The Blood In Your Veins Is Twenty Below.

Ronnie’s POV.

This school was like a torture chamber. I hated it here. The hurtful words that kept getting thrown my way were really starting to get to me. Everyone‘s cold judgement was so inhumane. Where have all the good people gone? My self esteem is becoming worse and worse. I was falling apart by the day. Ever since my dad has been drinking more and constantly telling me how worthless I am, I’m just starting to believe it. I really thought I was stronger than this.. I don’t know how much more of this I can stand.

A sharp pain shot across my body, originating from my ribs. Already knowing what caused this pain I looked up and saw Max Green. This was practically part of his daily routine. Making me feel like shit. He never did this to anyone else. I’ve been his target since mid-tenth grade. Even before anyone knew about my sexual orientation. Once he found out, his attacks got harsher. Max never really caused me too much physical pain, only shoves to my arm, ribs or gut. His hits weren’t very hard either. No, his game was mostly emotional pain. But if he really knew what he was doing to me, would he continue to do it? I don’t know. Everyone approach to situations were so cruel. This generation is fucked.

“Hey fag, how are you and your left hand doing? The only action you ever really get.” I could see that sly smirk on his face. He never called me by my real name. Max always resorted to name calling. His heart ran on the pain he inflicted on others. Max was a drug addict. So was my brother. Chase turned into a completely different person once he started. He didn’t care about anyone or anything else but the drug. You would find him stealing money on a weekly basis. He became less and less trustworthy every time he shot up. Eventually our bond broke. It became unimportant to him. He was slowly killing himself. His life goal might as well be ending up six feet under, that’s what was going to happen at the rate he was going. I’ve tried to stop him, but he is so stubborn. My nagging just made him do it more. This was his way of dealing with life. Our parental situation.

Maybe this was Max’s as well. Max and I used to be friends, believe it or not. We were good friends in middle school. Max wasn’t considered popular back then. His physical appearance wasn’t much cared for. That was back when my life was perfect. Well I wouldn’t say perfect, but compared to now it was heaven. My brother was clean and my dad wasn’t an alcoholic. He drank occasionally but it got much worse when my brother started to do drug. He found out about it and I think he felt like he was failing us as a father. He began to drink to wash away all his feelings.

Max and I had a falling out when we reached high school. He started hanging out with a new crowd and I was left in the dust. I had friends, but none of them went to my school so I only get to see them on weekends. I lost hope and that lead me to not put any effort in making friends anymore. Max’s new friends didn’t approve of me. And in mid-tenth grade the attacks began. His friends came at me first. Max didn’t say anything whenever they ganged up on me and tossed their hurtful words like they were nothing. But eventually Max began to join in with them. At the beginning he showed a little sympathy, but now whenever I look into his eyes all I see is darkness. He was being consumed by darkness.

“I don’t understand why you always have to be a fucking asshole..” I mumbled under my breath. Today I was angry and I felt like standing up for myself. This was pretty surprising to him, seeing as his eyes got a little wider at my response. But that faded and that smirk crept back onto his face before inflicting another painful shove to my ribs. I let out a quiet whimper as I looked into his eyes before he walked away. I saw something I hadn’t seen in a very long time. I saw a hint of sympathy. My eyes were probably deceiving me. Max doesn’t feel sympathy. Sighing, I walked off to first block.

When I sat down in my seat, I looked at my rib and saw another bruise begin to appear. It was pretty rare if I didn’t get a bruise plastered somewhere on my body sometime in the week. And not only from Max and his douche bag friends, but my father would sometimes take a swing at me. He has never full on beaten me. He just got angry so easily when he was drunk and he would end up hitting me somewhere on my body.

Max then came walking into the room. My eyes followed his movements. He was a complete dick, but he wasn’t entirely repulsive. Apparently he didn’t like me staring at him because as soon as he spotted me, he shot a deathly glare my way. I quickly averted my eyes. It was rather unusual that Max didn’t cause a scene and make a hurtful remark.

Max sat infront of me. When he finally reached his seat he then made his remark, “Stop undressing me with your eyes, faggot. Even if I was a homo, I’d never go for someone as ugly as you.” I wore a broken expression on my face after I took what he just said in. As soon as he saw my expression his eyes didn’t glow with power like they did when he used to insult me, his eyes showed the same sympathy they did minutes before.

His words hurt me though. They always kind of had a downward effect on me. Even if I didn’t exactly like him, his opinion of me kind of mattered in my mind. I don’t know why. It always had. I used to feel weird emotions whenever I was near him. That went away one he started picking on me though. I liked him in middle school. He was actually the one that made me realize I liked guys. I never told him how I felt though, I was afraid I’d lose his friendship. Something that ended up happening anyway.

“Alright class” Mrs.Brown spoke, “Today we are starting a partnered project.” She said squealing with excitement. There was many goans heard throughout the classroom. Great I had no friends in this class now I’m going to be paired up with someone I don’t even know. They might even possibly have to come to my house and see all the alcohol bottles surrounding my living room.

I hated partnered projects, whenever we picked partners I would just sit in my seat while everyone got up and went over to their friends. Then I would get set up with someone that would always have a bored expression when I tried to speak to them. When the class had settled down, Mrs. Brown began to explain what the project was about.

Before long, she has finished her long explanation. “Also class” she paused waiting for attention, “I will be picking partners” earning her another tortured groan from the class. She started to read off names. Everyone was getting paired up with people they would never talk to on a regular basis. She pointed to me, “Ronnie, you can go with,” she looked around the room to find that most of the people were already in partners.

“Um I can be alone.” I smiled to myself hoping she would agree to my offer. To my dismay she opposed my offer.

“No no, you can go with,” she scanned the class one more time spotting someone, “Oh, Max!” she exclaimed, pointing to the guy sitting in front of me. As soon as his name left her mouth, my body froze. My heart started to beat a little faster than normal. Just my luck, out of all the people in this classroom she had to pick Max. but what did I expect? Bad shit always happened to me.

Max let out a loud sigh hearing that he was partnered with me. As well as curse words leaving his lips. Mrs.Brown glared at him shaking her head and then began to tell us to plan where we were going to do the project for the remainder of class.

I looked at Max with his head down to his desk looking miserable. He was acting like this was the worst possible thing to happen to him, lowering my self esteem even more. Sighing, I got up and sat next to him. In result, he just stared at me with a frustrated look on his face and just looked at me for what seemed like minutes. Well, this is awkward. Finally he spoke with the same bored expression all my other partners would make. “How bout,” he paused, ”you do all the work so I don’t have to see your disgusting face for longer than I need to. Well I don’t even want to see it on a regular school day so it will just save me the suffering.” He said this with such a monotone voice.

He didn’t care about anyone but himself. He didn’t care about how much he affected me. He loved to make me feel bad about myself. And to be honest, I’m starting to feel like this is how my life is going to be for the rest of my life. I’m slowly starting to get used to the hatred and I’m becoming content with all the pain I’m facing. Okay, maybe not content but immune. Like I expect it now.

I looked down at the table with a sad sigh. Then suddenly, I got this burning urge in my stomach to say something back. “No, I’m not going to do all the work while you sit your fucking ass.” I glared harshly at him but began to smirk when I was the shocked expression he made. This made me feel a little better that I stunned him, probably the first expression towards me other than despair and enjoyment from my agony that I have earned out of him for awhile.

His expression turned back to an angry glare soon after as he rolled his eyes. “Fine, but we can’t go to my house.” Shit. Now he has to come over to my house. He hasn’t been there for years and the last time he had it wasn’t so.. messy. My home used to be pretty organized. The walls were clean, there was hardly ever anything on the floor and nothing seemed to be broken. Now my house was disgusting looking, kind of like myself.

I leaned on my left arm, rolling my eyes as well, and nodded. “So meet me at my locker after school and I’ll drive us to your house I guess.” He said as the bell rang.