I knew just what I was getting into, or so I thought. I’d been warned about him. Everyone told me he was trouble, but even without the warnings I think I knew. I'm not sure what it was that drew me to him, like a moth to a flame. Maybe it was the feeling of just falling into his sight of vision, his dull, lifeless glower, it was like you were swept up in something new and terrifying, but it was enough to make my heart jump. Or maybe it was the tenderness of his touch against my skin. Maybe I was just in a bad place that day I met him; in fact if I remember correctly I was in an awful place. In the midst of chaos he was there; the boy who would remain nameless for quite sometime, yet he was all I had.
It wasn’t a particularly memorable day, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I had met him that day, I probably wouldn’t even remember. I awoke to the clattering of dishes on a linoleum kitchen floor followed by a series of barely audible shouts. Almost automatically I felt myself sliding into a pair of tattered old blue jeans and faded black t-shirt and without much more thought I dragged myself downstairs.
I looked at the shattered plate, it's pastel covered pieces strewn across the floor, and then to my father's face. His glowed eyes red as he stared at my little brother, cowering across the room, wide-eyed and crying. I watched my father's knuckles get white as he clenched his fist so tightly I imagined his nails were breaking skin. The room seemed to echo with silence and I silently prayed someone would speak before the silence got much louder.
"How could you be so stupid?" He screamed in my face, though I knew he was addressing my brother. His sour breath was warm on my cheek. I squeezed my brother's shoulder gently, assuring him I was hear, though I'm sure I was far more terrified than him. "The last piece of your mother's China and you threw it to the ground like it had no meaning!" Tears streaked across my brother's freckled face and his eyelashes clung together in little clumps held together by his tears. I heard the bus grumbling as it lurched to a stop before our house. Saved by the bell I thought. I turned away and swung open the creaky screen door as I launched myself out the door and down the drive.
I heard the bus groan and squeal and saw bus breath it's black exhaust. I ran full speed towards the yellow monstrosity but it screeched out into the street, rocking back and forth and bouncing down the gravel road. I looked back at the little red house with the overgrown front yard that most people thought was abandoned. I couldn't go back in there and face my father. I looked down the long winding road to Hillcrest High and began walking.
About a mile down the road I heard the familar hum of my father's car engine. I frantically dove into a swampy mess of trees of brush. The car seemed to slow as it passed and I crawled deeper and into the brush and I felt the thorns grabbing at my clothes. My hair hung limp and dirty in my face as the car drove away, and I pushed my way out of the dank and dark murk of the brush. I felt drops of mud drip down my face as the mud stains on my knees set it. I walked down the road past the gas station; it was like one you'd fine in a ghost town. In one both a man say scowling at his newspaper clearly unhappy with the news he was reading. Sitting in a tire in the corner of the lot, was the boy.
I didn't notice him at first, but once I did my eyes were glued to him. I flicked a lighter on and off illuminating his features in an eerie manner.