Seeking Solace

Somehow, I manage to avoid Luke the whole day – thankfully I’m not in any of his classes- so that by the time school ends, I’m a trembling, paranoid mess, just waiting to round a corner and see him waiting to jump me. I try to leave as early as possible, being the wimp that I am. I know it can’t avoid him forever, but I still try.

So I shouldn’t be so surprised when I hear him yelling when I dare to look around behind me just as I’m about to leave through the gates. When I dare to look around, his looks absolutely livid.

So I run. An instinctive impulse I guess. Although my instincts must be shit right now, because I should know better than to run when he’s already angry. I’ve seen what he’s done to other people who’ve pissed him off. My being his ‘favorite’ doesn’t grant me much leeway.

But I run anyway, knowing that I could probably get to my house before he catches me….but then what? Where I go after school is hardly any better…

“IERO, YOU FUCKING FAGGOT, STOP YOUR ASS THERE OR I’LL FUCKING KNOCK YOU OUT!”

His voice screams behind me, a lot closer than I expect, which only makes me pour on the speed. I pump my legs faster, looking ahead for a short cut, something, somewhere…

And then I see him ahead, the artsy boy from earlier, walking slowly down the street, with his sketchbook under one arm, and his headphones in.
I can’t let Luke get to him. Even though Luke doesn’t know what that I met him at lunch, I can’t.

So I run down a side street that’ll add an extra half hour to the route to my house. I know I won’t make it that long.

And even though I’ve never given two fucks about someone, I’d rather take the hits this time, than watch someone else take them. I feel like such a disgusting person for watching people get hit before, throwing the punches myself when I got really pissed, the high feeling I got after watching someone bleed.

Like I always say, I never deserved to have life at all.

I run to the park, where I eventually slow down and give up. There’s only so much I could do to save my unworthy ass. I lean against a nearby tree, a few yards off from the main path where people can see me.

I’ve barely stopped for two seconds to catch my breath when a fist connects with the back of my head, and I fall to my knees, inches from sticking my eyeball with a tiny branch of the tree I was leaning on for support.

I’m flipped over, still gasping for air, and a foot hits my stomach. I have no air to groan in agony or anything like that, so all that happens is the small amount of air that I’ve managed to breathe in gushes out of my lungs again. Besides, I’ve been through this so many times, the pain doesn’t affect me as much as it used to.

He leaves me with a busted lip, a black eye, bruises along my throat and two shallow cuts from his switchblade under my jaw. He tells me to get my shit together and to stick by the rules. He tells me he shouldn’t have to keep his family in line. He reminds me that I’m a disgrace.

He tells me I’m lucky. And I agree.

No broken bones this time.

I pass out soon after. I don’t know for how long. Like the punches and the fights, I’m so used to passing out, it’s lost its thrill.

All that’s left now is to experience the thrill of dying.

Hours later, I finally wake up. At first I think I’ve just slipped back into consciousness by myself. I shiver, because it’s cold, and Luke took my jacket, and then I wince slightly, because it hurts to move. I try to open my good eye, and find that it’s crusted with blood. Beautiful.

But then it turns out I’m not alone.

“Are…you’re awake right?”

Is that who I think it is?

Whoever it is curses softly, and shifts beside me. I hear rummaging, and then the key tones of a cell phone.

Well, that’s enough to get me up.

“Don’t!” I yelp, reaching out blindly to stop the person calling the police, or
an ambulance or something.

I hear the sharp intake of breath as they freeze. I force my good eye open and squint through the darkness to see their face.

And then I freeze too.

“G-Gee?” I realize a second too late that that’s probably something too intimate to call him, since I’ve met him all of once, but it’s the only name I have for him, so it’s what I vomit out then.

“What…” he reaches out with a hand that visibly shakes to hover over my fucked up face, “What happened?”

I swallow and look down. “You don’t need to know.”

Most people would keep asking. He doesn’t.

His hand hovers over me for another second, and then sighs, nods once and stands up. I settle back down into my spot under the tree and close my eye again, resigned to probably dying here, but he gently nudges my arm with his foot and I feel my bag being lifted up from behind my back.

“Hey,” he says softly, pulling on my arm slightly, “Get up. I’ll help you home, yeah?”

I open my eye and stare at him in disbelief. “Why?” My voice is hoarse and dry, almost too quiet to hear, but somehow it still reaches his ears.

He frowns at me like I’m not making any sense. Hypocrite. “Because you need help, right?”

Of course I act like a stubborn little prick. “I’m fine,” I snap, a little too harshly. His hand flinches away from my arm as I pull myself up.

It’s only when I try to stand that I finally understand that I can’t do it by myself.

And he’s shit at pretending he’s not smirking when I tell him that too.

He helps me up and gives me his jacket, which I’m about to refuse, but he glares at me so forcefully, I sort of have to take it. Jesus, I didn’t think he was even capable of looking at someone like that.

He lets me lean against him and hobble along beside him, and I give him directions to my house so he can steer me in the right direction.

I decide I don’t care that I’m leading a perfect stranger to my house.

We don’t talk. Apart from my occasional ‘ow’s and his ‘sorry’s, we’re both silent. And it’s not uncomfortable either. It’s weird. I would have thought you couldn’t have a silence without it being uncomfortable.

Why is this even happening right now? I never woke up with the feeling that something like this would happen. Why today of all days, when otherwise, nothing special was supposed to happen?

We make it to my house eventually. I give him back his jacket and offer a mumbled ‘thanks’ that I can’t even direct at his face, and he smiles that sad smile, leaves me with a soft ‘you’re welcome’ and my bag, and walks away.

I am left stunned and exhausted at my front door.

Thinking about what happens every time I open that door, I don’t want to go in. But it’s either that or be homeless.

Homelessness is always so appealing after about an hour in this place I’m supposed to call a ‘home’.

I fish my keys out of my pocket with numb fingers and unlock the door. Warmth and the smell of dinner hit me as I walk in.

It always starts like this. The perfect little happy family scene. Doesn’t last longer than shit out a dog’s ass though.

“Frankie?” my mother calls from the kitchen. I have no time to hide my face. She always freaks out when she sees me like this, and it sucks.

Not much better from what she did to me when I was younger, but anyway. Doesn’t mean anything since she gave birth to a new punching bag.

She gasps when she sees my face obviously. I stand there and don’t answer any of her questions, even when she yells at me. I see my brother sitting at the kitchen table, halfway through his homework. He smiles at me, trying to make me feel better, even though he’s got dried tear tracks all down his cheeks, and a red mark on the side of his face. It breaks my heart.

She yells at me to go to my room. I go.

I collapse on my bed and know that I have about ten minutes to put myself together before she screams up the stairs to tell me to go to dinner. I know I have to, ‘cause she’ll come up here and chew me out again if I don’t. I’m supposed to respect my parents, see, even if I think it’s a load of bullshit.

Dinner tastes like sawdust. Dad comes home in the middle of it. He yells at me half-heartedly because of my mother’s pestering. I know that he’s given up caring about anything that happens in this house, so I don’t take it to heart.

I finish eating. I go upstairs again. I force myself into a t-shirt and sweatpants so that maybe I can get some sleep. My brother sneaks me a glass of water and some Tylenol.

I take the meds and tear at my fingers and arms again. I look at the long-since healed scars on my wrists. I think about the blade I keep hidden in my closet. I go back to picking my fingers. I don’t do my homework again.

I lie down. I hear my parents arguing. I hear a slap. I hear my brother cry. I pull the pillow over my head and try to drown out the sounds that will only haunt me in my sleep.

By falling asleep, I go back to the vicious cycle that has been my life since I can remember.

No artwork is going to change my life.

Nothing is ever going to change it.

Not even a broken boy and his mysterious world of twisted shapes and colors.