Subtle Love

When you are a child, you never think about the hard things in life. You live stress free and careless about the world around you. As a child, you live in your own precious kingdom, ruling over your people, waiting for your one true mate to find you in the forest and sweep you off your feet.

It is funny when you’re a kid, you want to be a teenager and when you get to that point all you want to do is go back the good old days where you got in trouble for banging the pots together.

At least that is how it is with me. As a young little girl, my imagination was my best friend, and I lived in a world of ponies and unicorns and pink and without my miserable stutter. In my head, no one made fun of me, and everyone was like me. It never occurred to me that I would be forcefully pushed out of my kingdom and into a world of hate and mock.

In the real world, people are cruel. Everywhere you go; there is always someone that brings your happy level down one notch or two. You either have that confidence to shut them down, or you have that confidence to ignore them and take the hit.

And in other cases, you will just stand there, letting every word produce a greater ache in your heart, thinking it would be better to just die. And that is exactly the situation I am in right now. Apparently, there are a few people here that make your day terrible and make your self-esteem go a down a notch or two.

“Watch where you’re going freak!” the blond bimbo with the bandana around her waist yells at me.

“S-sorry. I didn’t m-mean to,” I mumble, looking down at my shoes.

“Ugh, not another person who stutters. I mean, why don’t you just die? We don’t have to concentrate to hear you speak then. The least you can do is stay at home so you don’t have pass on your disease. Besides, seeing your face is injury enough,” she jabs. Apparently, she is way too high on her horse. And even though I should not let her words hurt me, it does anyway, just like it always does. Why can’t I just be normal?

“Have you even looked in the mirror, recently? Your hair looks like a rats nest, your face looks like someone ran over it, and you’re just fat. If you died, it would actually help the world,” she sneered. By now, tears had crowded in my eyes, threatening to break free. It wasn’t the first time that someone told me that, but it still hurt every single time.

“That is enough, Clara,” my brother’s voice boomed from behind the crowd that had formed.

“Oh, hey Ryker, what’s up,” she purrs, draping her arm around my brother, trying to be sexy. Instead, he takes her hand off of him, shocking her and his friends that are flanking him, including Gabe.

.

“What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing?” Ryker enunciates, trying to hold in his anger.

“I was just telling this freak to use her eyes. She bumped into me. I don’t know what kind of disease she has, besides, why do you care?” She asks nonchalantly, picking her nails.

“This freak is my sister. That’s why I care. Oh, and that date? Yeah, that’s cancelled. I don’t know what kind of STD’s you have. Wouldn’t want to catch it, it might be lethal,” my brother smirks. Clara looks at him wide eyed. BUSTED. If I wasn’t so upset right now, I would be laughing my ass off by the look of her face.

“What? She’s your sister? I mean, I didn’t know, I am so sorry,” she turns to me with mock guilt placed on her face. In reality, she didn’t give a damn.

“Oh, I know you didn’t know,” Ryker says.

“Oh, good, so we’re still on for that date?” she smirks, trailing her finger down my brother’s chest, making me want to puke.

Roughly, he grabs her finger and moves his face closer to hers, stopping before his lips are a centimeter away. “Nope,” he confirms, pulling away smirking, leaving a dumbfounded Clara standing there. “I didn’t know you were such a bitch. I’m so sorry,” he mocks her, leaving the crowd laughing. He walks over to me, wrapping his heavy arm around my shoulder and pulls me through the crowd, leaving a tantrum-throwing Clara behind. Ryker’s friends follow us and we stop once we pull into an empty hallway.

Ryker takes his arm off my shoulder, “You okay, Ro?” he asks, his face full of concern. Instead of saying anything, I wrap my arms around his waist, leaving him shell-shocked since he didn’t expect it. He returns the hug after a few seconds, coming out of it.

“Th-thanks for standing u-up for me, Ryk,” I mumble into his leather jacket.

“No problem, Roman,” he mutters, resting his chin on top of my head. I sigh and let go of him.

“See you later,” I say, turning around and going to me class. Ryker bids me a goodbye before turning back to his friends and heading the other way to his class. I smile, thanking the heavens He gave me Ryker as a brother.

~~~~

I wait outside the photography room, waiting for Gabe to show up. I don’t know what he wants, but it better be good. I sigh and lean on the wall next to the door, tapping my foot in impatience. Finally, I see him turn down the hallway, his eyes searching in the sea of students. His eyes land on mine and he picks up his pace, reaching me soon enough.

“Hi,” I say, not sure whether or not he’s going to be nice or if he’s going to yell at me.

“Hey,” he greets, his deep voice ringing out.

“Wh-what did you w-want to tell me?” I ask him, leaning from one foot to another out of nervousness.

Taking a deep breath, he looks me in the eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“Wh-what?” My eyebrows pucker up together. Those were two words I never thought I would hear him say.

“I’m sorry,” he says louder. “For yesterday, I didn’t mean to be… a dick. Now, please don’t make me say it again,” he begs. It looks like it almost pains him to say that. It probably does though.

Holding in my girlish giggle, I say, “It’s okay.”

He smiles a thousand watt smile, like a little kid getting candy on Halloween. It shows his wonderful dimples and makes him look carefree. “You should smile more often,” I say before thinking what I was going to say. My eyes widen and he stops smiling, going back to his hard shell. Huffing, he stomps into the room, as I trail behind him. I didn’t know he would react to a compliment that way. He has serious problems. Frowning, I sit in my seat behind him as Janice turns around and starts talking to me. I nod and smile at her, but my mind stays on Gabe’s reaction. There has to be something going on in his life if he thinks it’s… wrong to smile.

Before I know it, Janice and I are going back the field to take pictures of the gym students. This time, we keep a safe distance and sit on the bleachers. We spot Gabe on the top of the bleachers, who got here before us, while we take a seat on the very bottom. We take out our cameras and for the rest of the period; we take pictures and goof around.

The whole time, I feel as if there is someone looking at me. If eyes could burn holes in my back, I would have plenty. I have a feeling that it’s Gabe that is looking at me, but whenever I turn around to look at him, he is looking at anywhere but at me. Besides, there isn’t really anyone else behind me, except Gabe, so it’s probably my overactive imagination acting up.

Janice and I have a blast during this period. In between taking pictures, our laughs fill the bleacher area as we tease each other and fake fight. Even though I’ve only known her for a day, it feels like we have been best friends forever. And it’s also great to know that she is so patient with my speech impediment, whereas in the past, people just gave up.

After a while, it was time to go for our next class. Janice has Art of the Essay. My class is study hall. Well, if you could call it a class. Surprisingly, even Gabe was in this class, as well as my brother Ryker and the other people in his gang, whose names I still need to learn. Reagan was right yesterday—there are a lot of people in study hall. About a hundred, all from different grades.

Ryker spots me from where he is sitting and waves his hands in the air, signaling me to come over. Sighing, I walk over to my brother. He holds out his fist and I bump mine to his.

“So, you’re in my study hall?” Ryker asks.

“Yeah,” I mutter, putting my things down next his on the floor.

“So, then why weren’t you here yesterday?”

I told him the story about what happened during photography, for which he just rolls his eyes. “Only you Roman, only you,” he mutters, shaking his head. I punch him on the upper arm, telling him not to make fun of me. He simply rolls his eyes and shrugs it off.

“Let’s go sit outside guys,” Gabe grabbing his bag and strutting out the door where some benches lay outside. We follow him and I sit in between Ryker and his friend, while the other four others, including Gabe, sit on the opposite side of the bench.

“So pretty lady, what’s your name,” this one guy sitting across me asks. He has kind, grey eyes and curly brown hair. He doesn’t seem like the type to hurt a fly but why else would he need muscles?

“Don’t flirt with my sister, Storm,” Ryker threatens.

“Chill man, I was just asking her, her name,” Storm clarifies. Ryker huffs and I roll my eyes at his protectiveness.

“M-My name is Ro-Roman,” I smile at him, blushing from all the attention I am getting. All the guys are looking at me, and it is rather uncomfortable.

“Well, howdy, Roman, my name is Sky,” the guy left of Storm says in a mock southern accent which makes all of the boys chuckle. They look exactly alike except for their eyes. While Storm has gray eyes, Sky has blue eyes. Their parents probably named them because of their eyes. Storm’s eyes looked like a cloudy day and Sky’s looked like the summer sky.

“Don’t mind him, he’s always like this. I’m Chance,” said the boy right of Storm. He had dirty blond hair and vibrant green eyes. Unlike the other guys, he isn’t that built, but you can tell he still has a six pack. He looks down to earth and someone that you can always talk to. Kind of like my dad.

“And I’m Ashton, but you can just call me Ash,” the guy sitting next to me says. I have to say, he’s the biggest out of all of them, but I can tell he’s a really nice guy from his honest smile. His milk chocolate eyes gaze into mine and his brown hair is swaying in the wind. A stray piece of hair lands in front of his eyes, but he doesn’t make a move to remove it, which make me want to run my hands through his luscious looking even more.

“So Roman, how do you like this school so far?” Chance asks me, making me break out of Ashton’s soothing glare. I turn my head to Chance, “It has been g-great so far. The pe-people here are ama-amazing,” I stammer.

“Except for Clara,” Storm butts in and I nod in agreement, smiling at him.

“Ryker, man, I can’t even believe you agreed to go out on a date with her in the first place,” Ashton’s smooth, rich voice rings out next to mine.

“The only reason I said yes was so she would stop pestering me. I swear she’s a freaking lunatic,” Ryker huffs out in annoyance by memory of Clara.

“Yeah. What did you do to her in the first place, Roman?” Sky asks.

“I accidently b-bumped into her,” I answer, blushing.

“Only you, Ro, only you,” Ryker chuckles. I elbow him in the chest, which doesn’t really do much since he has abs. Instead he just sniggers more and starts texting on his phone, resting his elbows on the table. All this while, Gabe just sits silently, listening to our conversation.

“Clara should just go to a prostitute house. Doesn’t she have anything better to do than flash her pea sized nipples? The least she can do is actually get her dad to buy her some boobs,” Chance complains, making me laugh.

“I know right? Sometimes, I have a feeling she’s a guy because she has no freaking boobs or curves,” Storm adds.

“What do you mean? Clara’s real name is Chris and Chris is just a drag queen trying to imitate a slutty high school life. The least her dad can do is pay the surgeon to castrate her,” Sky laughs at his own joke, which was actually really funny.

“Oh man, I knew there was something wrong with her, like the way her pits stain during gym, even though she just stands there and gossips with her girlfriends,” Ashton jokes.

“Or the way none of the guys in this school wants to sleep with her,” Gabe says, finally joining in the conversation.

“They don’t want to sleep with her because of her clinginess. The last guy who slept with her gave up his stick because she wouldn’t let go,” Ryker jokes. This makes all of us go into hysterics, including me. See, boys gossip too.

“Nah, man, he gave up his disco stick cause it got lost in her oversized butthole, supposing it’s the only hole she has,” Chance says, after we all calm down again.

“Hah, she probably devoured it whole with that vacuum she calls a mouth,” Gabe opposes.

“Ryker! Baby! I can’t wait for our date tonight!” an annoying voice rings out from the doors of the cafeteria, where study hall takes place. Groaning, I slam my head onto the wooden table, not caring that it actually hurt. Her voice is injury enough.

Quickly, the boys grab their bags from the ground and put it in the empty space between them so that there is no more room for Clara and her little posse to sit at. Speak of the devil, and the devil shall appear.

“Man, I forgot she’s in this study hall,” Gabe mutters under his breath.

“Here comes the slut, here comes the slut,” Sky chants under his breath, playing on his iTouch. The other boys quickly follow his lead, including me, and we take out our own. Quickly, we occupy ourselves with the game of Fruit Ninja and Bingo.

“Ryker sweetie,” Clara’s shrill voice rings out. I let out a laugh, only to cover it with a cough when Ryker stomps on my foot under the table.

“Goddammit,” Ryker mutters under his breath.

As she comes closer, I occupy myself with slicing the various fruits in arcade mode. Three fruit combo here.Deflectthe bomb there. Get the pineapple. Oh shit, I have to get that banana. Yes, I got it. Oh, freeze, ha-ha, I got extra time. Okay, wait for it to line up, and then slice it. Okay, Roman, good job, you got another combination. Shit, only ten seconds left. Oh, another banana. Shit, I sliced the bomb. One second down. Take that you pomegranate. Ha-ha, I got the new high score. Bitches be bitches.

“…the yellow top with the green pants or the pink top with the white pants? I really can’t decide for our date tonight. By the way, where are we going?” Clara says once I tune into the conversation again.

“For the last time Clara, we are not going on that date. Are you really that stupid or did you donate your brain? Oh wait, would need one to donate it,” Ryker blurts out. I raise my eyes in surprise and hold in my laugh. I look up from my eyelashes to see the other boys straining to hold in their laughter as they continue to play on their iTouches.

“Oh don’t be silly, you don’t need brains if you got the look,” Clara defends herself.

“What look?” I mutter under my breath, hoping no one heard me. But everyone did, including Clara, who whines in return.

“Ryker, your sister is being mean to me. Tell her to stop.”

“You had no problem telling her off this morning. What happened now? Besides, she doesn’t lie,” Ryker smirks at her.

Clara huffs in irritation and even one of her friends behind her hides her laugh with a cough. “Ryker, don’t be mean to me. No other girl in this school can give you what I can,” Clara crosses her arms over her chest, trying to make her nonexistent boobs seem bigger.

“And what is that, Clara?” Ryker quizzes.

“Pleasure,” she states.

“Well, for pleasure, you would need female parts, which I don’t think you have,” Ryker hints at. Clara gasps in shock, blushing from embarrassment as well.

“I do so have female parts. I can prove it!” she stomps like a five year old.

“Yeah, and I can prove I’m not interested, so get freaking lost,” Ryker huffs, glaring at Clara. Clara winces at his demonizing glare and huffs again.

“Fine, be an ass. That date is totally off,” she pushes past her posse and speed walks back to the cafeteria with her clique in tow.

“She finally got the memo,” Ryker mutters, sighing in relief that she was finally gone. I think we all let out a sigh of relief.

“Is she re-really that thick?” I ask no one in particular, but it makes the boys laugh like hell.

“Yes,” they all say at same time, laughing again. For the rest of the period, we make jokes about Clara and her posse and how they are really drag queens. We also get to know each other more. Ryker’s friends aren’t as scary as I thought they were, but laid back and quite friendly… well, except for Gabe. He’s still cold towards me.

I even found out that I had one, if not more, of them in my classes, plus Janice and Reagan and all the people I met yesterday at lunch.

Before I know it, Ryker and I are heading home in our car.

“Hey Ryker,” I say.

“Yeah?” he asks, heading out of the school parking lot.

“Can we stop by an art store? I need to pick up some materials,” I explain with a stutter.

“Sure thing, Ro,” he says. We end up at Michael’s and Ryker hands me a twenty dollar bill. While he stays in the car, I quickly gather all the things I need and pay for the things in no time. Running out to the car, I get in and Ryker starts the engine again, and this time we head home without any stops along the way.

At home, we gather our book bags and my art supplies and head inside. Judging by the empty driveway, Dad is not home from work, and he probably won’t be until seven or eight.

Ryker drops the keys on the table in the foyer and takes his boots off, as I do the same. Clutching the art supply bag in my hand, I stand behind Ryker, waiting for him to turn around. He turns around and almost bumps into me. Startled, he jumps back a little clutching the spot above his heart.

“Holy shit on toast, you freaking scared me, Roman,” he breathes heavily, his back on the wall. Well, I guess even a rapist would be scared if they turned around and saw me smiling creepily at them. “What do you want?” he asks.

“You busy?” I ask.

“No,” he replies hesitantly. “But the guys are coming over in a couple hours,” he adds.

“Great! Follow me,” I direct, going up the stairs and entering his room. Unlike most guys rooms, his was actually neat and tidy, much like mine. He sighs and lays on his bed, his legs dangling off.

“Uh-uh, stand u-up. We’re gonna h-have some fun,” I say, dumping the contents of my art bag to the floor. Instantly, as Ryker sees what goodies I have, he jumps off the bed and grabs the container smiling like a kid at Disney.

“No way! You actually got these!?” Ryker yells.

“Yeah,” I grin sheepishly.

“Well, what are you waiting for!? Go get the stepping stool from the garage,” Ryker directs, opening the box of glow-in-the-dark stars and dumping them on his bed. Laughing, I leave his room and run down to the garage to get the stool. Once I do, I take the same route back to see Ryker on his chair, placing the first few stars on the ceiling.

“Hey! You weren’t su-supposed to start without me!” I exclaim, placing my hands on my hips after I put the stool down.

“Sorry, but I was too excited to wait,” Ryker explains, placing what looks like his sixth star on the ceiling.

“I can see that,” I mumbled under my breath. Ryker hears me and glares while I smile sheepishly.

“Get to work, Ro,” he demands.

I shrug and set up the stool. I grab a bunch of stars in my hand and climb up the ladder. I peel off the paper from the back of the star and start placing them on the ceiling. After a few minutes, I see Ryker get off his chair and go over to his desk and plug in his iPod to the speakers. I thought he would play his rock and metal music, but I am surprised when I hear Poker Face by Lady Gaga play from the speakers. Laughing, I start singing along with the words and Ryker starts singing along as well.

The funny thing is that when I sing, I don’t stutter. My words flow out like a river. My words come out without stop, and if I could sing every second of the day, I would. Singing is when I am in my comfort zone—when I am most confident. It brings out the best in me—the rock star in me and it takes a lot to tame it. My brother and my dad always tell me that I should try out for the big shows like American Idol or the X-Factor, but I am scared that people will stop liking me if they start to thinking I progress due to pity votes, and not my talent.

Ryker sings along with me which is kind of funny since it is kind of weird seeing his childish side. Wait… childish side. An idea pops into my head, and when Ryker is not paying attention, I get my camera from my bedroom, and slowly sneak back in hoping Ryker won’t notice that I was gone. I turn on the camera in video mode and place it on his desk—a place where the camera can get a panorama of the whole room. I say video because I have a program on my computer which can capture certain shots and turn them into pictures. I hit the record button and the miniscule, red light turns on. Going back on my stool as slowly as possible, I take a look back at my brother to see him still looking at the ceiling and singing along to Gaga. Sighing happily and thanking god he did not notice, I continue on singing and placing stars on the ceiling.

We pass our time singing and joking around, just like the good old days, and I even notice that for the time being, my stutter has gone away. This only happens when I am with people I am most comfortable with, and the only people I am comfortable around with is my dad and Ryker. Yeah, I still stutter around them, but just not as much if everything is perfect.

“So I put my hands up, their playing my song!” Ryker shrieks on the top of his lungs, standing on the bed next to me. I clutch my stomach from laughing too hard at his horrible singing and beg him to stop, but it only makes him sing louder and even more worse than it already is. Now, Ryker is a really good singer, but only when he tries. And he never tries…

We are almost finished with the stars and only have about a third of his room left, and then we move onto mine. I think about two hours have passed, meaning his friends should be coming over soon, but I push that thought behind me as I continue to chant alongside Ryker. Now, since the music was on blast, and so are we, and since we have our back turned to his bedroom door, I had absolutely no idea what happened next.

An arm encircles my waist and another clamps over my mouth so hide my soul-wrenching scream. Another person jumps on Ryker’s back, to which he reacts to by elbowing the intruder and calling him a whack job. The outsider clutches his stomach in pain and my imprisoner is laughing behind me, his chest against my back, vibrating. More laughs from behind us join in and my intruder lets go of me. I immediately know who these people are and I turn around and punch my intruder on the chest.

“Ashton! Don’t you ever do that again!” I yell, pounding on his chest in fury, as he laughs and cries in pain at the same time, attempting to block my perpetual punches. Sky is on the floor in pain, due to Ryker, which Ryker responds to by laughing.

“What are you guys doing here?” I ask, pausing from Ashton’s punishment.

“Well, we were gonna come hang out, and no one would answer the door. The door wasn’t locked, so we entered, and now we know why you guys didn’t open the door,” Chance summarizes. Ryker smacks his palm on his head for forgetting to close the door.

“By the way, you both are horrible singers,” Storm mumbles. Ryker and I look at each other then immediately start laughing. If only they knew.

“Well, obviously, you haven’t heard us actually sing,” Ryker says.

“You two sing?” Gabe asks.

“Well, I used to, but Ro still does,” Ryker explains. It’s true—Ryker and I used to sing together all the time, and we were even in a band together called ‘Unvoiceless.” For some reason, the Storm, Sky, Chance, and Ashton look at each other and smirk, clearly an idea forming in their heads. They all nod in understanding, even though no words were exchange. Then, at the same time, they look at me. I raise my eyebrows in apprehensiveness and wonder what the hell they were thinking about.

“Roman, would you like to join ‘The Stay’?” Storm asks. I raise my brow higher from confusion.

“Wh-what is ‘The Stay’?” I ask.

“It’s our band and we’ve been looking for a female lead forever,” Ashton clarifies. My mouth forms an “o” in understanding.

“Uh… we-well, I have to think ab-about it,” I answer after I ponder about it for a while.

“Okay, no problem,” Sky shrugs off.

I smile in return and my brother starts talking, “So, we still need to put these up in Roman’s room… You want to help?” he asks.

“Sure.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s do it.”

Everyone answers at the same time and we all disperse. The boys go downstairs to get some chairs to stand on, while Ryker and I grab the other box of stars that I got for my room. In the next few minutes, we have all gathered in my room, which luckily is the second biggest in the house after my dad’s so everyone fits.

I plug in my music and we start putting up the stars again, kidding and fooling around as well. I had to scold the twins when I saw them going through my undergarments and then yelled at Chance for dropping my lamp. Then I yelled more when Ryker and Gabe started to wrestle and almost tilted my desk. Luckily, since there was more of us, we were able to finish my ceiling in an hour.

Now, we were sitting on the bedroom floor, just talking. Well, the boys are talking and I am just awkwardly sitting here.

“Let’s go do something,” Ashton yells out suddenly.

“Like what?”

“Let’s go race,” Ashton answers. And with that, all the boys smile with an evil glint in their eyes that makes me gulp in fear.

“Let’s do it,” Chance says, and with that all the boys race out the room.

I sigh and go over to sit on my bed.

“Hey, you coming?” Ashton asks from my bedroom door, completely startling me since I thought they were all downstairs.

“Um, I don’t know. Do you want me to?” I ask, silently hoping he would say yes.

“Of course, you’re a part of the gang now. Now, come on!” he says, grabbing my arm and pulling me out the door.

I gulp, second guessing myself now.

What have I gotten myself into?