!”

“Calm down!” Vengeance told her, but she was in full-blown panic mode.

“PLEASE!” she screamed. “I CANT SEE!”

Brian shoved the door open and ran inside. Shadows tried to remain calm, but he was on the verge of panic himself. They all knew this day would come, but none of them expected it to be this bad.

“Zacky, help me,” She cried.

“I’m trying, but you have to calm down.” He turned to face the rest of the people in the room. “Everyone leave now.” Everyone left except for Shadows.

“You too. Out.” Shadows looked at him, but didn’t understand why he was the one who had to leave. “GO!” he shouted and Shadows walked out of the room.

When everyone was gone, Vengeance shut the door and went back over to the bed. “Come here,” he told her and took her into his arms.

“I’m blind, Zacky” she cried.

“I know, honey, but it’s gonna be ok.”

“Can’t you fix it? Please?”

“Twyla, if I could, I would have done it a long time ago.”

Twyla clung to Vengeance and cried. For hours upon hours, she cried. It was nearing sun up when Vengeance finally left her sleeping in her room and returned down stairs to join the others.

Shadows was lying on the couch and Gates was on the floor. Johnny was half asleep in a chair and The Rev was still at the guesthouse with Lark.

“Well?” Shadows spoke breaking the silence.

“She’s sleeping and will probably stay asleep until the evening comes again.” As Vengeance stood there, a yawn escaped him. “You may want to go rest. She isn’t going to make this easy.” Shadows sat up and Gates propped himself up on his elbow and looked back at Shadows.

“What about classes? How the hell are we supposed to teach tonight when Twyla obviously can’t be left alone?”

“Shadows, I’ll be here with Twyla. There’s no reason for classes to suffer because of this. I can handle the situation until your final class lets out. That’ll give me time to explain to her what’s going to happen next.”

Shadows looked offended. “Don’t you think I should be here for that?”

“What’s going on?” Gates asked, but his question went unanswered. Clearly there was now tension with Shadows and Vengeance.

“No, I think it’s better that you’re not there. You saw how hysterical she was. You being there is only going to upset her more.”

The frustration that Shadows had been holding in was coming to the surface and Vengeance was as ready as ever to deal with it. “You know damn well what her father…”

“Enough! Yes, I know what her father said and I know what your role is supposed to be, but ultimately it’s my decision in how it all goes down. So, you can stand there and argue the point with me until the sun goes down again, but you wont get anywhere.”

“Fine!”

Gates looked completely out of the loop. Vengeance started for the kitchen door. “You have about five minutes to get back to the guesthouse before the sun gets up or you’ll be stuck here and I don’t think that’s going to make Lark very happy.”

The next thing Vengeance heard was the door slamming before he walked through the kitchen door.

“OK, guys, thanks for answering my question…I’m just gonna go on up to my room now.” Gates got up off the floor and went upstairs. Johnny just sat there thinking about the next time he was gonna get laid.

********
Later that night, Gates Class.

“I hope you’re all ready to get up in front of the class and read your essay. This counts as fifty percent of your grade for the semester, so you better all hope that you impress me.”

Half the class groaned and the other half seemed eager to get started. Class went on and one by one they started reading their essays. When it was Daisy’s turn, she took her paper and walked up to the head of the class.

Nervously, she looked down at the paper that was shaking in her hand. “I..i…” each time she tried to start the more nervous she got. She wanted to impress Gates so much that she wrote her essay in the way that he would deem proper speech. “In …the..” She stopped again and a few of her classmates started to laugh.

“Oh, Mr. Gates, I’m sorry, I just can’t.” She ran out of the classroom and Gates turned and looked the class.

“I hope you’re proud of yourselves because everyone of you who laughed, and I know who did, just got ten points off your grade.” After addressing the class he got up out of his chair and went to find Daisy.

It didn’t take much thought as to where she would be. Where do all the losers usually hide at school? Duh! Check any bathroom stall.

He walked into the girl’s bathroom and looked down under each stall until he found the one she was crying in. He tried the door, but it was locked, so he walked into the stall beside it and climbed up over the wall. Daisy was sitting there with her head in her lap and her arms wrapped around her legs.

Gates knelt down in front of her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Daisy?”

She lifted her head and looked at him with wet eyes and cheeks. “Mr. Gates, I…I.”

“Calm down.” He reached forward and wiped a newly fallen tear from her cheek. “I’m afraid I owe you an apology.”

“What?”

Gates sighed and sat back crossing his legs. “It was wrong of me to ask you to change who you are. I know you’ve tried to fit in and I know it’s been hard, but one thing I learned from you is that being different isn’t necessarily a bad thing. So, I think you should just be who you really are from now on.”

“But I won’t fit in then.”

His lips curved slightly forming a half smile. “No, you definitely won’t, but think of it as being the one person who stands out in the crowd.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, what’s it gonna take to bring Miss Texas Tornado back?”

Daisy looked shocked. “Oh no, Mr. Gates that’s nice of you to say, but I aint never won no pageant. I aint Miss Texas anything.”

Gates laughed. “See, there she is. You’re so innocent it’s funny sometimes.”

“You think I’m funny?”

He smiled again and nodded his head slightly. “Yeah, you’re funny and I don’t think you mean to be sometimes, but I kinda wish you would bring it back. So how about it?”

Daisy wiped her eyes. “I don’t really feel comfortable going back to your class.”

Gates stood and reached for her hand to help her up. “I’m gonna guess that you wrote you essay based on what you think I would want you to say and not what you would say if it actually came from you. I’m also pretty sure I would hate it and give you an F. So, since it’s my fault, here’s what I’m going to do. Go home. I’ll let your teachers know that I’ve dismissed you for the night.”

“You’re kicking me out of school?”

He laughed lightly. “You should be so lucky, but no. I’m giving you a chance to rewrite your essay. I’ll give you a week and after the week is up you can have another chance to read it in front of the class.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gates.”

He nodded and opened the door of the stall. Gates walked out and Daisy followed out behind him. “Don’t worry about your books and stuff, I’ll bring them home with me.”

“Ok,” she nodded and headed down the hall in the opposite direction that Gates walked in.

Classes went on without Daisy and when school let out for the night, Gates along with Shadows and The Rev took the tunnel back up to the Manor.

Gates and The Rev grabbed a few beers and went out back by the hot tub to relax. For Shadows, he had more important matters to deal with. Like the little girl who was sitting on the couch with her arms folded and her head down.

He walked over to Lark and lifted her chin so she could see his lips when he spoke. “What’s this about?”

Lark made the angriest face she could manage. “I wanna see my sister, but Zacky said no.”

“You can’t right now, Twyla’s not feeling well.”

Lark put her hands on her hips. “I’m not a stupid little girl. I know she can’t see anymore. I’m a big girl and I need to take care of my sister!”

Shadows found her strong will admirable, but he still had to be the adult. “Hey, you’re seven years old and it’s not your responsibility to take care of Twyla. So, get that thought out of your head. I won’t let you walk around with that much weight on your shoulders.”

and here comes the waterworks. Way to go Shads.

“Who’s gonna help her?” she cried.

“I will and when she’s well enough, you can help too. Right now, you just have to be patient because this is pretty hard for your sister to deal with. She’s pretty angry right now.”

Lark pointed at her chest. “I’m angry too!”

“I know you are, it isn’t fair. Once Twyla has calmed down and she’s ready for visitors, I’ll take you up to see her, I promise.”

“Are you gonna punish me?”

“For what?”

“Cause I got mad and yelled.”

Shadows tried to keep a straight face, but smiled. “Yes, your punishment is two cookies, now go get em right this minute!”

Lark giggled and got off the couch and ran into the kitchen. When she came back out with her cookies, Vengeance was coming down the stairs. He nodded towards Shadows and Shadows took that as his cue to go up to Twyla.

Lark sat down on the couch and stuck her tongue out at Vengeance. His eyes flashed red and he bared his fangs with a hiss. She giggled in response. “Do it again, Zacky!”

As if you could scare a child…. yawn.

****

“Who’s there?”

Shadows walked over to the bed and sat down. Twyla was sitting up against the headboard waiting for a response. “Well, are you going to answer me?”

“It’s Shadows.”

“What the fuck do you want? Come to gloat? Make fun of the blind girl?”

Shadows shook his head. “I didn’t and I wont sit here and let you talk to me like that either.”

“Then you can leave.”

Again he shook his head. He wasn’t going to let her goad him into another fight. “I’ll be here every night after my last class and when there are no classes, I’ll be here earlier.”

“What the fuck for?”

He shifted and let out a weak sigh. “Remember the night in the gym when I turned out all the lights?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Why do you think I did that?”

Twyla lifted her arms in frustration. “To fuck with me!”

“No!” He snapped. “I told you to meet me there again and there was a reason. We all knew this day was coming and you need to be able to live without your eyes. All of that stuff in the gym was just a prelude to what you’re going to be learning every night.”

Twyla laughed and shook her head. “You’re really something else, Shadows. Do you really think I’m going to put myself in a position to let you do that to me again?”

“I did nothing to you. I was trying to help you. You need to stop with the fucking pity party, Twyla because you know what? You actually make it hard for people to feel sorry for you when you’re being so fucking ungrateful to the ones who are and have been trying to help you.”

“Just leave me alone!”

“Why? So you can lie down and die because you’re blind? Not gonna happen. Let me remind you that I am one of the elders in this clan and whether you like it or not, you will respect me. Let me also remind you that you have chores and just because you lost your eyesight doesn’t mean you no longer have to do them.”

Again she laughed. “Just how the hell do you expect me to separate whites from colors I’m fucking blind or have you forgot that little fact?”

Shadows balled his hands into fists trying to keep from lashing out at her. Just do it, the little bitch deserves it!

“You’ll learn how along with how to function as you would if you still had your eyesight. I’m done taking any lip from you. If I have to get Vengeance up here to enforce that you abide by me, I will. I get no fucking joy out of this as it is, I don’t need your fucking attitude on top of it.”

Twyla didn’t respond, she just crossed her arms in front of her chest and sat there pissed off. Kinda reminded him of a situation not more than a few minutes ago. “Do you think Lark is happy right now? She’s not. She’s upset and worried and thinks it’s her responsibility to take care of you. You want to sit in this bed every night and lay that burden on her? That’s fucking pathetic!”

He got up off the bed and walked towards the door. “I’m leaving now and when I come back tomorrow, you better have a different attitude or I will adjust it myself.”