Pretend

The second time, the plate crashed only centimeters away from my head. It shattered in to a million pieces of tiny, cracked porcelain and skittered to the floor with a musical jingle.

"Where the fuck have you been!" It was a slurred voice.

I looked calmly from the smashed plate to the wavering man standing in the kitchen doorway, a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand. He wasn't my father. Not really. My father was buried deep inside this man somewhere, battling to escape. But years of drinking and smoking had subdued him. All that was left was the husk of a man that used to be, stabilized by a health benefit and incapable of keeping a job for more then two weeks.

I managed to bite down on my tongue before I said anything I would regret. I had long ago recognized that talking back wouldn't help me in these situations. I wasn't allowed to talk unless directly asked a question, and if I didn't comply then I usually ended up going to school with a black eye or a limp or a split lip or, once, a broken arm.

"Well?" he spat, and a line of drool rolled out of his open mouth and splattered the floor. I watched it fall. "Tell me where you've fucking been!"

"I was at Link, sir," I said in as flat a voice as I dared.

His eyes narrowed, his free hand balled into a tight fist, and suddenly a shudder raced up his spine. "Bullshit! Out spending my money 's where you been!"

I flinched as another plate came ricocheting towards me. I ducked too late and felt a shard slice through my cheek as the porcelain exploded into hundreds of pieces once more. I watched the pattern on the floor, considered it, remembered it. It was beautiful, almost surreal. It would make a good painting.

"You a ly'ng littl' rat, Sebastan Clark. You disgust'n and ... and I-I hate you." His voice had seeped into a venomous hiss. "You- You ain't like Darren."

The whiplash of his statement cut deep and I almost keeled over from the pain that erupted in my chest. A garbled moan escaped my throat, tears built up in my eyes, and the next thing that came at me was the man's fist, forcing my head back into the wall. My legs cut out from under me and I sank unceremoniously to the ground, nursing the right side of my face. Blood gushed from the cut in my left cheek, and a deep, pounding ache was beginning to resonate from my eye up to my temple.

The man cackled, took a slug from his bottle, and shook his head. "Can' even take er punch. Dah-Darren could take er punch."

He stumbled off, and a moment later I heard the front door slam behind him. I sat leaning against the wall for a long while, my own weakness aching like the bruises on my face.

Fifteen minutes later, when my phone tweeted with a text, I was still crumpled on the floor. Intuition told me it was Cora, and I didn't want to read it. She'd be telling me about the stupid party. And I knew it was cowardly to ignore my best friend, but I didn't want her to see me like this. Feeling sick:P Leave me alone.

I let out a shuddery breath and got up on my knees, then used the counter top to haul myself to my feet. Another shuddery breath, and I realized I was crying. I chuckled humorlessly at myself. You are pathetic, Seb, I scolded myself. You're not Darren. You never will be.



In the morning, I was -unsurprisingly- alone. Curled up on my bed, with the curtains shut, I am reading a novel Aunt Sal had found me. She was an intuitive person. She knew I loved reading. She knew I hated horror or thriller or other such genres, mainly because I get enough of pi]that of suspense at home. In fact, one of my favorite novels was by Nicolas Sparks. I'd read it so much that the cover was starting to fall off.

My phone tweeted for the second time this morning, and I knew I couldn't keep avoiding Cora. She would want to talk to me, to tell me of her adventurous night out, but I didn't really want to know. Sighing, I reached for my phone and, without looking at any of them, deleted my inbox.

I was aware a few minutes later that someone was blundering around downstairs. I jolted upright and wondered if, maybe, there was a chance of it being an intruder. But it wasn't long before a timid knock interrupted the quiet, and Aunt Sal stuck her head through a crack in my door. Her expression was concerned, and I knew she'd seen the mess in the kitchen.

"How bad is it, buddy?" she whispered as she came to my bed side and pushed my hair away from my eye. She shook her head and tutted in a paternal way. I winced away from me touch, and she scowled. "Tender?"

"It isn't what you think," I interrupted desperately, but she shook her head and patted my shoulder, a very sad look in her eye.

"It never is, bud," and she turned and left the room. Sally Claire was a single mother with a nineteen year old daughter, Shelby Claire, who had moved to Manhattan with a scholarship for NYU. Aunt Sal, with her crazy orange hair and twinkling blue eyes, had taken the position of surrogate mother when Theresa Clark, my mother and her sister, had gone over the edge with the death of her eldest son.

When she returned, it was with a glass of orange juice, an pack of frozen peas, and two Tylenol. She took my book from my hands, proffered the orange juice and the pills, and then -once I'd accepted them both- placed the peas against my swollen eye.

There is a moment of affectionate quiet as Sal tends to my wounds, cleaning up the cut on my cheek so that it doesn't look so brutal. I sigh, and instantly earn her attentive attention. "What'd I do to earn an Aunt like you, Sal?"

She looks surprised by the sudden proclamation, and blushes with pleasure. Her smile lightens the room, and she taps the tip of my nose with her finger like she used to when I was little. "It's part of the job description." She gets up and plucks the empty glass from my hand. "Now get up, lazy bones. You need to get dressed. And shouldn't you be in school?

"School is for shmucks," I replied, and received an obstinate look of disapproval. I hold my hands up in surrender before she can start on her usual rant. "I'm getting up, don't worry."



I was wearing my custom ripped jeans and tattered User Friendly hoodie when Cora turned up and plonked down on the porch step beside me. I'd been leaning against the railing, sketchpad balanced on one knee with my pencil pressed to my lip.

Cora quirked a brow. "Sick my ass. And you have lead, right there." She brushes at the spot with her finger lightly, and a wave of butterflies chokes my throat. Then her eyes flash dark and concerned as she takes in the cut, the bruising, and her brows pull together. "Holy shit, Sebbie. What happened to your face?"

Shit.

"Ah, I take it you wouldn't believe me if I told you I fell down the stairs?" I tried to pull it off as a joke, but Cora has her arms crossed over her chest in an I-will-take-no-bullshit pose. I sighed, and looked towards the door as I lied. "Ah, I ... got into a fight at Link."

"You?" Cora sounded disbelieving, and I snapped at it like it was my key to freedom.

"Hey! Don't sound so shocked. Apparently men feel threatened just my presence." I try my hardest for a sincere grin, and Cora falls for it. She laughed and copied my position on the steps. Her hair is up in a messy bun run through with a chopstick, and her eyes glimmer with worry and friendly affection. She smells like her trademark strawberry perfume. Oddly, she is wearing a skirt, so I avert my eyes from that area to avoid being a complete pervert. "So, I take it there is a reason behind you deigning to visit me - especially during sacred school hours?"

Cora scoffed. "Free period, Seb. And I came to check on you. Renny was going out to lunch with her insert-French-word-for-perfect boyfriend, and - can you believe it? - Zach was chatting up the twins." Cora leaned over and rested her hand on my knee. I can feel the intimacy of it through to the skin, though I doubt she can. "You were my last resort."

"I'm glad you have such good taste in the last resort department," I said, giving her a mock-salute which she returns with a grin. Then she leans over me, peering down at my sketchpad. I quickly slam the cover shut and shove it beneath my thigh.

"C'mon, Sebbie, show me what you're drawing!" She poked me in the ribs teasingly.

I shrugged. I never told her what I was drawing. I didn't tell anyone.