Chapter 1
I’m trapped. I can’t move. They’re coming for me…
“Not so high and mighty now, huh?” Oliver taunts, leering unpleasantly.
“W-what a-are you g-g-going to d-do t-to m-m-me?” I stutter, my armpits beginning to become damp. I can taste the sweat that’s pouring down my forehead, and I wipe it away hastily. Why me?
“Oh, don’t worry; we’ll be easy on you.” Oliver’s leer was beginning to become a little strange, like it was an act, put on for the crowd of people gathering around.
“Yeah.” Derek punched me in the stomach. I doubled over in pain, my breath coming in gasps. “Oops, sorry my hand just slipped.” Oliver laughed, and Derek smiled savagely. I smelled something terrible… oh, god, b.o. When did Derek last take a shower?
How could my brother treat me that way? I didn’t get it. Growing up, we were best friends. And now, Oliver and I… were enemies.
Every night was torture too. Oliver’d come looking for me. I hid under my bed to get away from it all, the sleepless nights. Sometimes I slept under my bed to keep him from finding me and hitting me.
“Come out, little bro,” he’d say unctuously, his voice slippery like the oil my mom uses to cook.
I kept away, never answering those rhetorical calls. My brother knew why I was scared, but I didn’t know my brother.
He didn’t seem like my dad, the jolly, red-headed man. Nor like my mom, the slim brunette who could always laugh.
Oliver was like the son of another man. No, not like. He was the son of another man. He didn’t know what it meant to laugh at a joke, only at pain. Especially my pain. Why did he do this? Did he do it because my mother fawned on me instead of him? Then again, that didn’t really matter, since her paying more attention to me got me hurt anyway. So what was it?
I gulped down my breakfast. Another day, another bully. It was like Survival. Protect yourself as much as you can.
“Jed, can I talk to you for a second?” my mom called through the kitchen door.
“Sure,” I said, apprehensively. Here we go again, I thought. The same old cliché again. I couldn’t bear to tell the truth, or tell a lie again, though. I didn’t come home with bruises as much as hurt dignity, and a hurt soul. ARGHHHH!!! I can’t let him do this to me again. I don’t want to go through this. What does Carrie see in him? I wondered. Carrie is Oliver’s girlfriend. I sometimes saw her looking at Oliver with mingled fear and admiration. What does he do to her?
“Jed, I want to know what’s happening in school.”
“Schoolwork.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Nothing, I-I play as usual.”
She sighed. “Something is going on. And I want to find out, Jed. I care about you.”
“I wish everybody else did,” I mumbled.
“What do you mean by that?
“Mom, I’m going to be late for the school bus if you keep talking to me.”
“Fine, but I’m not done with you. You, me, later, after school.”
My mom may love me, but nobody else does. I don’t have friends anymore, ever since Oliver and Derek started chasing me. Nobody seemed to think I existed, just because I was bullied. No one came to my rescue, or tried to stop Derek from torturing me. I was alone in this world, this world where no one wanted me to be there. Even my teachers didn’t call on me like they used to. I wanted to be there again.
I walked to the school bus, savoring each painless step. Something woke up inside of me, a fierce monster that wanted to beat up somebody else. I tried to fight it down, but it wouldn’t budge. Something is going to happen. I don’t know if it’ll be good or bad, but it’ll happen.
Chapter 2
A familiar sight awaited me at the bus stop. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I turned and ran. I ran the 17 blocks to school, occasionally pausing to catch my breath.
I was free. No bullies to try and tease me, to try to make me feel horrible like I wasn’t worth being born. At the very thought of those people I felt the monster erupt again. “Do something!” it roared, “Make them feel all the pain they’ve caused you.” I felt something else, too: Revenge.
The plain, red brick school loomed up ahead of me. The scaly monster took control and I strode confidently through the plain white doors. “Hi J.P.,” a girl said shyly as I walked by. I stopped in my tracks.
“Um… hi,” I said back, completely nonplussed.
“I’m in your math class,” the girl said quickly. “My name’s Julia.”
“Oh… oh yeah,” I said, but in my head I was thinking, Who?
“So, um, d’you want to meet me for lunch or something?”
“Ah-Oh, sure, why not?”
“Thanks,” she said, beaming. Then she scurried off to join her friends and was immersed again in that girly stuff I just can’t understand.
“Got a date, J.P.?”
I froze. I knew that voice, it was familiar… “BOO!”
I jumped and turned around to face a brick wall. I should’ve known it wasn’t safe to stay in one place!
“I don’t think you’ll be able to make that date tonight, lil’ bro,” Oliver sneered.
“Oh yeah? Says who?” I retorted bravely, though inside my stomach was saying, Can’t… hold… in… much… longer…
“Says me,” Derek stepped up.
“Why should I listen to you? You’re not a teacher, you’re not a parent, and you’re not even an adult. So who gives you the right to make me do something?” I could feel the monster taking control.
“’Cause of this.” Derek stuffed a fist in my face.
“Yeah? Well, I got my own life. It ain’t yours and it ain’t Oliver’s.. It’s mine to live, and you can’t push me around to tell me what to do.”
“Lil’ bro-“
“I’m not your brother!” It was there, hanging in the air.
His mouth clenched. “What did you say?”
“I said that I don’t know who you are. No family of mine goes pushing me around. Mom doesn’t, Dad didn’t, and my real brother won’t.”
Oliver looked at me with a look that I can’t find words to describe; it was so full of hate and other unspeakable things. When he spoke it was in a very calm voice. “You are my brother and I do have the right to do what I think is in your best interest.”
I snorted. “My best interest, yeah right! My best interests are not being pushed around by my brother and his ‘friend’.”
“Exc-“ Derek began . He was silenced by a look from Oliver.
“Now excuse me,” I said, “I have to go to homeroom.” I left the two guys standing there with open mouths and stupid expressions on their faces. The scaly monster retreated back into his cave and stayed there for a while. I hoped.
Julia and I arrived at the pizzeria at the exact same time. Maybe that was because I had waited for her at the front door of our school.
As we sat down with a personal pizza for each of us and a Coke, she told me, “I’ve always thought you were cute, and I always wanted to ask you out, only, I didn’t want the bullies going after me. But today, I just thought, what the heck. Say something to him for once. So I did,” she finished.
“Wow, that was pretty brave of you. I’m flattered,” I said honestly (or was I). “I’ve never really paid attention to girls, up until now. I guess I’m starting to think about having a girlfriend.”
“I’ve already been thinking about having a boyfriend,” Julia admitted shamefacedly.
“Some people mature earlier than others,” I said, and we both smiled. Then I took a long draught of my Coke, and glanced at my watch. We had about half an hour left of lunch, so I asked Julia if she wanted to go to Starbucks and get some coffee, or something. She agreed, so we walked a couple blocks in the crunchy, fall leaves, only to be engulfed in a stifling environment.
“Do you want to just drink our coffees on the way back to school? ‘Cause it’s kind of hot here.”
“Sure,” Julia said. “As long as I pay for our coffees. You paid for lunch.”
“But-“
“It’s only fair.”
“All right.”
As I made my way back to school, I noticed Oliver. I waved at him. He looked apprehensively, and with fear at Derek, but he was talking to someone else in undertones. He looked back at me, and grinned. And then he waved back,
amused
