More Than You Thought

[Russell Tomas Espin]

Hey! For once it's not a fanfic. This is a short story I wrote kind of out of boredom but partially for school. I had to write a story about a socially challenged or diprived character in either first or second perspective. Obviously I chose second. The story is about a socially deprived boy named Seth Tragedy who, already with depression and bipolar, has an alcoholic and very abusive father. I like to write things on the darker perspective and this gives you a little glimpse of my normal writing style! Please comment. They are greatly appreciated.

You keep your head down as you walk the halls of Avril Valley High School. The jocks stare at you and laugh when they see the hood that hides half of your face, shielding their view from the scar that runs from your eye and across your cheek. Few know of the brightness that used to play across your beautiful blue eyes and even fewer know of the darkness that has replaced it. As your pace slows, one of the bigger ones sticks out his leg and you are sent tumbling to the linoleum.

The hood falls to reveal a glare that only makes them laugh harder. Lucky for you it barely covers the gash. “Trying to scare us off?” He kicks your side and you roll over in pain but show no weakness on the outside. You stand, with difficulty, to your feet and turn your eyes up to meet the cold brown ones, deepening the glare, your fist curling and uncurling. “Do you really think,” you say, voice low and deadly. “That being a right ass all your life is going to get you anywhere? I will never be afraid of you.”

He pretended to cower. “Yeah,” he said, with overdone sarcasm. “The day I'm afraid of you is the day I eat my sweaty boxers.” As he passes, he pushes you back, making your head slam into the locker. You sink to the floor as the final bell rings, tears slowly falling, watching the stampede of people until you are the only one left.

~*~

The first thing you hear when you walk in the door after school is the usual and demanding, “Get me a beer” from your father. He sits on the couch, watching a football game, in the exact same position he was when you left that morning. Without hesitation you move silently into the small dingy kitchen and pull one of the many tall cans out of the fridge. As you run up to your room, you place it on the table beside your father’s recliner.

Once you are inside your room, you fall onto your bed, sobs shaking your body as you roll up your sleeve to reveal a deep gash running up your arm, from the crease in your elbow all the way up your wrist. All at once, the tears fall again and your mind shoots to last night.

Fear and pain flash in your eyes. You lay in the shadow of your father, his eyes cold and empty of any remorse as frightened shivers run through your spine. The heady scent of whiskey hangs in the air and you try and fail to stand. In his hand is the top portion of a shattered whiskey bottle. He lumbers toward you, shouting incoherently, things like “will never be good enough” and “never will be worth it.”Before you can even register what has happened, your body curls inward as an indescribable agony rips through your arm and blood seeps onto the worn shag carpet.

Looking up you see him standing above you, the sharp, ragged end of the bottle less than a foot from the gash in your left arm. Through an unrelenting flow of tears, you meet his eyes. “I... hate… you.” Your face scrapes across the other half of the bottle, only adding to the already blinding pain.

The voice is barely a whisper but he seemed to have gotten the message. To match the agony in your arm, his booted foot came in contact with the small of your back, causing you to cry out. Nothing can compare. The agony unbearable…the fervent hatred smoldering deep inside your heart, your soul and every fiber of your being. As you lay there, shaking and sobbing, the blood soaking the floor, your father stumbles upstairs and you fall into a sleep so far from peaceful, yet thankfully dreamless.

After the scene the previous day, you take a new route, away from the jocks, as you walk to your locker and stuff your books into it angrily. The flicking motion off your wrist sends a stab of pain through your entire arm, causing it to recoil involuntarily. You clench your teeth and hope no one noticed. When you close your locker, you back-step, swinging your bag over your shoulder in rush to get to P.E. A snarl sounds from behind you and you blink as you come face to face with the same bitter eyes as yesterday.

“Leave. Me. Alone,” you say shortly before he can even open his mouth, your eyes burning with pain and heartless anger. Keeping a brisk pace and making sure he wasn’t following, you make it over to the gym just outside the main hall. Every movement hurts and you hope that you are able to do P.E. today. Coach Alyson gives you a warm smile as you approach her, almost stumbling as the bruise in your side gives an unpleasant twinge. “Are you all right?” Trying to return her smile you try to keep your voice even. “Y-yes coach. Just fine.” Much to your dismay, your hood falls and reveals the end of your scar.

Coach Alyson gasped. “Dear, w-would you please remove the hood.” A tear falls as you obey. Her mouth falls open in an almost perfect “o” as her breathing became short and ragged. She touches it lightly and you wince in pain. “W-we need to get you to the nurse’s office, and quickly. I think she might need to see this.” And before you can protest, Coach Alyson is whisking you along the hall you had just come through.

You walk into the brightly colored and lit office, squinting against the sudden light. Alyson talks in a low voice to one of the secretaries, who is nodding her head repeatedly. She stands and leads us into an office at the corner of the office. A tall, young looking woman stands in the corner, her back to us, positioning a large picture frame. After a couple of seconds, she clambers down from the short ladder and faces us with a slight smile. “Seth has something he wants to…show you.” As much as you don’t want to, you take off the black fabric over your head to, once again, reveal the half inch wide scar on your left cheek.

The look on her face makes your heart break. The nurse speaks with a very faint British accent. “Would you so kindly remove the jacket altogether?” A deep breath soothes your uneven breathing as you remove the black fabric.

It seems to you that the first thing that both of them notice is the one on your wrist. “Be-very-careful,” you warn the nurse as she takes your arm. Alyson is behind you, examining the purplish-blue bruises on your back and side. “Seth, how long have you had these, and more importantly, how did it happen?” The fire returns to your eyes as you recount the last two nights, telling them everything, everything he had done. The two ladies exchanged stunned and fearful glances. “Have you tried CP--?”

You laugh bitterly. “If I had tried CPS, do you think that I would be in this situation? They don’t do crap! I’m sorry, but nothing can save me now.” The nurse shook her head. “But we can. Do you see what he’s doing to you? If the glass had scraped deep enough, he could’ve hit bone and a central vein? Realize now Seth, that if you do not do something soon, you could be dead before you graduate as a freshman.”

Shaking your head, you draw yourself up to your full height, so that you stand almost a half foot taller than both of them. “I am so sick of not being able to fight my own battles! I told my cousin about this and she tried to do everything for me, saying that she would take care of it. I’m almost seventeen and I need to stand up for myself. I’m sorry, but I need to do this on my own, I’m much stronger than you may think.”

As you walk out of the office, you snarl angrily and look away. The same, thin body stands at the counter, leaning against it, as if he had nothing better to do. He sees you walk out, a cocky half smile appears on his face. “Hey!” He calls. You look up. His eyes are alight with spite but you, once again, look away and try to walk out before it could turn into anything more than tension between enemies. But to your dismay, he follows.

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I'll add more to it as I come up with more for it and the updates will be in the title.