Save Me

{Rainy}

Pain. Burning pain. That’s what I felt when I woke up the next morning. When Brian and I got home last night, Ray was waiting for us. Ray was pissed cause we didn’t clean the house. Brian and me always have to clean the house and do all the chores. Ray and Maria, his wife and our aunt, never do anything around the house, unless you count making the messes that Brian and me have to clean. Ray managed to knock me out so I don’t really know what happened. But I was sure feeling the pain of it.

I woke up in Brian’s room. He must have carried me up there when Ray was finished. Brian was still sleeping and I looked at his clock and realized we had an hour till we had to leave for school. Jimmy would be coming over soon. I didn’t feel like going today, so I just went back to bed.

I woke up again to talking in the room. I saw Jimmy standing at the foot of the bed and Brian was sitting up in bed. I saw that he had a black eye and a busted lip. Jimmy saw that I was awake and he came over to my side.

“Hey. You feel okay?” he asked. I shook my head.

“Where does it hurt the most?” Bri asked from beside me. I moved the blanket and lifted my shirt up a bit to show them my ribs. There was a huge bruise on the right side and it hurts like a bitch. Jimmy gingerly touched it causing me to wince.

“Sorry.” he apologized. I nodded to let him know it was okay. “Do you want to go to school?” he asked. I shook my head.

“Neither do I so we’ll stay home.” Brian told me and I nodded.

“Okay, well I have a test that I can’t miss. But after that, I’ll skip and come here.” Jimmy told us. “You should get some rest.” I nodded after he gave me a kiss on the forehead and Brian told him we’d see him later. Jimmy left and Brian and I went back to sleep.

{Matt}

Rainy wasn’t in school toady. Neither was Brian. I saw Jimmy, Zack and Johnny at the start of the day, but by lunch they too were absent. I was worried about Rainy and what might have happened. All day long Liz’s words from yesterday kept running through my head. ‘Now they live with their fathers brother and his wife. Everyone knows that their uncle is a major drunk and beats the shit out of them almost everyday. Even their aunt hits them as well.’ I hope she isn’t too hurt. I don’t know why, but I have this huge urge to protect her and bring pain to anyone who touches her the wrong way. I have never felt like this with anyone before and it’s starting to scare me.

All through the day Liz would notice how distracted I was and she got pissed a couple times cause I wasn’t paying attention to her, as she kept flirting with me. I could care less anyway. I couldn’t wait for school to be over. I was already sick of Liz and her and just wanted them to disappear.

It’s weird cause this is only my second day here and I don’t know Rainy but with her absent, I miss seeing her in class. How can I miss someone I don’t know? Someone who probably wouldn’t give me the time of day cause of who I seem to be? I don’t know but I do know with her not here I feel weird. Don’t ask what I mean by that cause I have absolutely no freaking idea. It’s confusing the hell outta me.

Finally the last bell of the day rang and I practically flew out of class and to my locker. After getting the books I needed I almost ran out of the building and to my car. As I approached it I saw Liz leaning against it. ‘Fuck. What does she want?’ I asked myself. She looked over and saw me.

“Hey Matt.” she said smiling.

“Hey. What do you want?” I asked her trying not to sound annoyed, but I think she heard the annoyance in my voice. She just smiled and extended her arm.

“I just wanted to give you this.” she said and I saw a piece of paper in her hand. I took it and she turned around and walked away saying she’d see me tomorrow. I opened the paper and it had her number on it with a little note saying I should call her. Yeah right. Like that’s gonna happen. I scrunched the paper up and shoved it in my pocket, intending to throw it in the trash when I got home.

As I drove home I was wondering if we had gotten a local phonebook yet. I wanted to see if Rainy’s number was listed. When I got home I went in the kitchen and looked around for the book. I saw it sitting on the table by the phone. I grabbed it and went upstairs to my room. I closed my door and sat at my desk. I opened the phonebook and started searching for Rainy’s number. It wasn’t listed. I tried hard to remember the other’s last names and when I did, I looked them up as well. Jimmy’s wasn’t listed either, but Johnny’s and Zack’s were. I copied both their numbers and addresses.

This weekend I’ll go see if I can find Johnny and Zack’s houses. If I run into them I can use the excuse that I’m just looking around town, seeing what’s here. This seems like a good idea. With that plan in my head, I got started on my homework. After that was done and after I had dinner with my parents, I went out back with my notebook. I sat down in one of our deck chairs and started thinking of some lyrics. I continued writing rill I got tired. I then made my way to my room and stripped to my boxers and climbed in bed. My last thoughts before I fell asleep were of Rainy and how I hoped she would be in school tomorrow.

{Rainy}

When I woke up next it was almost noon. Brian wasn’t in the room, but I heard talking down stairs. I got up slowly and went to the bathroom. When I looked in the mirror I saw that my lip was also busted. Other than that my face looked fine. I lifted my shirt to get a look at my ribs. The bruise was darker and it looked worse. I’ve had enough broken ribs to know that this time they were just bruised. That was good because then I won’t have to go to the hospital.

I stripped myself of the rest of my clothes and turned on the shower. I got in when it was the right temperature. Washing my body I saw that I had some more bruises. Though these ones were small and didn’t hurt, so I didn’t care about them. I finished up and got out. I wrapped a towel around my body and went to my room. After I got dressed I went back to the bathroom to do my hair.

When I went down stairs I found Brian and the boys in the kitchen. They all looked up when I walked in. Jimmy came over to me and pulled me into a gentle hug.

“You feeling better?” he asked and I nodded.

“Hey Rain.” Zack and Johnny both said. I smiled and waved to them.

“How are your ribs?” Bri asked coming over to me. I lifted my shirt and showed them. Johnny and Zacky swore under their breaths.

“Damn, it’s darker.” Brian exclaimed. Jimmy nodded his agreement. “Does it still hurt bad?” I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head telling them that they didn’t hurt as bad as earlier. He smiled at me and kissed the top of my head. He asked if I was hungry and I nodded. He made me a sandwich as the others were talking about this weekend.

As the day went on my side was becoming more bearable. Well I guess the painkillers had something to do with it. We didn’t do much, just sat around watching movies. During the second movie I ended up falling asleep, not waking till later to a door slamming down stairs. This time I woke up in my room and I looked at the clock. It was a little past seven. About ten minutes after the door slammed, Brian rushed into my room. He shut and locked the door after him. Turning on the light and seeing I was awake he spoke.

“Pack some clothes. We’re staying at Johnny’s tonight.” I looked at him questioningly. “Ray is beyond drunk. I just barely got away from him a couple minutes ago.” he explained and that’s when I noticed above his left eye was bleeding. I nodded and got up going to my closet. He went towards my door.

“I’m going to get some of mine. Pack enough for the weekend also. Lock this door after me.” I nodded and followed him to my door. After he walked out I locked the door then went to pack some clothes. When I was finished, I sat on my be waiting for Brian to come back. Five minutes later there was a knock on my door. I froze. What if it was Ray?

“Rain, open up.” Brian said. I ran to the door and opened it. Brian came in with a bag and locked the door again. “You got everything you need?” I nodded. “Okay lets go. Johnny knows we’re coming over.” We walked over to my window and he opened it. He stood back and let me climb out first. After I was out I grabbed our bags as he passed them out to me. He then followed shutting the window after he was out.

We’ve had to do this before. Leave the house cause of Ray. We normally always go to Johnny’s cause his mom is hardly ever home so she most likely won’t even know we were there. Zack’s parents let us stay at their place sometimes when we really need it. We don’t go to Jimmy’s though cause he doesn’t even live there. He lives at Johnny’s sometimes and crashes at ours once in awhile, but mostly he sleeps at the laundry mat where he works.

We walked across the roof till we came to the tree beside our house. One of it’s branches reached out to the roof, so we were able to easily climb to the tree then down it. When we got to the ground I wrapped an arm around my stomach. All this moving and climbing down the tree made my ribs start to ache. Brian noticed this.

“You alright?” I nodded. He grabbed out bags off the ground and handed me mine as we walked to the sidewalk. Thankfully Johnny only lived two blocks away. “You going to be okay walking? I don’t want your ribs getting more fucked up.” Bri said. I nodded and we made our way to Johnny’s. when we got there he was sitting on his porch smoking a cigarette.

“Hey, you guys okay?” he asked. Brian said yes and asked if Johnny could get me some painkillers. That was when Johnny noticed I was holding my side. “You okay? He didn’t hit you in the ribs again did he?”

“No she was upstairs when he came home. He didn’t touch her this time. Her ribs are hurting from climbing down the tree.” Brian told him. Johnny nodded and took my bags from me. We followed him into the house and he led us up to his room. He put my bags down and left the room. Brian and I just sat on his bed. Three minutes later Johnny came back with two painkillers and a glass of water. I smiled my thanks to him and took the pills.

“My mom’s out tonight. She’ll probably be gone the whole weekend also. So we won’t have to worry about her. I told Jimmy and he’ll probably be staying here also.” Johnny told us.

“He should. We should tell Zack tomorrow and have him stay the weekend since his parents probably won’t let him stay tonight.” Brian said. Johnny and I both nodded. Brian then got up and left the room. He came back a couple minutes later holding a wet rag to his eyebrow.

We went downstairs to get something to eat. Johnny found a frozen pizza in the freezer so he put that in the oven. While the pizza was cooking, Brian told Johnny and me what happened. Ray came home completely wasted and demanded Brian make dinner. Well Brian said he already made dinner and it was sitting on the table. Ray didn’t believe him and hit Brian and that’s how he got the cut over his eye. Brian said he told Ray to go look in the kitchen. When Ray went to look Brian came upstairs to my room. I know the rest from there but he finished telling what went on to Johnny.

As he finished with the story, I got up and got drinks for us. When I sat down the timer on the stove went off and Johnny got the pizza out. He cut it in slices and set it on the table. The three of us each grabbed a slice. While we were eating there was a knock at the door. Johnny went to answer it while me and Bri continued to eat. Johnny came back a minute later with Jimmy behind him.

“Hey what are you two doing here?” he asked sitting down in one of the chairs at the table.

“Ray.” Brian simply said and Jimmy nodded knowing what Bri meant. When we were done eating we all went up to Johnny’s room and watched some movies. During the beginning of the second movie I got bored so I decided to draw. Drawing is my escape. I can empty my mind completely and lose myself in my drawings. I drew the boys as they were all lounging around watching the movie. When the third movie was over I was still working on my drawing and the guys were all tired so they started getting ready for bed. I closed my sketchpad and set it on the floor. Brian and Jimmy set up blankets and all on the floor where they were going to sleep. I was going to share the bed with Johnny. Minds out of the gutter people. Johnny’s like a brother.

I was still awake after the others all fell asleep. I was thinking about Matt. Why was I thinking about him? He hasn’t entered my mind all day and now he’s all I’m thinking about and it’s keeping me from falling asleep. I wonder how his second day of school went. I wonder id Liz has put her moves on him yet. Probably. Tomorrow they’ll be a couple cause what Liz wants, Liz usually gets. With thoughts of Liz and Matt dating clouding my mind, I finally fell asleep.