I didn't attend my last two classes.
Instead I sat there for a while on the floor. The uneven cold concrete under me froze my legs and hands and I shivered but sat still and waited.
I wasn't sure what I was waiting for sometimes. But every day I felt the same way, suspended in a strange nirvana, constricting me as I waited and waited.
When someone finally saw me a burst of anxiety put me on my feet again and I got up.
I limped but I wasn't injured there, my arms, my face and my balls were but not my legs. With my vomit sprayed up against the wall next to me and the hem along the zipper of my back torn, the contents out, I had to collect my things together slowly before I could finally get moving.
I'd been hit enough in my face that I should have been bruised to hell, a swelling nice and tender on my cheeks and near my eye, but the colour of bruises took a while to brew.
I couldn't go home right away, because I knew I'd get in trouble for that, and instead walked to the park and sat down on a bench and got my diary out of my broken bag and looked at it but didn't even lift a pen.
I didn't get much sympathy for being bullied, not at home or at school, and if I was fully honest I didn't understand why.
The worst thing was every time I thought about it I got pissed, angry that people didn't care. Because if I saw a kid getting beat on I'd stop them, wouldn't I? He had to have other victims...
The possibility that I wouldn't freaked me out more than anything. In that case I wasn't even a side character, I was nothing, just like them.
The day wasn't warm, and as the evening approached it got colder, so by the time I got out my pen my hands were pretty stiff.
Patrick and his friends caught me. I tried to hide in the toilets and then I tried to run. I should have run to the lunch hall again but I'd be the one in trouble again. They always make it sound equal, like we both chose to fight, they don't care if I'm running away.
The moment Patrick punched my face I started fighting back and I think I got him in the ear but even one on one I wasn't as strong as him and got punched in the stomach. Then Zack sat on me and made me tell them my name was Ellie. I didn't do it, I just glared at them, at first, but they punched my stomach so hard I thought I was gonna die. So yeah I got scared. I repeated whatever they told me to repeat, and when they made me say it louder I said it louder. I don't know all of what I said.
"We're just playing right?" He sorta shoved my head with his hand, standing over me.
I shook my head.
He rolled his eyes. "Take a joke Elliot."
When they were done they got off and kicked me in the balls and I vomited up the wall. Then when I got up I realised my bag was broken I don't know when that happened.
I didn't feel sorry about getting Clyde expelled. He was an asshole to me. First year of secondary school he'd spotted me as a target and started picking on me. I'd been picked on the last two, nearly three years of primary school, I was tired of it, I wanted the fresh start I'd been promised, I wanted friends so badly that I'd dreamed of a noose that night from the disappointment of it all.
Back then I'd still talked back, I'd had the energy to. Patrick had just been one of Clyde's daft followers, doing everything he said, laughing at every one of his non-jokes. A true drone of the king of the school, at the time.
If Clyde was such a great friend of his where was he? Why was Patrick so obsessed with avenging a guy who clearly didn't care enough to visit him after school or anything.
Not that I missed him, he'd gotten away with more than even Patrick did because he was relatively good looking, if you liked that kind of look I guess. Patrick might have passed for okay looking, even with the soldier cut brown hair and the thin lips, if he wasn't such an irritating lad-bro.
"Are you okay?"
I blinked as I realised who it was, Victor, there in the middle of the park where I was, inexplicably. Passing by, shrugging his art bag further up his shoulder.
I stared at him, wide eyed.
He glanced around. "School is over, I live just across this park, in the residential housing over there."
He approached me and I got nervous and pursed my lips shut.
"I didn't see you in our last class." His eyes twinkled in a great way.
"Yeah... I got caught by those guys..." I laughed awkwardly.
"Oh..." He chuckled, moving closer. "Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" He leaned in and my heart drummed away, a bit out of control.
I shook my head, then nodded my head, forgetting what I meant to say or what the question was. His face was really too close for me to think right.
"Yeah..." I whispered after a moment.
He nodded. "That guy is such a prick, did you know kids used to call him St Patricks day in primary school? He's just doing what he's been taught."
"Oh, yeah I heard that." I nodded.
Our school had a primary school as well, a large number of the kids went from the primary school straight to the secondary school, but not me. For some reason the story about him being bullied didn't give me much joy. If anything I dreamt about meeting him when I was young, saving him and therefore saving myself from this dismal outcome.
"You can deal with it." He leaned in to mess with my hair and I felt odd as his fingers brushed my head. "You're real strong. I noticed that."
I nodded, a stone in my throat. My vomit was up the side of that wall and my balls were only just starting to feel a bit better. My back was ripped up and I didn't feel strong.
He raised a brow and took his hand back. "Do you want me to take you back to school? Get the school nurse?"
I shook my head, still staring at him, possibly looking a little dazed. "You live just over there?" I said after a moment, to cover up how obviously glued to his face I was.
"Yeah, not too far off."
"Cool..." I smiled at him, then looked away immediately, wondering if that was too much of a smile.
I looked at him again, he was really good looking, and I thought he grinned slightly as he looked at me, then faced forwards.
"I gotta go then, girlfriend coming over in a bit."
"Oh, yeah." I replied quickly, a double thump in my chest at that. I mean I wasn't hard obsessed with the guy, he was just good looking and nice, helped me out, but I knew he was straight. I mean sometimes I got confused, felt like he might be flirting sometimes, it was the winking, the leaning in, sometimes smiling at me across the room, I thought too much into everything.
"She's going to help me with my art project." He explained, his eyes lingering on me.
"Nice of her." I nodded.
"Yeah."
I'm pretty good at art. I could help. I cringed even as I thought it, pursing my lips tighter.
Something sparked a slight twinkle in his eyes, he winked at me a moment before leaving, and I watched him as he walked away.
I dreamed about it on my way home, as I finally got up and walked back as the sky was getting dark. Stopped by at a newsagents and spent the last of my pocket money on one of those mini sewing kits.
My ideal world.
I wouldn't need to be dating Victor, but he'd be into me, he'd notice me changing and look at me and people would notice it, not say anything, not realise it enough to turn on him, but enough to secretly know he was into me. That would feel good at least.
Patrick would accidentally hit the headmaster in the face instead of me and get expelled. And all his friends would slowly follow.
Irene would pick me up with Colby, and drop me off with Colby, and when we went to parents day she wouldn't schedule our appointments on different days. I could eat with Colby, if I didn't have anyone else to eat with, that might be nice. I didn't want to dislike him the way I did, I didn't want to feel like we were competing or anything like that.
But thinking about that kind of thing was always more depressing when I opened the door and heard them sitting in the dining room.
They were nearly done with dinner, one sausage left and a little mashed potato, gravy finished and the salad gone.
They were busy talking by the time I walked inside and sat down slowly in the empty seat, before realising I didn't have cutlery, got some and came back.
I watched them for a while as they argued over the whether one of the characters from the soap on TV was played by a good actress or not.
"Elliot you like her don't you?" Colby asked.
"Anna Harris?" I nodded, then shrugged, feeling a little lethargic.
"Speaking of which. You should get one of the duffel bags down from the attic for Saturday." Irene told me.
"What for?"
"For the trip?"
I felt the blood drain from my face. "Oh, no I'm not going."
She shook her head. "They really want you to come along. They're willing to ignore the fee so you can join them. It's meant to be a bonding experience, it'll be good for you."
My stomach filled with dread. "I'm not going..." I repeated slowly.
She blinked slowly and then laughed slightly. "Don't be troublesome Elliot."
My dad looked at me finally and frowned. "Why are you getting here so late Elliot?"
"I went to the park for a bit." I replied.
"Well you could apologise for not letting us know." Irene frowned at me.
"Sorry." And then added after a moment. "I really can't go..." I trailed off, my plate looked pretty empty and I was hungry as hell.
Colby's plate looked like a mountain, and he was forking through it slowly, like he couldn't be bothered to. Two full sausages on the stack of mash.
"Can I get one?" I asked Colby.
He looked about ready to hand me one when Irene stopped him, looking at me. "If you come late you get what you get." She chided me.
"I wasn't that late." I replied irritably.
"You don't think you should be getting back in time to eat dinner?" My dad grumbled, always roused first and foremost when he felt like his wife was being insulted.
"Don't bother him darling, he can go to the park if he wants to." Irene interfered.
"He can get back so we don't have to wait for him to eat dinner."
"When did you wait for me?!" I glared at him. "There's basically nothing left."
He forked the sausage off my plate. "Great, not there's nothing left. How about have some respect?"
I felt a flood of anger prickle at my skin, so much so that I felt my face and ears go red, saw out of the corner of my eye how Irene's eyes passed between us, Colby looking awkward as he watched us, eating the mash on his fork slowly.
Maybe it was worse that I could imagine what happened. They'd waited for a while, just so they could complain, and just before I'd got inside they heard me walking up the steps and Irene filled Colby's plate with more food, to make a point somehow. That would explain why he looked like he wasn't interested in the pile on his plate, and why they'd seemingly expected to argue with me.
"Have some respect for your mother for cooking." He replied slowly.
"Ronald..."
"No, you're a grown man now. None of us are blind, look at the mark on your face. To the park..." He trailed off and scoffed, a little red in the face himself.
I could barely speak, too angry, too surprised and thrown off guard. "Ever think someone beat me up? Instead of just assuming everything is my fault?!"
"If someone beat you up then maybe you should say that to us and not lie to our faces! We deserve better than that!" He snapped at me.
"Ronald..." Irene repeated in a faux soothing tone, like she was the mediator in all this. But experience had taught me otherwise.
"Maybe I don't talk to you about this because you don't do anything about it!"
"Maybe you should do something about it!" He shouted back, standing up, looming over me. "How dare you accuse us of saying everything is your fault. Look in the mirror boy, that's you! Blaming us for everything! Stand up for yourself! How about that?!"
I was breathless looking up at him, the wind ripped out of my chest. Hot and cold and all over the place. I felt like splitting into tears but there were no tears there, just a pulsing rock in my throat, and a splitting pain in my chest.
"Dad..." Colby said it in the same tone as his mother, but he seemed genuinely a bit uncomfortable.
It was rare that my dad yelled like that, it sounded like thunder.
After a moment I took a shaky breath. His face was red and splotchy, he almost looked embarrassed.
"You just did what I accused you of. You blamed me for everything, even getting beaten up."
He didn't have anything to say to that, and after a moment of silence, in which I felt like the victor, he took my plate.
"Go to bed." He ordered.
I stared at him, my stomach sinking.
"Seriously?"
"You've ruined a perfectly good meal. Go to bed now."
My head was spinning as I exited the table without another word and headed upstairs, grabbing my backpack from the entryway on my way, feeling like a zombie as I moved, aware of the eyes on me as I got my things and went upstairs.
I opened the door slowly and stepped inside, felt a flush of rage as I faced it from inside my room. Considered with carefully arranged anger whether or not to slam the door, as hard as I could, enough to shake the frame of the house, but ultimately managed to convince myself not to.
But I was seething as I sat down on my bed, and then just angry, and then just forlorn.
He didn't even ask what happened.
What did I want them them even at this point? To chase me around being all sympathetic? I could have told them what happened when I arrived. Maybe it was my fault. It probably was. I could have said something... but I wasn't sure when, the conversation had devolved so fast it seemed impossible to slow down.
I got too angry too spontaneously, I decided, with a morose bitter feeling in my gut, and was ready to sit and let it stew before a slight squeal, like a frightened baby, reached me, and a big fluffy white dog lumbered into my room and ran right into me, paws on my legs, panting happy face shoved into my chest, tail wagging fast.
I hugged him as he wriggled in my arms and licked my neck and hands, shoving his snout into my palms and licking my fingers.
"Milk..." I sighed. "If only you could come with me."
He barked, and when he did it was loud but less sharp than normal barks, more like he was growling the word 'rough'.
"Yeah." I messed with his hair and ears, he was a Samoyed, a surprisingly chill dog until I got home after being gone for a while, then he had this burst of energy that never failed to make me feel better. "You'd bite them for me wouldn't you boy?" I hummed as I looked up into his pleased, excited face.
He barked again.
"Yeah, give them some calcium..." I hummed. "I can think of some better catchphrases for us."
He barked again, and then again, climbing onto my bed.
He was ready for us to sleep together as usual. He was restricted to the upstairs floors, especially during dinner time, because he liked to try to climb onto our laps to get to the food. And while the baby gate probably wasn't enough to keep him upstairs he was a good pup and did as he was told.
"Hang on Milk." I sat up against the wall and got out the sewing kit. "You sleep first, I have to fix this before someone finds out and yells at me." I spoke low and quiet.
He panted slightly and changed position onto his other side, then sat up and watched me, tilting his head and curiously bumping his nose into my arm, nudging me to go to sleep.
"In a minute Milk."
I looked at him, watching him for a moment as he curled up into a satisfying ball and looked half awake, eyes still open but preparing to dream.
I could hear them continuing to talk and eat and especially laugh, downstairs without me. That hurt, refreshing the acid in my belly.
"They want to get rid of me, Milk." I whispered. He looked at me but didn't move his head. "I wish I could get rid of me as well." I whispered even quieter. "But then someone would find my diary. I'd be laughed at even after death. And I don't want to leave you behind."
I leaned down to press my forehead against his and he licked my chin. I swore I could tell when he was smiling, he looked like he was smiling whenever I did that.
I heard the sound of footsteps moving upstairs and I wondered whether an apology was coming. I would apologise too. It was probably mostly my fault. And thinking she might be coming to apologise made me feel even more guilty.
Irene tapped on the door and then opened it, and before I could say hello or anything, held out a hand.
I just looked at it.
"Phone."
I gave her my phone, moving slowly.
"That trip might be a really good opportunity for you."
"I still don't want to go. The same kids that are doing this-" I pointed to my face. "To me are going."
She sighed, looking me over. "I'm sorry, we have plans, your father and I, don't make our lives difficult. Let us have an off day."
I stared at her.
"That gaze of yours doesn't make me feel guilty for wanting a night or two off."
I continued looking at her.
"Goodnight Elliot." She told me.
I didn't reply.
I felt cold inside, and still the same an hour later, when I was finished with the backpack and changed in pyjamas, teeth brushed.
I only felt the edge subside as I snuggled up with Milk, switched the light off from the switch located a little too close to my pillow, pulling my checkered covers over both of us. The bright moon blaring into our bedroom.
[A/N] Double chapter! Kiss kiss to the awesome Wattpad Creators Program and to my amazing patrons... ( ËÍ áµ ËÍ â¡ )