Adam Bendaman, age sixteen was living a pretty average life; two parents, friends, relationships, school, random people he meets, and other things a normal teenager goes through. He’s lived in Pasadena, California for all of his life. It wasn’t until recently that he had heard his parents arguing so frequently, but he didn’t think much of it. Adam just continued on. Coming home on a Friday afternoon when school was let out he had heard his parents arguing now like usual. He didn’t pay much attention to the battle of voices he had learned to tune it out over time. The argument raged on, “This is ridiculous,” screamed the father. “I don’t know how I can put up with you.”
“Well maybe if you spent a little more time at home instead of out doing who knows what we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Adam’s mother retaliated. They went back and forth with this for about an hour constantly switching subjects when one was losing that particular argument. It wasn’t until he heard sudden silence that Adam started listening. This silence was unfamiliar. He went to see what had happened with is parents and what he saw is that his mother had left and his dad was leaning on the kitchen counter with an exhausted and sad look on his face. Adam could see that something had definitely gone down in the time it took him to do his math homework. He had so many questions; what happened out here? Why was mom gone? What was happening between them? So many questions but he decided to leave it alone his dad looked like he needed to sort things out too. Adam was about to exit the kitchen when his dad had called him.
“Adam,” said his dad softly. “Come over here.” Adam walked over to where his father was.
“Yeah, dad,” said Adam in a worried tone. His father gave him a hug and stayed like that for about two minutes. “Dad what’s wrong.” His father let go of him and looked at him with such a dismal look it made him heartsick and then walked off into the bedroom. Adam didn’t see him for the rest of that night or most of the next day. When he walked in from school the next day most everything was gone. Adam had thought he had been robbed. He rushed to his father’s room in a panic. When he got there his father was packing, “DAD! I think we’ve been robbed call the po-.” But that’s all he could say before he realized what his father was doing. “Dad what’s going on.”
Adam’s father replied, “Your mother and I got a divorce Adam.” You could see the shock overcome Adam’s young adolescent face. Adam’s father continued, “She took half the stuff in the house and left and now we are moving to somewhere more affordable and we are g-“
“You can’t do that,” said Adam.
“What?”
“You can’t do that.” “ One, you can’t just end a eighteen year marriage like that and two you don’t just decide to move and not tell me until last minute and leave me out of it. We have to discuss this first.”
“That’s where your wrong Adam, I am your father and what I say goes”, Adam’s father said very loud and stern. The room was very quiet for a long time and then Adam spoke.
“I get it. You’re giving up on your relationship because you’re not brave enough to fix it.” Nothing was said for the rest of the night.
The next morning everyone was all packed up and they left. It was a three hour drive at least to their new home in East Orosi. It was a small town out all alone in the world. They found a cheap house there and settled in at their new place of residence. Adam had been enrolled into a new high school, East Orosi High. It had been a few weeks since the divorce and his mom’s flight of the relationship. Adam and his dad were more or less on speaking terms.
“Are you ready for your first day of school Adam,” asked Adams father. Adam was eating breakfast and getting ready for school at the time.
“Ya I’m ready but I don’t know anybody it’s going to be rough getting to know people.”
“Listen I know you Adam, it’s going to be fine you’re going to do great in school just don’t think about it so much.” They didn’t know what was in store for Adam at his new school. Upon entering Adam new he was going to have a hard time at this school. This new school was a very poor one without much control. This was not something Adam was used to. There seemed to be a lot of people here who looked like trouble, but he thought he’d survive. Adam went to class. His first class was English and if anything went well today it was this. Adam had got seated next to this beautiful girl in his English class. “Hey,” said Adam. “What is your name?” It seemed like she was about to reply when this guy came in and interrupted.
“Hey punk what you doing lookin’ at my girlfriend?” the voice suddenly boomed into his ear. Adam turned to come face to face with this big dark skinned guy who seemed pretty ticked. Adam didn’t know what to do, he didn’t want to go and fight this guy but he didn’t want to get beat up for getting unfortunately sat down next to this girl.
“Calm down Maurice he’s not doing anything, he’s just being nice.” “Leave him alone please.”
Maurice backed off and went to his seat. “Sorry about that.” When class ended Adam began to pack up his stuff and get ready for his next class when Maurice bumped him hard and knocked him down.
“Watch where you’re going punk, move next time.” He grabbed his girlfriend and headed out. The girl turned around and mouthed the words, “My name is Amy.”
“Amy huh?” Adam thought. Adam had just met a girl, and her boyfriend was now his personal bully. “Things were going to work out great here,” Adam thought.
The next few weeks were very straight forward. Adam went to school came back home and repeated. He had continued talking to Amy. Adam was in class one day when Amy came in crying. “What’s wrong,” said Adam worried.
“I broke up with him,” said Amy. “With who,” replied Adam? Adam was terrified by anything that she could say because if it is what he feared he was not going to have a good time. “I broke up with Maurice today,” She said. This worried Adam all he could think of was what Maurice was going to do to him. Then she asked, “Will you go to the winter dance with me”.
All Adam could think was this: “Oh god, do not say yes, Maurice will kill you. Do not say yes. Do not say yes”. “Yes,” he said reluctantly. And like that his fate was sealed. When Maurice got word of this it didn’t make him happy. He was going to make Adam wish he never came to this school. Maurice said, “Let’s just say he’s not going to have a good time at this dance.
It was the night of the dance. Adam went and picked up Amy. She looked beautiful but that didn’t make the fact that he was going to get his butt kicked tonight any better. Well it made it a little better. The dance was fun Adam had a good time too bad he was anxious the whole time of what was going to happen. Maurice had found him alright. He took him away from Amy while they were dancing and swung at him. Adam dodged it. Adam was prepared though he had been taught by his dad how to fight. Adam punched Maurice and knocked him clean on his rump. The principal stepped in apparently he saw everything had Maurice hauled to his office. He knew what was going on and who started this issue. Maurice was soon charged with assault and put on probation and soon was put in jail for not maintaining his probation. That didn’t matter to Adam thought; he had won and had gotten the prize that was Amy. They stood there rocking in the middle of the dance floor holding each other for the rest of the night. They broke up two weeks later.