Be my Love

I’ve never been good at waking up, but the raging headache that was pushing at my skull definitely gave me a reason to keep my eyes closed. I quickly pulled a pillow over my eyes and hissed slightly as I rolled over the swollen lump on the back of my head; too much stimulus for just waking up. I was not happy, so I just groaned and pulled the pillow tighter.

“It’s about time you woke up.”

“Fuck you!”

It was then that it occurred to me that I didn’t remember going to sleep in my bed. In fact, the last thing that I can even recall is running through the training area in the basement, trying my hardest to get away from Dai before his father found out about any of the other shit that I’d done to him. Having my throat sliced open before being cut into tiny pieces wasn’t really the way that I envisioned myself going out. I really had something more grand to my name in mind honestly. Something ridiculous like the cords on a bungee going out as I plummet to my death, or even better, getting hit by a toilet seat falling out of the sky; yeah, Dead Like Me had some great ideas… whatever happened to that show anyway? It would make headlines, that’s for sure.

I digress. Suddenly I’m shooting up, regrettably only causing my headache to worsen as I lean back over, holding onto it, hoping that I’ll be able to hold in my brain fluids as they try and escape through my ears. What the fuck happened to me? I was running through the field and then all of a sudden… I’m in my bed with a splitting headache.

“There’s aspirin on the side table. You’re going to want it. I hit you pretty hard it seems.”

And suddenly it comes back to me; running from Dai, telling the butler not to let him in and then running through the training rooms in the basement… and getting rammed in the head before completely blacking out. I must have fallen on my face because my nose hurts. Fantastic, as if I wasn’t already bruised enough, I have my face to deal with, again.

I reach over to the table and grab the aspirin and swallow it dry before burying myself under the pillow again, not even having the energy to tell Dai to fuck off and get out of my room. Truly, the last thing I need is his father breathing fire down my neck like an angry Komodo Dragon; from what I’ve heard, their bites are definitely worse than their hissing. I can only picture Dai’s father having venomous saliva as well… though… perhaps his husband is immune to it. Ugh, I don’t even want to be thinking about this shit right now.

“I know your head is probably splitting in half right now, but I could use the extra pair of hands.”

I smirk lightly, “I don’t want to even fathom what’d you do with my hands, they’re fine where they are actually.”

That of course, only earned me another bump on the head as he threw some part of our ridiculous experiment at my poorly protected head. As much as I love feather pillows, they don’t provide the best protection from heavy things.

“Damn… fucker,” I still got up.

Maybe that fight from last week really messed up my head, because I’m not fighting with him. Then, surely the bump that I received today likely just increased whatever damage there was previous. I have to say though, I didn’t expect Dai to have that kind of a throwing arm. I’m not even certain if I could throw a ball hard enough to knock someone out cold. Great… I’m admitting horrible things about myself now, I definitely have some form of brain damage, a contusion maybe?

Maybe I’m just spending too much time around the geek… yeah, that sounds more plausible than brain damage. But! If all else fails, I’m convinced that there are some problems that need immediate fixing in my head.

Soon, I’m holding the stupid glass panels together again as Dai slides more of the seemingly useless glass together at odd angles. I’m so sick of this hell-spawned assignment. In the end, it’s probably better than Dai came over, I would have thrown it out the window and laughed while I doused the thing in lighter fluid before watching it go up in flames. It’d probably cause a huge problem, likely set the house on fire while I’m at it, but as long as I’m rid of the torture device I don’t think I’d mind. Even if I never played football again, as long as I didn’t have to look at this so-called prism, I’d be set. I’m sure there’s some other equally fulfilling goal that I can achieve that my father will be sufficiently pleased with.

Who am I kidding? There’s nothing for me except football. My grades are passing, some of them in the bare minimum category, but nothing phenomenal; certainly nothing that will help me with college or life afterwards. I needed football. I also needed to put on a few more inches and about 50 more pounds before the NFL would even consider me. I guess that’s one little down side to my genetics. I could be fast and pick up on the game well enough, but I was built small, which was normally fine for a quarterback, but I’ve had to learn how to take hits that others my size wouldn’t be able to see straight after… another of the perks of my father’s grand training. He takes pleasure in my pain… sadist.

Beyond that, the night was pretty quiet. We worked in silence, with only the occasional complaint from me and some of the more convoluted plans that I had in mind for this thing after we were graded, have to keep everyone happy here; summoning a demon to destroy it in a mountain of fire and brimstone was the best we decided… or rather, I decided. Dai didn’t say much, though, an apology seemed to be on the tip of his tongue every 15 minutes like clockwork. And, as much as I was ready to kill this thing, we actually managed to get most of it done.

We took dinner in my room, avoiding the awkward family scene and my sister’s squeals was for the best on both of our accounts. My head was already close to splitting in half, and Dai looked like he was ready to blow a gasket when the panels moved for the 10th time in 15 minutes. The quiet was best.

Around 9 we finally called it quits, and he decided to head home.

“Are we even close to finishing this piece of shit?”

“The hell if I know. I’m just waiting for it to run out of directions. Just a couple more nights should do it.”

“Alright… well… tomorrow I’ll probably have double practice, so I can’t tomorrow, but the day after should be good.”

“What about Thrusday?”

“Can’t, Friday’s game day.”

“It’s due Friday, well, we’ll just have to figure it out won’t we. If you need help tomorrow too, just come over.”

“Why can’t we do it at my house?”

Ha. He’s cute, not! I gave him a look that conveyed my every thought of ever going back over to that crazy bin. His parents not only scare the fuck out of me on a normal person level, their sex lives are broadcast for the whole neighborhood to talk about and I’m not in the mood to listen to it anymore! Besides… no. I refuse.

“Just come over here, and leave the shit on the floor, I promise I won’t kill it in the morning… or at all.” I added quickly after he sent a very cold glare my way.

We ended the conversation there and I shoved him into the car before he could protest anymore. He wasn’t walking home. It was late and he lived a hell of a ways away to be walking, or taking the bus. I told the driver to lock the doors before he could escape and then spent the rest of the night laughing at the glare that he tried to send me through the tinted windows.

All in all, I felt accomplished, even though my head was ready to split in half. Looks like more aspirin for me, and a nice long night of sleep… practice is going to suck tomorrow.

And I was right… not that I’m ever wrong about these kinds of things. Coach ran me into the ground for missing practice the day before, and leaving school so early in the day. Absences were not highly looked upon at all, especially during game week. My legs were burning from the sprints that he made me do, and my arms wanted to fall off from all of the passing play runs, and my head was spinning from the lump that was making my helmet highly uncomfortable; driving home was probably a health hazard.

Then… I get home and my dad immediately throws a ball at my head.

“What the fuck was that about?!”

He just seemed distracted when he saw that it didn’t really hurt. Not to it got the chance to hit me, because frankly, I was slightly more aware with my surroundings after yesterday’s debacle. I don’t think that I’ll ever let someone get that close to my head with a football again; lesson learned. However, he didn’t answer me and I just rolled my eyes, following him into the practice area, where I knew that another 3 hours would be dedicated to my torture… if not more. Fantastic.

More sprints; my legs feel like jelly. More passes, my arm was going to fall off by the end of the night I swear. More plays to run and my head is ready to fall off, especially when my dad starts throwing the ball randomly, hoping to hit my head I assumed. After the third time that it actually made its mark, I was fuming. I didn’t want to practice anymore, and my body was ready for a shower.

“How hard do you need to hit someone in the head for them to pass out?”

“Pretty damn hard, but if you do it multiple times, it gets easier and really annoying. So cut that shit out!”

At least at school I got to wear a helmet, here it was like early rugby, but far more sadistic and there wasn’t a time limit.

“Boys, dinner! Jaiden, hit the showers, you smell.”

Finally ,relief. You’d think that she would have fixed this problem sooner, but I’m convinced that my parents are cohorts in crime, just waiting for me to break. When it gets close, she breaks it up and waits for things to build up again. But in the end, she’s still the good guy because she made it stop for a minute or two… That’s actually pretty ingenious.

Dinner was tense and there seemed to be something on my father’s mind the whole time; exhibiting the same distracted looks that he had since I’d gotten home, and frankly, it was annoying. I ignored him to the best of my abilities, but even Giselle’s constant jabber wasn’t enough to block out the looks that he kept giving me. My mother seemed to notice, but she always knew better than to bother him about it, lest we be locked in some sort of fight for the rest of the night. Honestly, I’d rather work on the monstrosity of hunkering glass and glue that was still set up on my floor than deal with my father anymore. Besides, he seemed quite content to stare holes into my head rather than ask me any more stupid questions.

And that’s just what happened. As if like clockwork, the moment I finished the dishes Dai was at the gate and I just about killed him; his crazy fathers aside, I would deal with their torture if only to get one night of rest. It wasn’t to be though. Giselle chased the nerd around for a good half hour while I scoured over his language books quietly in my room. If he couldn’t handle her then he should have stayed home, and I would rather learn something useful in the time that it takes for him to figure out how to ditch her in coatroom.

When he finally made his way into the room, exhausted and sweating, he punched me in the shoulder and quickly set to work. I would have said something if I wasn’t so tired, but I settled to making him work by himself for the first half hour, completely ignoring him and glaring at any given time. When he hit me again I knew that I just needed to suck it up and help him finish the damn thing… I can’t wait to set this thing up in flames.

And the next couple of days went pretty much exactly the same way. I would go to practice and get the shit beaten out of me, only to come home and face more of it while my dad remained in his crazy mood. Then Dai would come over and evade Giselle, with little success. Then we’d work until we both fell asleep on the damn thing. I didn’t even want to try to drag myself to school each day, but Dai usually ended up groaning and making noise in the morning when he realized that he’d fallen asleep here again. I think he made as much noise as possible just to let me know how irritated he was.

My dad would always look at us weirdly, that same observant, yet distracted look on his face as we sprinted from the house in hopes of missing Giselle completely. Thursday, I'd had enough.

"Stop fucking staring at us like that!"

And then I left. Fuck this week.