drunkonhim
in
__vam
Eternal Chp. 4
Title: Eternal
Summary: Bam is a lonely boy who finds his first real friend in the new girl next door. But this girl isn't all that she seems...
Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one. This is just my imagination, inspired by a wonderful novel
A/N: Just a Whore will hopefully be updated in the next week or two. I've got an exam and a paper to get through before then, so we'll see how it goes. Until then, I hope you enjoy what I have :)
Previous Chapter:
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Fourth period, English class; the last class of the day. The blue eyed boy sat hunched over his desk, doodling absently in his notebook as Mr. Conner stood in front of the class, reading an excerpt from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He knew that he should probably be paying attention and taking notes like the rest of his classmates, but his mind was somewhere else at the moment. Every couple of minutes, his eyes would peek up from his notebook and glance towards the clock in the front of the class. Since his arrival this morning, he had been unconsciously counting down the hours until his school day would be done. He was counting down the hours until he could go back to the playground.
Thoughts of the green eyed girl had been filling his mind all day. Bam had daydreamed about her opening her front door and discovering his gift. He wondered if she had smiled when she saw his hand-made card. What did her smile look like in the light? Maybe she’ll wear the boots he gave her tonight, he thought. After all, regardless if she liked it or not, it seemed a better alternative than running around barefoot in the snow…. She’ll like it, he thinks. She’ll like it and then he’ll get to see her smile.
There is a stinging sensation on his cheek suddenly, as if he had been stung by some kind of insect. Bam hisses and reaches his hand to touch his cheek. His fingertips brush against something soggy and he realizes what it was; a spitball. Somewhere behind him, he can hear Chris Raab snickering…. At least he didn’t put anything inside the spitball this time. There’s another sting on the base of his neck, followed by another. Bam’s eyes shut tightly as the boy continues firing his disgusting ammo at him. His hand is shaking as it grips tightly to his pencil. How he would love to be able to take the sharp pencil in his hand, turn around and jam it into Chris’ eye. He would love to hear the boy’s scream as he popped his eye like a grape. Another hit to his cheek and the pencil snaps in his hand.
“Argh!” The growl escapes from him before he could stop it. Bam’s heart freezes and his eyes go wide as the classroom falls silent. Though his eyes are focused on his desk, Bam knows that they’re watching him, he can feel their eyes on him. The teacher has stopped reading. He can hear the footsteps coming towards him. Keep breathing, he tells himself. Just keep breathing.
“Brandon…,” Mr. Connor says his name slowly. Bam doesn’t look up. The shadow cast over his desk tells the boy that the teacher is hovering over him. “Is there something wrong?”
“N- no,” Bam whispers. Blue eyes stay focused on the broken pencil laying there on the desk. Don’t look up…. Never look them in the eyes.
There’s silence for a moment. Bam can feel his heart pounding in his chest. Why won’t Mr. Connor just move already? He’s already embarrassed enough.
“Brandon-” Mr. Connor says his name, but the piercing sound of the school bell prevents him from saying any more. The students hurry to stuff their notes into their bags before taking off towards the door. The teacher yells to the class to have the next chapter of the novel read before Wednesday. Bam’s eyes stay down as he gathers up his things. His heart has slowed and he thinks that he is safe for another day. Before he can make his escape though he hears the teacher say-
“Brandon, can I have a word with you?”
The boy freezes at the sound of the older man’s voice. Shit…. Slowly, Bam turns himself around, eyes still focused downwards. He forces his feet to shuffle forward until he’s standing before the teacher’s desk. Mr. Connor doesn’t say anything at first. Bam thinks that he’s probably waiting for the boy to look at him. He just wants to get this over with.
“Brandon,” his teacher finally begins. “Do you want to tell me what that little outburst was about?”
“…It was nothing,” Bam mumbles.
Mr. Connor makes a noise, some kind of muttering that Bam couldn’t make out. The boy flinches when he feels a hand at his cheek. Out of shock, he finally looks up to Mr. Connor; the teacher was holding the spitball he peeled from Bam’s cheek.
“And this?” He holds out the wadded paper for Bam to see. “How did that get there?”
“I- I don’t know,” Bam shrugs. Mr. Connor just lets out a heavy sigh…. He’s disappointed in him.
“Brandon, have they been giving you trouble again?”
“No,” the boy replies instantly. He can’t do anything that would get Ryan and his gang in trouble, they’ll know it was him.
“If they’re still bothering you I can-”
“Don’t!” Bam interrupts. He knew where Mr. Connor was going with this. The teacher meant no harm, but the last time he had tried to help, Ryan and his gang got a week of detention and Bam got a week of pure hell. “I- I can handle it myself.”
“Look… I know you’ve been having a tough year,” the teacher sighs, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “With your parents… and your brother-”
“I have to go,” Bam says. “I’m gonna miss the bus.”
The teacher just stares at the boy for a moment, a little shocked at his sudden abruptness. He takes a moment to look at him though and he can see the anger and mild fear in his eyes. Brandon doesn’t want to talk…. There’s not much he can do about it.
“Alright,” the teacher nods. “My door is always open though, if you ever need to talk.”
“T- thanks,” the boy says lowly.
In a flash, he’s turned and is headed out the door. The teacher just stares after him, shaking his head lightly. He could never quite understand that boy. A few years ago he had been different, not exactly better, but different. Before, he hadn’t been so afraid to speak up during class, he wasn’t so afraid to make eye contact, he had even had a few friends. Amazing how that seemed to change once Ryan Dunn joined their class.
The teacher wasn’t an idiot, he knew what Ryan and his little friends would do the boy. He’s tried several times to intervene on Brandon’s behalf, but nothing seemed to help. He also knows how cruel kids can be, especially in this stage of their life, when they are trying to carve out their young identities. Ryan Dunn has shown himself to be the alpha male, while Brandon is the runt of the pack. Shame, he thought. If the boy could just gain some kind of self-confidence, he knew that he could be great. So the teacher just shakes head, knowing that that day is a long way off.
Bam’s feet are quick as he hurries down the hallway. Yes, he needs to catch the bus. If he doesn’t, he’s left with two choices; either call his mother or walk home. Ape never liked it when Bam called her during work. She would berate him the whole way home about how she couldn’t afford to keep taking time off because of his carelessness. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with that right now. But he needs to hurry to the buses for another reason. He knows that Ryan and his gang are out there somewhere, waiting for him.
Mr. Connor has no idea what he’s done by keeping Bam behind after class. The boy knows that Ryan will jump to conclusions, thinking that Bam had gotten his friend in trouble. He could try to explain to them that he had kept his mouth shut, but it wouldn’t make any difference to them. So Bam hurries, trying his best to keep his head down and make it to the safety of the school bus. He’ll sit close to the front, near the driver where they won’t be able to touch him without being noticed.
He goes through the final door and is outside the school now. The boy can hear the engines of the busses just in the distance. Good, he still has time. Just a little bit farther and he’ll be safe. Peeking his eyes up, Bam can see that the first bus has closed its doors and is about to set off. He needs to hurry now. The boy takes off in a slow sprint, hoping that he’ll be able to make it this time. He’s almost there…. Just halfway.
“Fucking pig!”
He hears the shout, but doesn’t have time to turn before he feels the ball of snow and ice connect to the side of his head. The blow takes him off guard, knocks him to the ground and makes him lose his backpack. They surround him quickly, kicking his bag away before he has time to stop them. In the distance, he can hear the sound of the last bus leaving.
“Did ya squeal on me again piggy?” Chris Raab asks, kicking the dirty snow at Bam’s face. To be honest, Bam is surprised that he said anything at all. Raab is the weakest one of the group, the one who will follow orders, but remain silent.
“Did you cry to the teacher like a little baby?” Ryan mocks. Bam refuses to answer them. He’s learned long ago that trying to fight back with words will only give them more fuel for the fire. So he will remain silently defiant, waiting for it all to be over.
Hands are pulling him up from behind now. He feels a pair of long arms hook under his, connecting at the base of his neck. Brandon Dicamillo was holding him up, keeping him locked in a position that made it impossible for him to try to defend himself…. Not that he’s ever tried in the past.
“Look at me asshole,” Ryan commands, slamming his fist in the boy’s gut.
Bam doubles over, letting out a low grunting noise, but looks up nevertheless. He knows that the next hit will be worse if he doesn’t do as Ryan says. The boy was not above hitting below the belt. Looking up, he can see the superior smile that Ryan is sporting as he stands with his arms crossed. He’s thinking about what his next move will be, about what degrading thing he can force Bam to do today.
“Did you tell on Raab?” He asks. He already knows that Bam wouldn’t dare do anything to get the vicious group into trouble, he’s just enjoying the power-play far too much. “Did you, you little bitch?”
The boy shakes his head, but Ryan doesn’t find that to be an acceptable answer. He punches Bam’s stomach as hard as he can, knocking the wind from the boy.
“I bet he cried like a little baby,” Dico says behind him, tightening his grip on Bam. “‘T- teacher, they were mean to me again!’,” the boy mocks, using a weird high-pitch voice. He hated Dico’s weird voices and the mind games that he would play.
“What did you say then?” Ryan asks. “Come on, out with it.”
“I… I didn’t say anything,” Bam finally finds his voice to speak.
“Damn right you didn’t,” Ryan says. “Piggy knows when to keep his mouth shut, doesn’t he?” The vicious little boy puts his finger on Bam’s nose, pushing the tip upward until it resembles a pig’s.
“Squeal for me Piggy,” he commands. “Squeal!”
The boy’s eyes shut tightly as he does as he’s told. The noise is high-pitched and loud, just like Ryan likes. He’s had a lot of chances to practice this. The whole time, Dico and Raab are laughing their asses off, enjoying the things that Ryan can make him do.
His throat is nearly raw by the time Dico throws him back down on the ground. There are hot tears in his eyes, so he keeps his head down to prevent them from seeing. Crying in front of them is the worst thing that he can do. So instead of watching them to see what they will do next, he reaches around in the snow, trying to pick up the things that have fallen from his bag. They’re still laughing above him, but that’s alright. As long as that’s all they are doing.
The next strike is hard enough to blur his vision and make him scream. Someone had thrown something at him again. It was cold and wet, making him think it was another snowball, but it had hurt too much to have just been a snowball…. Unless there was a rock in it. Shaky fingers reach to where the thing had it and it feels wet. Pulling back his fingers, Bam can see his blood staining them. There had definitely been a rock in the snowball.
“You idiot!” Ryan yells at Raab, slapping his friend on the back of his head. “Now his mom is going to ask questions!”
The boys take off running, leaving Bam kneeling in the snow. Once they are completely gone, he allows a few of his hot tears to fall. The salty tears sting the new wound on his cheek. He’s not even allowed the comfort of a tear…. Sniffling, Bam searches for the contents that had spilled from his backpack. He stuffs them all back into the bag quickly and begins to stand. His legs feel like jelly and the boy fears that he might fall. Bam tries to steady himself as he begins his walk. Home is a few miles away. He’s got a long way to walk. A long way to go until he’s back at the playground with her.
There was a home in West Chester that many neighbors in the township chose to ignore. The grass of the yard was littered in brown splotches and in desperate need of cutting. The first step of the front porch was missing while the other two made terrible squeaking noises. On the outside, the shingles needed to be repaired, the paint of the walls was chipping away and a window needed replacing. On the inside, drywall needed to be patched, the kitchen sink was in desperate need of a plumber, and unbeknownst to the residents, there was a patch of mold growing in the far corner of the bathroom. Yes, this house was the embarrassment of a township that prided itself on appearance…. To three men though, this little hovel was home…. Or at least it had been.
To one of the residents of the house, this place hasn’t felt like home in a long time. His home was a city far away, filled with the people and things that he had once loved. This little home here was nothing more than his prison and the lithe blonde sitting on the broken sofa was its warden. Antti had served his time here, but now it was time for him to break out. It was time for the bassist to leave behind this place of heartache and broken dreams, time for him to finally go home and turn his life around. It was time for Antti to finally be free.
The man with unnaturally bright red hair was tip-toeing across his room, trying his hardest not to make a sound as he packed up another bag. This was cowardly of him, he conceded. To be afraid of the small man in the other room was pathetic, but Antti knew that there really wasn’t any other way to go about this. If Jonne knew what he was up to, what he was planning to do, then he knows what the reaction will be. Those big blue eyes will look at him as if the bassist had ripped out his heart and he’ll find himself losing his nerve to go through with his plan…. It had happened before, when Jay and Snack left. He had meant to go with them then, but those damn blue eyes had kept him trapped.
It was unfair of him to put this all on Larry. The guitarist had always been the strongest of them though. He was the only one who was strong enough to let go of everything else in his life in order to take care of a friend. Antti thought that long ago he could be that way. It seemed so long ago that the six of them felt like they could take on the world. As long as they were together, they could do anything. One by one though, they all fell away and now Antti is just so tired of trying.
Though he’ll never say it aloud, the bassist couldn’t help the feelings of resentment he carried for Jonne. He knows that the singer had only tried to do what was best for them, but in a way, it was his fault that everything had fallen apart. They had a good life back in Helsinki. They had friends, family and the band had been doing well there. Jonne had been the only one discontent back home, but that was mostly due to his brother’s constant berating of Jonne’s dream. The singer had been the only one who had truly wanted to leave…. Now they had all paid the price for it. Things will never go back to the way they were… and it was all Jonne’s fault.
The blonde sat on the lumpy sofa, blankly staring at the phone sitting on the coffee table in front of him. That’s all that he had been doing most of this afternoon, just sitting there, waiting for some kind of news. Why hadn’t he called? Why hadn’t he come home? In all of their time here, Larry had never stayed out all night without letting someone know where he was. Ever since the whole ordeal with Christus, they knew that they couldn’t risk letting another member of the group fall down that path. So they told each other everything… or at least they used to.
Sighing to himself, Jonne breaks his staring contest with the phone to turn on the television. He needed some noise to drown out his own thoughts and Antti’s movements in the other room. The bassist thinks he’s being quiet, but the walls here are paper thin. If Jonne listens hard enough, he can hear absolutely everything that goes on inside this house. Whether it be Antti shuffling around in their room, or a whispered conversation between two friends about how they should break the news to Jonne.
Despite what his friends believe, Jonne isn’t as naïve as he appears. To the casual observer, the lithe young man looks like a simple, innocent child. On most days, he’s glad to try to keep that appearance. He’ll be bouncy and cute and his friends will laugh and ruffle his hair. It was his way to keep tension down on those particularly harsh days. In reality though, Jonne was more hardened than his friends could ever know. Years of abuse at the hand of his parents and being passed around from one foster home to another had done that to him.
The band had been the highlight of Jonne’s life. Years of feelings of worthlessness and pain just seemed to wash away whenever the six of them were together, creating something special. And they were good! People may not have seen it, but Jonne knew that they had something special, that they could go on to do such great things. That was why he pushed so hard for them to come to America. He truly believed that they had a chance if they left Helsinki, but in reality, it had only ended up dooming them. Jonne tried to remain hopeful, but it was all useless in the end.
Leaving Christus had been his breaking point. When the group had moved from New York and left their rhythm guitarist behind, Jonne had a bit of a breakdown. Though the rest of them hadn’t realized it yet, Jonne knew that it had been the beginning of the end. He had been right too…. One by one, they all lost faith in their dreams and one by one, they had all left him. Jonne tried living in a state of denial, believing that there was still hope of making it one day, but he could only keep up that act for so long…. The dream was dead, he knew it.
Though he knew that there was really no point in staying here, Jonne also knew that there was no way he could ever go home. Tommi had been so angry with him when Jonne told him of his plans. He had screamed at his little brother, calling him a loser and telling him that he would come crawling back to him some day. The blonde couldn’t go back there, he wouldn’t give his big brother the satisfaction of admitting he was right. So he stays here, knowing all the time that his friends hate him for it…. Well, all except for Larry.
Of all the people Jonne has ever known, he was never closer to anyone than Larry. Yes, he had been intimate with Christus, but his and Larry’s relationship was different. He and the guitarist had been friends since their early teens, and ever since then, Larry had always looked after Jonne. Through one heartache after another, Jonne always had Larry’s shoulder to cry on. He was dependent on the older man, he knew it, but for some reason it felt alright. Larry was always happy to be there for him… he kept Jonne strong. Honestly, without him, Jonne knew that he would be completely lost.
This is why he became so scared when he discovered that Larry never came home. It wasn’t like the guitarist to do things like this, he had always been the responsible one, the one that kept things together. It wasn’t like him to make his friends worry unnecessarily. Where could he be then? As far as Jonne knew, he didn’t have a girlfriend and he didn’t stay out all night with people he knew around town. Maybe he had met someone though and couldn’t get to a phone? There were many possibilities… Jonne was just hoping that it wasn’t the worst.
At the sound of a door opening, Jonne turns his head to the side. He sees Antti coming down the hall towards him, his head down to avoid eye contact…. He’s been doing that a lot these past few weeks. Jonne’s eyes remain steady on him though as he comes closer, walking past him towards the kitchen. The blonde shakes his head sadly. Antti still hasn’t grown the balls to tell him. It was upsetting, so unlike the bassist to not speak what was on his mind.
“Still haven’t heard anything?” Antti calls from the kitchen. The silence must have been killing him as well.
“No,” Jonne replies. “…I’m starting to get worried.”
“I’m sure he’s alright,” Antti tells him. The red haired man comes back into the living room with two bottles of beer in hand. With a half-hearted smile, he hands one of the bottles to Jonne. The blonde wasn’t really in the mood to drink, but he takes it nonetheless.
“It’s not like him to stay out without letting us know,” he says softly.
“Larry’s a big boy,” the bassist tells him, ruffling the blonde’s hair. “He can take care of himself.”
“I know,” Jonne sighs. He doesn’t know how to make Antti understand.
“If anything, he probably broke down and finally went home with Charlotte,” he suggests.
“That waitress who’s always hitting on him?”
“Yeah,” Antti laughs. “She’s been trying to hook him for months. He’ll probably come stumbling in with a look of shame in no time…. And if he doesn’t, well then we have a shift together tonight. He’s fine Jonne.”
“I guess,” Jonne sighs, sinking back into his chair. He’d like to believe that everything is fine… but this was just so unlike Larry.
Antti stares down solemnly at his friend as Jonne absently sips at his beer. He knows that it wasn’t like Larry to worry his friends like this. The last thing the guitarist would do is make Jonne so nervous when he’s already in such a fragile state…. But he can’t help but wonder. He knows that Larry isn’t happy here either, that he wants to find something in his life to be excited about again. Lord knows he’s never going to find it if he’s stuck here, looking after the singer…. Maybe he decided to break out as well. It doesn’t seem like the case, but Antti almost wishes it were for the sake of his friend.
“So what are you doing back there?” Jonne asks suddenly, his eyes cut up to Antti.
The bassist can’t look into those blue eyes right now. If he does, he’ll just end up becoming trapped again…. Still, he doesn’t have the heart to tell him just yet.
“Just… trying to think of some new lyrics,” he lies. Jonne gives him a warm smile and looks away. Antti takes another swallow of his beer and takes off down the hall, back to his room. He knows that it was wrong to lie to the singer like that… but he’s too much of a coward to tell him the truth.
Once Antti is gone, Jonne brings his beer to his lips and takes two large gulps. Its one thing for Antti to lie to him, but to cover with something like that… that was just cruel. The bassist knows how much the band had meant to him. He knows how Jonne had buried himself in denial, how he tried to believe that it would all work out. If he didn’t have the guts to tell him the truth, that’s fine. But he shouldn’t have pretended that he still cared.
“Breaking news; a body has been discovered in the fire that broke out in a downtown apartment complex this morning. Police have not yet identified the remains, but it is believed to be male, between the age of twe-”
Jonne’s eyes look up as the television screen turns to static. Confused, Jonne picks up the remote and tries to flip the channels only to see the same static. After a moment, it clicks in his mind; they hadn’t paid the cable bill last month. Business had been slow at the pub where Antti and Larry worked and they hadn’t made enough to pay for both electric and cable. Oh well… he supposed he could live without television for a while. It had just made it easier to drown out his thoughts if there was some noise in the background. Now he was stuck with thoughts of Antti packing up his bags and worry over where Larry was…. Worry if his best friend had finally given up on him too.
It was just before dusk when Bam walked through his front door. The boy sighed in content when he felt the rush of warmth from the heater hit his skin, soothing his freezing limbs. It had been a long walk home through the thick snow and the wind that had decided to pick up. He rubs his hands together, bringing them to his cold lips so he can attempt to warm them with his hot breath. In his hurry to leave that morning, he had forgotten to grab his gloves. His fingers were now numb and red, his joints aching as he tried to bend them…. Could have been worse though. Could have been raining.
Bam stops rubbing his hands for a moment to take in his surroundings…. The lights in the living room were on, as well as the television. Everything had been off when he left this morning. The poor boy almost felt like crying when he realized what this all meant.
“Ape?” Bam called curiously, kicking off his slush covered boots next to the door. His toes feel swollen beneath his thin wool socks. They’re probably bright red as well. Hell, Bam wouldn’t be surprised if there was frost stuck to them.
“Ape?” He calls again, going down the hall to the living room. He can see the television playing the early evening news, but no sign of his mother.
“Mom?” The boy tries one last time. There is still no answer from his mother.
He walks carefully into the living room. Some of his icy skin is beginning to warm, the blood flowing back making him tingle. He hears a noise coming from the sofa, something like groaning. Walking on his tip-toes now, Bam goes up to the sofa and peeks over the side. His mother is lying there, sleeping in her worn pink robe. Her nose is as red as Bam’s frozen digits, her eyes looked puffy, and there was a small pile of tissues on the floor next to her. She had made herself sick again.
This happened from time to time. She had stayed out too late when she visited Jess last night and now she was going to have a terrible cold. Bam pitied her, but for the most part he was a bit angry. If he had known that she was home, then he would have called, would have made her feel guilty enough to come and pick him up. He would have endured her nagging if he had known that it meant not walking home through a tundra. Oh well…. Its over now, nothing he can do about it.
Next to the box of tissues, Bam sees a bottle of medicine. Curious, Bam pokes her foot, but the woman doesn’t stir. He tries a little harder; this time he gets a groan, but nothing more. She’ll be out for a while. Sighing to himself, the boy sets down his schoolbag and pulls the wool blanket and extra pillow from the hall closet. He tucks the pillow carefully underneath her head and lays the blanket over her, letting it rest at her chin. This isn’t the first time he’s had to do this for her….
“…believed to be male, between the age of twenty and twenty-eight. Investigators are not yet sure whether the fire had been started before or after the man’s death. More on this story at eleven.”
Bam turns off the television. He didn’t know why his mom had it on the news. She hated watching it, said it was too depressing. Then again, he didn’t know how long she had been lying here. Maybe she had fallen asleep during one of her soaps. Taking one last look at his mother, Bam goes towards the kitchen. He opens the fridge door and is relieved to see that Ape had at least gone grocery shopping. It had been a few days since he had something other than cereal and frozen pizza.
The boy takes out the fresh sandwich meat and loaf of bread from the fridge and sets out making a decent size snack. He sits down at the kitchen table with his small meal. For a moment, he almost wishes that he had left the television on…. Its too quiet at the table, has been for a while. Bam can remember a time when the dining room had been the loudest one in the house. Every night, Ape would have dinner ready at precisely seven. By then, Phil would be sat at the head of the table with his boys on either side of them. Phil’s heavy laugh would fill the room as Jess told him a funny story or Bam cracked a joke. Ape would complain loudly about her day or scold the boys for their rude table manners, but they were always able to get her to lighten up and join in the fun. Now the laughter is gone from this room and there’s nothing but horrible silence.
Shaking his head, Bam takes another bite from his sandwich. He takes a look up at the clock and sees that its almost nighttime. Should he go ahead out to the park? He had wanted to be home early so that he could go there and meet Ville, so he could have plenty of time with her before he had to begin his responsibilities for the evening. Missing the bus had taken that away though. He was still shivering from the cold, it would be a while before he will be warm enough to consider going back out. Plus, he still had homework that he needed to do. He needed to make up his last math assignment and do the ten new problems that Mr. Connor had assigned today. He needed to read the next chapter in Tom Sawyer. He needed to make sure that his mother was alright whenever she woke up….
He takes two large bites of the sandwich, finishing it off and takes his plate to the sink, stacking it on top of the other dishes there. He needed to do those too. It could wait though. He would have time to do some of his math homework before bed, and he always gets up early enough to work on it before bed. The chapter of the book wasn’t due until next week, he had plenty of time to read it. Already his muscles were starting to warm back up. As long as he put on some thicker socks and his gloves, he should be alright. Ape… well, she could survive a night crashing on the couch. For now, everything could wait until later. Right now, Bam had somewhere to be.
It was dark by the time Bam made it out to the park. There were other kids out here tonight, teenagers who lived in the neighborhood. Sometimes they liked to hang out on the swings and “pretend” to enjoy their former childhood games. Other times, this was just a place for them to smoke and drink in secret. There’s only three of them out here tonight, two boys and a girl that were huddled closely together underneath the slide. He knew them, they were Chad, Deron, and Kelly. They had been friends of Jess…. They’ll leave him alone.
Though Bam doesn’t fear the little group of teenagers, he decides to keep his distance from them as he waits to see a familiar set of green eyes. Though he didn’t want to admit it, he was mildly nervous about seeing her again. Mostly, he was anxious about seeing her reaction to his gift. Would she like it? Or would it be seen as him coming on too strong? In a way, this was subconsciously a test for her. Either she would accept or reject the gift, a piece of him…. He wanted so badly for her to like it.
To keep his mind occupied, Bam kicks through the snow near the tree with the missing bark. In the past few nights, he had forgotten all about his secret weapon. He wouldn’t play with it now, not when there were others so close by. But after a day like this one, the boy needed to feel it in his hands. He needed to feel that wave of false power wash over him. Bam wanted to hold the large branch and close his eyes, imagining what it would feel like to swing it hard against the back of Ryan’s skull. He wanted to picture sharpening it down and stabbing it into Chris Raab’s chest, to use it as a pike for Dico’s head. So he searches through the snow desperately, wanting so badly to feel that power again.
The voices of the teens have quieted down to a low murmur. Bam pauses when he hears Kelly whisper his name before their voices become inaudible again. The boy peeks over his shoulder and sees the group looking in his direction. He makes eye contact with Deron for a brief second before the teen turns away. Please leave me alone, he thinks. Bam turns around and digs his hand in the snow, determined to find his weapon. The voices behind him are gone when he finally wraps his hand around the base of the stick.
With a small grin of victory, Bam pulls his weapon from the bank of snow. Unfortunately, the smile was short lived when he realized that his weapon of power was cracked in two, the pieces connected together by a sliver of bark. He had forgotten about that…. In his rage the other night, he had attacked the tree, breaking his weapon in half…. It was no longer his Spartan doru, nor his Viking long-sword. His power had been broken…. It was completely useless now.
“Fuck,” the boy cursed, throwing the stick back onto the ground. The one thing that made him feel as if he had some sort of control was nothing more than a rotting piece of wood at his feet now.
“You shouldn’t curse so much. Its not very polite.”
The boy’s spine straightens at the sound of the familiar soft voice. She was here. His disappointment is quickly forgotten, instead replaced by a sense of nervousness. Bam can feel his heartbeat quicken, thinks it silly to be so anxious. But this is the moment of truth that he had been waiting for all day. Either this is the moment that he’ll realize that she’s accepted him, or he’ll have to live with her rejection. Tucking his lower lip between his teeth, the boy inhales deeply through his nostrils and holds onto that breath as he turns around.
Ville is not behind him as he thought. Confused, his blue eyes scan around until he spots her small form on the swing-set…. There was something off about that. The swings were a good thirty feet away, yet he heard her voice almost as if she had whispered in his ear. Those thoughts are dismissed though once Bam sees her feet…. She was wearing the boots. Bam can see his old, worn brown boots on her feet as she kicks at the snow in front of her. A feeling that Bam can’t even describe begins to wash over him. It reminded him of the first time he managed to do a kick flip on his board.
Grinning from ear to ear now, the boy runs over to the swings. “Hey Ville!” He greets, his voice coming out a little too high-pitched for his liking. He’s embarrassed, but Ville seems to have not noticed.
“Hello Bam,” she greets softly, tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her ear.
There’s something different about her tonight, Bam thinks. Actually, its not something… it’s everything about her that seems different. For one, she’s not wearing that big purple sweater anymore. Tonight she had on a large black hoodie with the word DEAD! written across the front of it. Much like her sweater, this garment was far too large for her as well. It was zipped up to the top, but it still hung off her shoulder, exposing her pale skin. A flush of crimson spreads across Bam’s cheeks as he looks at her skin…. If she were to bend forward, the boy was sure that the hoodie would slide down, showing Bam more of her-
The boy stops himself from continuing that thought. It wasn’t right to think of Ville like that, not while she was right next to him anyway. So he lets his eyes travel upward from her collarbone, until he’s looking at her pretty face. This was the biggest difference about her tonight…. She looked healthier. The dark circles under eyes are gone, her cheeks are fuller, and there’s actually some color to her skin. She looked even cuter than when Bam had seen her before…. Though her hair was still a ratty mess and she still smelled as if she hadn’t bathed in some time. Actually, the latter was a bit worse tonight. Bam leans in slightly, taking a small sniff. The smell was coming from the hoodie…. Had she taken it out of the trash?
“T- thank you,” she speaks, but doesn’t look towards the boy. Instead her green eyes are focused on the notebook in her lap. “Thank you for the boots. It was very sweet of you.”
The boy’s grin grows wider, hurting his cheeks slightly. She liked the gift! She even called him sweet!
“You’re welcome,” he responds. “I’m glad that you like them. I- I was kind of afraid that you wouldn’t get them…. That your mom wouldn’t give them to you… or something.” Bam let his voice trail off, feeling that he was starting to ramble.
Ville’s eyes cut quickly up to Bam, taking the boy a little by surprise. “My mom?”
“Yeah…,” Bam nods. Had he said something wrong again? “T- that woman in front of your house this morning…. She was your mom, right?”
“Oh,” Ville says, relaxing slightly. “Tarja… Yes,” Ville nods. “She’s my mother.”
“Ok,” Bam nods. “I thought you were going to say she was your sister or something.”
Bam laughs nervously, but lets his eyes fall to the ground when Ville doesn’t say anything else. The boy curses himself for mentioning Ville’s mom like that. Yes, he had already made assumptions about the woman, about what kind of parent she must be, based on Ville’s unkempt appearance, but she was still her mother. Bam knows that he doesn’t have the best relationship with Ape, the woman was a bit neglectful, but he still wouldn’t want to hear a bad word about her. Did he cross the line mentioning her that way?
There is a sharp stinging sensation in Bam’s cheek suddenly. The boy winces, flinching away from whatever it was. Looking up, he sees long, slender fingers just an inch away from his face.
“Sorry,” Ville apologizes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I- its ok,” Bam tells her. She was touching him!
“What happened?” Ville asks, her fingers reaching out to touch him again. The fingertips trace over a sensitive trail of Bam’s cheek. It was the cut he had received earlier. He hadn’t really looked at it since he had gotten home. He imagined that the blood had crusted on his skin and the cut was probably beginning to scab over now.
“Its nothing,” Bam lies easily. He was used to making up stories about his wounds to his mother.
“It looks like something,” Ville tells him, tracing her index finger beneath the cut, flakes of dried blood coming up under her touch.
Blue eyes look up into green. He doesn’t want to tell her the truth. She didn’t know him, didn’t know what he went through daily at school. This was his chance to reinvent himself, to build himself up as something great in her eyes. Bam didn’t want her knowing how weak he truly was…. But there was something about those jade eyes. The way Ville’s fingers were gingerly tracing his wound and the concerned look in those beautiful green eyes kept Bam from telling some wild story. Instead, he was surprised when he opened his mouth and the words came out so easily.
“Some boys at school,” he tells her, still locked in that green-eyed gaze. “They had a rock in a snowball.”
“…They do things like this a lot, don’t they?”
Don’t tell her the truth, he thinks. Just lie! Say it was an accident!
“Yes,” he nods.
“And you don’t fight back, do you?”
“…No.”
Bam finally breaks her gaze, casting his eyes down to the ground in shame. Now she knew how pathetic he was. The little boy who fantasized about revenge and pain was nothing more than a weakling in her eyes. She didn’t even know the half of it though.
“Bam… you need to start fighting back.”
The boy lets out a small breath and resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s heard this speech a million times before. Someone will tell Bam that he needs to have more confidence, that he needs to stand up to his bullies. Bam will just nod his head and tell whoever it is giving the speech that he will try, but nothing ever changes. Things will never change.
“I mean it Bam,” she tells him, her voice sounding so sure. “Start fighting back.”
“How would I do that?” Bam scoffs, daring to look over to her again. The look on her face is one of complete seriousness. The hand that had been gently tracing his cheek goes down to grasp his gloved hand. Blue eyes widen slightly when the fingers are laced together and she squeezes his hand tightly.
“Whenever they hit you, you need to hit back. Hard…. You’ve never done it before. If you do it now, then they’ll stop.”
“I… I’m not that strong,” Bam admits sadly. “If I try, it’ll just make him mad.”
“You don’t have to hit with your fists,” Ville explains. “You could use a weapon… like your tree branch.”
Bam’s brow raises curiously. How did she know about that? She had caught him playing with it the other night, but she couldn’t have known the images that ran through his head. She couldn’t have known the fantasies he’s played out in his mind a thousand times over, about what he would do if only he had the chance.
“I- it’s broken,” he tells her.
Bam hear’s Ville let out a low sigh and watches as she sets the notebook in her lap down on the ground. She gets up from the swing, still clasping Bam’s hand. She gently tugs him up and leads him along the path back to where his broken weapon lay. Ville’s hand doesn’t let go until they are standing over the snapped branch. Once she lets go, Bam lets out a breath he didn’t even know he had been holding.
Ville kneels down in the snow and grabs up the broken limb. She examines it for a moment before breaking it completely. The boy watches as she discards one piece and holds the other up for Bam to see. He doesn’t really know what she’s getting at with this. His imaginative mind can only see the remains of something once great. It was useless now. Why was she showing it to him?
Ville stands now and holds the broken limb out to Bam. The boy takes it, not really knowing what it is that she wants. That’s when Ville holds her hand out and places it over the jagged end of the limb. Bam’s about to ask what she’s doing, but his words escape him when she presses her palm into the points. Her cute face shows little evidence of pain as Bam watches the splintered wood penetrate her skin, drops of blood falling from the wound.
“What are you doing!?” Bam scolds once he finds his voice again. He drops the branch to the ground, little splotches of red stain the pristine snow. The boy takes her hand carefully, turning it over to examine the wound. There was a hole in her palm, it had impaled her pretty deeply.
“That was with the dull point,” Ville explains. “If you sharpened the end, you could stab it through almost anything.”
Shocked, the boy looks into Ville’s eyes, seeing that same stoic expression. She was serious…. Yes, Bam had dreamed of doing things like this, but he never thought that he’d actually do it. Ville wasn’t kidding though. She really wanted Bam to stab his bullies should he ever need to…. It scared him a little.
“Fight back,” she tells him again. “Fight back and they’ll leave you alone…. And if they won’t, then I’ll help you…. I’m a lot stronger than I look.”
Bam believed her. As he looked at her wound, seeing how badly she had hurt herself and how little it had affected her, he knew that she was stronger than he could ever hope to be.
“Y- you’re hurt,” Bam states the obvious, hoping to change the subject. Ville just shrugs and slowly takes her hand back. The blood is still seeping from the hole in her palm, but she wipes her hand on the black hoodie, smearing red over the pale skin.
“It’s just a little pain,” Ville tells him. “I’ve had much worse.”
Bam’s spine stiffens at her comment. He already knew that the girl was a little off, but now he was beginning to wonder how much. Anyone who could do something like that to themselves and not even flinch wasn’t in their right mind. What had this girl gone through in her life to make her so unfeeling to pain? What had made her so hardened, so… devious?
“…H- have I upset you?” He hears her ask.
The boy looks up into her eyes once more. The stoic expression is gone, replaced with what looked to be a hint of regret. The dark circles under her eyes have returned, making her look so… old. It was her eyes, he thought. It was the expression in her eyes that made her look this way. Bam remembers hearing once that eyes were the gateway to the soul; Ville has an old soul. This makes Bam sad. Ville was just a kid, only a little younger than himself. She shouldn’t have this aged look about her. She shouldn’t be dirty. She shouldn’t smell as if she had picked her clothes from a dumpster. She shouldn’t be so accustomed to pain.
Before he could stop to think about it, Bam steps forward and wraps his arms around Ville, pulling the girl into a tight hug. Ville’s arms remain down by her side and he can feel her spine stiffen, but he doesn’t let go. If anything, he grips her tighter, as if hoping to absorb her pain, to take it all away from her. He didn’t want her to hurt anymore.
“…B- Bam,” her soft voice whispers, her lips brushing against the boy’s ear. “…D- do you like me?”
“Yeah,” Bam replies without hesitation. He did like Ville, he liked her a lot. It wasn’t just because she had been one of the few people to not reject him right away; he understood her. She was like him, sad and so alone. He knew what it was like to have a neglectful parent, to hurt so much. Maybe together they wouldn’t have to be this way? Everybody needed someone after all.
“I like you a lot,” he tells her, giving her a gentle squeeze for emphasis.
“…W- would you still like me… if I weren’t a girl?”
The question takes Bam off guard a bit, mostly because it was just so odd. He pulls back a little to look at her and sees that she’s waiting for a response. His hands have moved from around her back to her arms. The material of the hoodie feels thin under his fingers and he can feel her boney arms underneath. She was so small…. She was his friend though. His first friend.
“Yeah,” Bam nods. “I’d still like you…. D- do you like me?”
Bam doesn’t know why he posed the question. Maybe he just needed to hear it out loud. He needed the confirmation of what he believed. If anything, it would make him feel like less of a freak.
“Yeah,” Ville tells him. “I do.”
Tarja sat at her windowsill, staring silently out the window in the direction of the playground. In the background, she could hear the reporter on the news talking about the fire at the apartment complex, the one that she had set that morning. She heard talk of the body that had been found after the blaze had been extinguished. The first time she had heard the report, she had almost fainted from fright. She had followed the story all day though, as it had developed and was immensely relieved to discover that the body of the young man had been burned beyond recognition. Tarja didn’t know whether or not they had known about the gaping wound near his jugular vein or that his neck had been snapped with the strength that no worldly man possessed. The fire most likely would have hidden evidence of the teeth marks. She could only hope that the medical examiner would find some kind of reasonable explanation to the broken neck.
Closing her eyes for a moment, Tarja brings the glass of wine in her hand up to her lips. She didn’t do this often, only when Ville was not around and when she’s had a particularly tiring day. She couldn’t afford to fall back into old habits… and she didn’t want Ville to be disappointed in her should she fall off of the wagon. Today though had been very stressful and she needed just this one glass if she had any hope of sleeping tonight. Tarja couldn’t get the image of the young man out of her mind. Lauri, had been the name on his license…. He was from her homeland. Was his family there now, waiting for him to come back to them? It hurts that they’ll never know what happened to their little boy. They’ll always be waiting for the day when he’ll come home….
Once Tarja opens her eyes, she realizes that she had finished off the entire glass. There’s an urge to refill the glass, but she needs to remain strong and not give in to her demons. So instead, she looks back out the window, towards the playground. Ville was making it a habit to visit the playground every night… and so was the little boy from next door. Tarja was upset by this. Ville shouldn’t be out there alone with him. What if the hunger struck, became too powerful to ignore? The blood of someone so young on Ville’s hands was something that she would never be able to live with. They also couldn’t afford having people recognizing their faces. The day may come when their secret will be revealed. They wouldn’t be able to escape if the town knew where the monster slept…. So she’ll have to keep an eye on Ville. She had to keep her baby boy safe.
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comments are love ^_^
Summary: Bam is a lonely boy who finds his first real friend in the new girl next door. But this girl isn't all that she seems...
Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one. This is just my imagination, inspired by a wonderful novel
A/N: Just a Whore will hopefully be updated in the next week or two. I've got an exam and a paper to get through before then, so we'll see how it goes. Until then, I hope you enjoy what I have :)
Previous Chapter:
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Fourth period, English class; the last class of the day. The blue eyed boy sat hunched over his desk, doodling absently in his notebook as Mr. Conner stood in front of the class, reading an excerpt from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He knew that he should probably be paying attention and taking notes like the rest of his classmates, but his mind was somewhere else at the moment. Every couple of minutes, his eyes would peek up from his notebook and glance towards the clock in the front of the class. Since his arrival this morning, he had been unconsciously counting down the hours until his school day would be done. He was counting down the hours until he could go back to the playground.
Thoughts of the green eyed girl had been filling his mind all day. Bam had daydreamed about her opening her front door and discovering his gift. He wondered if she had smiled when she saw his hand-made card. What did her smile look like in the light? Maybe she’ll wear the boots he gave her tonight, he thought. After all, regardless if she liked it or not, it seemed a better alternative than running around barefoot in the snow…. She’ll like it, he thinks. She’ll like it and then he’ll get to see her smile.
There is a stinging sensation on his cheek suddenly, as if he had been stung by some kind of insect. Bam hisses and reaches his hand to touch his cheek. His fingertips brush against something soggy and he realizes what it was; a spitball. Somewhere behind him, he can hear Chris Raab snickering…. At least he didn’t put anything inside the spitball this time. There’s another sting on the base of his neck, followed by another. Bam’s eyes shut tightly as the boy continues firing his disgusting ammo at him. His hand is shaking as it grips tightly to his pencil. How he would love to be able to take the sharp pencil in his hand, turn around and jam it into Chris’ eye. He would love to hear the boy’s scream as he popped his eye like a grape. Another hit to his cheek and the pencil snaps in his hand.
“Argh!” The growl escapes from him before he could stop it. Bam’s heart freezes and his eyes go wide as the classroom falls silent. Though his eyes are focused on his desk, Bam knows that they’re watching him, he can feel their eyes on him. The teacher has stopped reading. He can hear the footsteps coming towards him. Keep breathing, he tells himself. Just keep breathing.
“Brandon…,” Mr. Connor says his name slowly. Bam doesn’t look up. The shadow cast over his desk tells the boy that the teacher is hovering over him. “Is there something wrong?”
“N- no,” Bam whispers. Blue eyes stay focused on the broken pencil laying there on the desk. Don’t look up…. Never look them in the eyes.
There’s silence for a moment. Bam can feel his heart pounding in his chest. Why won’t Mr. Connor just move already? He’s already embarrassed enough.
“Brandon-” Mr. Connor says his name, but the piercing sound of the school bell prevents him from saying any more. The students hurry to stuff their notes into their bags before taking off towards the door. The teacher yells to the class to have the next chapter of the novel read before Wednesday. Bam’s eyes stay down as he gathers up his things. His heart has slowed and he thinks that he is safe for another day. Before he can make his escape though he hears the teacher say-
“Brandon, can I have a word with you?”
The boy freezes at the sound of the older man’s voice. Shit…. Slowly, Bam turns himself around, eyes still focused downwards. He forces his feet to shuffle forward until he’s standing before the teacher’s desk. Mr. Connor doesn’t say anything at first. Bam thinks that he’s probably waiting for the boy to look at him. He just wants to get this over with.
“Brandon,” his teacher finally begins. “Do you want to tell me what that little outburst was about?”
“…It was nothing,” Bam mumbles.
Mr. Connor makes a noise, some kind of muttering that Bam couldn’t make out. The boy flinches when he feels a hand at his cheek. Out of shock, he finally looks up to Mr. Connor; the teacher was holding the spitball he peeled from Bam’s cheek.
“And this?” He holds out the wadded paper for Bam to see. “How did that get there?”
“I- I don’t know,” Bam shrugs. Mr. Connor just lets out a heavy sigh…. He’s disappointed in him.
“Brandon, have they been giving you trouble again?”
“No,” the boy replies instantly. He can’t do anything that would get Ryan and his gang in trouble, they’ll know it was him.
“If they’re still bothering you I can-”
“Don’t!” Bam interrupts. He knew where Mr. Connor was going with this. The teacher meant no harm, but the last time he had tried to help, Ryan and his gang got a week of detention and Bam got a week of pure hell. “I- I can handle it myself.”
“Look… I know you’ve been having a tough year,” the teacher sighs, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “With your parents… and your brother-”
“I have to go,” Bam says. “I’m gonna miss the bus.”
The teacher just stares at the boy for a moment, a little shocked at his sudden abruptness. He takes a moment to look at him though and he can see the anger and mild fear in his eyes. Brandon doesn’t want to talk…. There’s not much he can do about it.
“Alright,” the teacher nods. “My door is always open though, if you ever need to talk.”
“T- thanks,” the boy says lowly.
In a flash, he’s turned and is headed out the door. The teacher just stares after him, shaking his head lightly. He could never quite understand that boy. A few years ago he had been different, not exactly better, but different. Before, he hadn’t been so afraid to speak up during class, he wasn’t so afraid to make eye contact, he had even had a few friends. Amazing how that seemed to change once Ryan Dunn joined their class.
The teacher wasn’t an idiot, he knew what Ryan and his little friends would do the boy. He’s tried several times to intervene on Brandon’s behalf, but nothing seemed to help. He also knows how cruel kids can be, especially in this stage of their life, when they are trying to carve out their young identities. Ryan Dunn has shown himself to be the alpha male, while Brandon is the runt of the pack. Shame, he thought. If the boy could just gain some kind of self-confidence, he knew that he could be great. So the teacher just shakes head, knowing that that day is a long way off.
Bam’s feet are quick as he hurries down the hallway. Yes, he needs to catch the bus. If he doesn’t, he’s left with two choices; either call his mother or walk home. Ape never liked it when Bam called her during work. She would berate him the whole way home about how she couldn’t afford to keep taking time off because of his carelessness. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with that right now. But he needs to hurry to the buses for another reason. He knows that Ryan and his gang are out there somewhere, waiting for him.
Mr. Connor has no idea what he’s done by keeping Bam behind after class. The boy knows that Ryan will jump to conclusions, thinking that Bam had gotten his friend in trouble. He could try to explain to them that he had kept his mouth shut, but it wouldn’t make any difference to them. So Bam hurries, trying his best to keep his head down and make it to the safety of the school bus. He’ll sit close to the front, near the driver where they won’t be able to touch him without being noticed.
He goes through the final door and is outside the school now. The boy can hear the engines of the busses just in the distance. Good, he still has time. Just a little bit farther and he’ll be safe. Peeking his eyes up, Bam can see that the first bus has closed its doors and is about to set off. He needs to hurry now. The boy takes off in a slow sprint, hoping that he’ll be able to make it this time. He’s almost there…. Just halfway.
“Fucking pig!”
He hears the shout, but doesn’t have time to turn before he feels the ball of snow and ice connect to the side of his head. The blow takes him off guard, knocks him to the ground and makes him lose his backpack. They surround him quickly, kicking his bag away before he has time to stop them. In the distance, he can hear the sound of the last bus leaving.
“Did ya squeal on me again piggy?” Chris Raab asks, kicking the dirty snow at Bam’s face. To be honest, Bam is surprised that he said anything at all. Raab is the weakest one of the group, the one who will follow orders, but remain silent.
“Did you cry to the teacher like a little baby?” Ryan mocks. Bam refuses to answer them. He’s learned long ago that trying to fight back with words will only give them more fuel for the fire. So he will remain silently defiant, waiting for it all to be over.
Hands are pulling him up from behind now. He feels a pair of long arms hook under his, connecting at the base of his neck. Brandon Dicamillo was holding him up, keeping him locked in a position that made it impossible for him to try to defend himself…. Not that he’s ever tried in the past.
“Look at me asshole,” Ryan commands, slamming his fist in the boy’s gut.
Bam doubles over, letting out a low grunting noise, but looks up nevertheless. He knows that the next hit will be worse if he doesn’t do as Ryan says. The boy was not above hitting below the belt. Looking up, he can see the superior smile that Ryan is sporting as he stands with his arms crossed. He’s thinking about what his next move will be, about what degrading thing he can force Bam to do today.
“Did you tell on Raab?” He asks. He already knows that Bam wouldn’t dare do anything to get the vicious group into trouble, he’s just enjoying the power-play far too much. “Did you, you little bitch?”
The boy shakes his head, but Ryan doesn’t find that to be an acceptable answer. He punches Bam’s stomach as hard as he can, knocking the wind from the boy.
“I bet he cried like a little baby,” Dico says behind him, tightening his grip on Bam. “‘T- teacher, they were mean to me again!’,” the boy mocks, using a weird high-pitch voice. He hated Dico’s weird voices and the mind games that he would play.
“What did you say then?” Ryan asks. “Come on, out with it.”
“I… I didn’t say anything,” Bam finally finds his voice to speak.
“Damn right you didn’t,” Ryan says. “Piggy knows when to keep his mouth shut, doesn’t he?” The vicious little boy puts his finger on Bam’s nose, pushing the tip upward until it resembles a pig’s.
“Squeal for me Piggy,” he commands. “Squeal!”
The boy’s eyes shut tightly as he does as he’s told. The noise is high-pitched and loud, just like Ryan likes. He’s had a lot of chances to practice this. The whole time, Dico and Raab are laughing their asses off, enjoying the things that Ryan can make him do.
His throat is nearly raw by the time Dico throws him back down on the ground. There are hot tears in his eyes, so he keeps his head down to prevent them from seeing. Crying in front of them is the worst thing that he can do. So instead of watching them to see what they will do next, he reaches around in the snow, trying to pick up the things that have fallen from his bag. They’re still laughing above him, but that’s alright. As long as that’s all they are doing.
The next strike is hard enough to blur his vision and make him scream. Someone had thrown something at him again. It was cold and wet, making him think it was another snowball, but it had hurt too much to have just been a snowball…. Unless there was a rock in it. Shaky fingers reach to where the thing had it and it feels wet. Pulling back his fingers, Bam can see his blood staining them. There had definitely been a rock in the snowball.
“You idiot!” Ryan yells at Raab, slapping his friend on the back of his head. “Now his mom is going to ask questions!”
The boys take off running, leaving Bam kneeling in the snow. Once they are completely gone, he allows a few of his hot tears to fall. The salty tears sting the new wound on his cheek. He’s not even allowed the comfort of a tear…. Sniffling, Bam searches for the contents that had spilled from his backpack. He stuffs them all back into the bag quickly and begins to stand. His legs feel like jelly and the boy fears that he might fall. Bam tries to steady himself as he begins his walk. Home is a few miles away. He’s got a long way to walk. A long way to go until he’s back at the playground with her.
There was a home in West Chester that many neighbors in the township chose to ignore. The grass of the yard was littered in brown splotches and in desperate need of cutting. The first step of the front porch was missing while the other two made terrible squeaking noises. On the outside, the shingles needed to be repaired, the paint of the walls was chipping away and a window needed replacing. On the inside, drywall needed to be patched, the kitchen sink was in desperate need of a plumber, and unbeknownst to the residents, there was a patch of mold growing in the far corner of the bathroom. Yes, this house was the embarrassment of a township that prided itself on appearance…. To three men though, this little hovel was home…. Or at least it had been.
To one of the residents of the house, this place hasn’t felt like home in a long time. His home was a city far away, filled with the people and things that he had once loved. This little home here was nothing more than his prison and the lithe blonde sitting on the broken sofa was its warden. Antti had served his time here, but now it was time for him to break out. It was time for the bassist to leave behind this place of heartache and broken dreams, time for him to finally go home and turn his life around. It was time for Antti to finally be free.
The man with unnaturally bright red hair was tip-toeing across his room, trying his hardest not to make a sound as he packed up another bag. This was cowardly of him, he conceded. To be afraid of the small man in the other room was pathetic, but Antti knew that there really wasn’t any other way to go about this. If Jonne knew what he was up to, what he was planning to do, then he knows what the reaction will be. Those big blue eyes will look at him as if the bassist had ripped out his heart and he’ll find himself losing his nerve to go through with his plan…. It had happened before, when Jay and Snack left. He had meant to go with them then, but those damn blue eyes had kept him trapped.
It was unfair of him to put this all on Larry. The guitarist had always been the strongest of them though. He was the only one who was strong enough to let go of everything else in his life in order to take care of a friend. Antti thought that long ago he could be that way. It seemed so long ago that the six of them felt like they could take on the world. As long as they were together, they could do anything. One by one though, they all fell away and now Antti is just so tired of trying.
Though he’ll never say it aloud, the bassist couldn’t help the feelings of resentment he carried for Jonne. He knows that the singer had only tried to do what was best for them, but in a way, it was his fault that everything had fallen apart. They had a good life back in Helsinki. They had friends, family and the band had been doing well there. Jonne had been the only one discontent back home, but that was mostly due to his brother’s constant berating of Jonne’s dream. The singer had been the only one who had truly wanted to leave…. Now they had all paid the price for it. Things will never go back to the way they were… and it was all Jonne’s fault.
The blonde sat on the lumpy sofa, blankly staring at the phone sitting on the coffee table in front of him. That’s all that he had been doing most of this afternoon, just sitting there, waiting for some kind of news. Why hadn’t he called? Why hadn’t he come home? In all of their time here, Larry had never stayed out all night without letting someone know where he was. Ever since the whole ordeal with Christus, they knew that they couldn’t risk letting another member of the group fall down that path. So they told each other everything… or at least they used to.
Sighing to himself, Jonne breaks his staring contest with the phone to turn on the television. He needed some noise to drown out his own thoughts and Antti’s movements in the other room. The bassist thinks he’s being quiet, but the walls here are paper thin. If Jonne listens hard enough, he can hear absolutely everything that goes on inside this house. Whether it be Antti shuffling around in their room, or a whispered conversation between two friends about how they should break the news to Jonne.
Despite what his friends believe, Jonne isn’t as naïve as he appears. To the casual observer, the lithe young man looks like a simple, innocent child. On most days, he’s glad to try to keep that appearance. He’ll be bouncy and cute and his friends will laugh and ruffle his hair. It was his way to keep tension down on those particularly harsh days. In reality though, Jonne was more hardened than his friends could ever know. Years of abuse at the hand of his parents and being passed around from one foster home to another had done that to him.
The band had been the highlight of Jonne’s life. Years of feelings of worthlessness and pain just seemed to wash away whenever the six of them were together, creating something special. And they were good! People may not have seen it, but Jonne knew that they had something special, that they could go on to do such great things. That was why he pushed so hard for them to come to America. He truly believed that they had a chance if they left Helsinki, but in reality, it had only ended up dooming them. Jonne tried to remain hopeful, but it was all useless in the end.
Leaving Christus had been his breaking point. When the group had moved from New York and left their rhythm guitarist behind, Jonne had a bit of a breakdown. Though the rest of them hadn’t realized it yet, Jonne knew that it had been the beginning of the end. He had been right too…. One by one, they all lost faith in their dreams and one by one, they had all left him. Jonne tried living in a state of denial, believing that there was still hope of making it one day, but he could only keep up that act for so long…. The dream was dead, he knew it.
Though he knew that there was really no point in staying here, Jonne also knew that there was no way he could ever go home. Tommi had been so angry with him when Jonne told him of his plans. He had screamed at his little brother, calling him a loser and telling him that he would come crawling back to him some day. The blonde couldn’t go back there, he wouldn’t give his big brother the satisfaction of admitting he was right. So he stays here, knowing all the time that his friends hate him for it…. Well, all except for Larry.
Of all the people Jonne has ever known, he was never closer to anyone than Larry. Yes, he had been intimate with Christus, but his and Larry’s relationship was different. He and the guitarist had been friends since their early teens, and ever since then, Larry had always looked after Jonne. Through one heartache after another, Jonne always had Larry’s shoulder to cry on. He was dependent on the older man, he knew it, but for some reason it felt alright. Larry was always happy to be there for him… he kept Jonne strong. Honestly, without him, Jonne knew that he would be completely lost.
This is why he became so scared when he discovered that Larry never came home. It wasn’t like the guitarist to do things like this, he had always been the responsible one, the one that kept things together. It wasn’t like him to make his friends worry unnecessarily. Where could he be then? As far as Jonne knew, he didn’t have a girlfriend and he didn’t stay out all night with people he knew around town. Maybe he had met someone though and couldn’t get to a phone? There were many possibilities… Jonne was just hoping that it wasn’t the worst.
At the sound of a door opening, Jonne turns his head to the side. He sees Antti coming down the hall towards him, his head down to avoid eye contact…. He’s been doing that a lot these past few weeks. Jonne’s eyes remain steady on him though as he comes closer, walking past him towards the kitchen. The blonde shakes his head sadly. Antti still hasn’t grown the balls to tell him. It was upsetting, so unlike the bassist to not speak what was on his mind.
“Still haven’t heard anything?” Antti calls from the kitchen. The silence must have been killing him as well.
“No,” Jonne replies. “…I’m starting to get worried.”
“I’m sure he’s alright,” Antti tells him. The red haired man comes back into the living room with two bottles of beer in hand. With a half-hearted smile, he hands one of the bottles to Jonne. The blonde wasn’t really in the mood to drink, but he takes it nonetheless.
“It’s not like him to stay out without letting us know,” he says softly.
“Larry’s a big boy,” the bassist tells him, ruffling the blonde’s hair. “He can take care of himself.”
“I know,” Jonne sighs. He doesn’t know how to make Antti understand.
“If anything, he probably broke down and finally went home with Charlotte,” he suggests.
“That waitress who’s always hitting on him?”
“Yeah,” Antti laughs. “She’s been trying to hook him for months. He’ll probably come stumbling in with a look of shame in no time…. And if he doesn’t, well then we have a shift together tonight. He’s fine Jonne.”
“I guess,” Jonne sighs, sinking back into his chair. He’d like to believe that everything is fine… but this was just so unlike Larry.
Antti stares down solemnly at his friend as Jonne absently sips at his beer. He knows that it wasn’t like Larry to worry his friends like this. The last thing the guitarist would do is make Jonne so nervous when he’s already in such a fragile state…. But he can’t help but wonder. He knows that Larry isn’t happy here either, that he wants to find something in his life to be excited about again. Lord knows he’s never going to find it if he’s stuck here, looking after the singer…. Maybe he decided to break out as well. It doesn’t seem like the case, but Antti almost wishes it were for the sake of his friend.
“So what are you doing back there?” Jonne asks suddenly, his eyes cut up to Antti.
The bassist can’t look into those blue eyes right now. If he does, he’ll just end up becoming trapped again…. Still, he doesn’t have the heart to tell him just yet.
“Just… trying to think of some new lyrics,” he lies. Jonne gives him a warm smile and looks away. Antti takes another swallow of his beer and takes off down the hall, back to his room. He knows that it was wrong to lie to the singer like that… but he’s too much of a coward to tell him the truth.
Once Antti is gone, Jonne brings his beer to his lips and takes two large gulps. Its one thing for Antti to lie to him, but to cover with something like that… that was just cruel. The bassist knows how much the band had meant to him. He knows how Jonne had buried himself in denial, how he tried to believe that it would all work out. If he didn’t have the guts to tell him the truth, that’s fine. But he shouldn’t have pretended that he still cared.
“Breaking news; a body has been discovered in the fire that broke out in a downtown apartment complex this morning. Police have not yet identified the remains, but it is believed to be male, between the age of twe-”
Jonne’s eyes look up as the television screen turns to static. Confused, Jonne picks up the remote and tries to flip the channels only to see the same static. After a moment, it clicks in his mind; they hadn’t paid the cable bill last month. Business had been slow at the pub where Antti and Larry worked and they hadn’t made enough to pay for both electric and cable. Oh well… he supposed he could live without television for a while. It had just made it easier to drown out his thoughts if there was some noise in the background. Now he was stuck with thoughts of Antti packing up his bags and worry over where Larry was…. Worry if his best friend had finally given up on him too.
It was just before dusk when Bam walked through his front door. The boy sighed in content when he felt the rush of warmth from the heater hit his skin, soothing his freezing limbs. It had been a long walk home through the thick snow and the wind that had decided to pick up. He rubs his hands together, bringing them to his cold lips so he can attempt to warm them with his hot breath. In his hurry to leave that morning, he had forgotten to grab his gloves. His fingers were now numb and red, his joints aching as he tried to bend them…. Could have been worse though. Could have been raining.
Bam stops rubbing his hands for a moment to take in his surroundings…. The lights in the living room were on, as well as the television. Everything had been off when he left this morning. The poor boy almost felt like crying when he realized what this all meant.
“Ape?” Bam called curiously, kicking off his slush covered boots next to the door. His toes feel swollen beneath his thin wool socks. They’re probably bright red as well. Hell, Bam wouldn’t be surprised if there was frost stuck to them.
“Ape?” He calls again, going down the hall to the living room. He can see the television playing the early evening news, but no sign of his mother.
“Mom?” The boy tries one last time. There is still no answer from his mother.
He walks carefully into the living room. Some of his icy skin is beginning to warm, the blood flowing back making him tingle. He hears a noise coming from the sofa, something like groaning. Walking on his tip-toes now, Bam goes up to the sofa and peeks over the side. His mother is lying there, sleeping in her worn pink robe. Her nose is as red as Bam’s frozen digits, her eyes looked puffy, and there was a small pile of tissues on the floor next to her. She had made herself sick again.
This happened from time to time. She had stayed out too late when she visited Jess last night and now she was going to have a terrible cold. Bam pitied her, but for the most part he was a bit angry. If he had known that she was home, then he would have called, would have made her feel guilty enough to come and pick him up. He would have endured her nagging if he had known that it meant not walking home through a tundra. Oh well…. Its over now, nothing he can do about it.
Next to the box of tissues, Bam sees a bottle of medicine. Curious, Bam pokes her foot, but the woman doesn’t stir. He tries a little harder; this time he gets a groan, but nothing more. She’ll be out for a while. Sighing to himself, the boy sets down his schoolbag and pulls the wool blanket and extra pillow from the hall closet. He tucks the pillow carefully underneath her head and lays the blanket over her, letting it rest at her chin. This isn’t the first time he’s had to do this for her….
“…believed to be male, between the age of twenty and twenty-eight. Investigators are not yet sure whether the fire had been started before or after the man’s death. More on this story at eleven.”
Bam turns off the television. He didn’t know why his mom had it on the news. She hated watching it, said it was too depressing. Then again, he didn’t know how long she had been lying here. Maybe she had fallen asleep during one of her soaps. Taking one last look at his mother, Bam goes towards the kitchen. He opens the fridge door and is relieved to see that Ape had at least gone grocery shopping. It had been a few days since he had something other than cereal and frozen pizza.
The boy takes out the fresh sandwich meat and loaf of bread from the fridge and sets out making a decent size snack. He sits down at the kitchen table with his small meal. For a moment, he almost wishes that he had left the television on…. Its too quiet at the table, has been for a while. Bam can remember a time when the dining room had been the loudest one in the house. Every night, Ape would have dinner ready at precisely seven. By then, Phil would be sat at the head of the table with his boys on either side of them. Phil’s heavy laugh would fill the room as Jess told him a funny story or Bam cracked a joke. Ape would complain loudly about her day or scold the boys for their rude table manners, but they were always able to get her to lighten up and join in the fun. Now the laughter is gone from this room and there’s nothing but horrible silence.
Shaking his head, Bam takes another bite from his sandwich. He takes a look up at the clock and sees that its almost nighttime. Should he go ahead out to the park? He had wanted to be home early so that he could go there and meet Ville, so he could have plenty of time with her before he had to begin his responsibilities for the evening. Missing the bus had taken that away though. He was still shivering from the cold, it would be a while before he will be warm enough to consider going back out. Plus, he still had homework that he needed to do. He needed to make up his last math assignment and do the ten new problems that Mr. Connor had assigned today. He needed to read the next chapter in Tom Sawyer. He needed to make sure that his mother was alright whenever she woke up….
He takes two large bites of the sandwich, finishing it off and takes his plate to the sink, stacking it on top of the other dishes there. He needed to do those too. It could wait though. He would have time to do some of his math homework before bed, and he always gets up early enough to work on it before bed. The chapter of the book wasn’t due until next week, he had plenty of time to read it. Already his muscles were starting to warm back up. As long as he put on some thicker socks and his gloves, he should be alright. Ape… well, she could survive a night crashing on the couch. For now, everything could wait until later. Right now, Bam had somewhere to be.
It was dark by the time Bam made it out to the park. There were other kids out here tonight, teenagers who lived in the neighborhood. Sometimes they liked to hang out on the swings and “pretend” to enjoy their former childhood games. Other times, this was just a place for them to smoke and drink in secret. There’s only three of them out here tonight, two boys and a girl that were huddled closely together underneath the slide. He knew them, they were Chad, Deron, and Kelly. They had been friends of Jess…. They’ll leave him alone.
Though Bam doesn’t fear the little group of teenagers, he decides to keep his distance from them as he waits to see a familiar set of green eyes. Though he didn’t want to admit it, he was mildly nervous about seeing her again. Mostly, he was anxious about seeing her reaction to his gift. Would she like it? Or would it be seen as him coming on too strong? In a way, this was subconsciously a test for her. Either she would accept or reject the gift, a piece of him…. He wanted so badly for her to like it.
To keep his mind occupied, Bam kicks through the snow near the tree with the missing bark. In the past few nights, he had forgotten all about his secret weapon. He wouldn’t play with it now, not when there were others so close by. But after a day like this one, the boy needed to feel it in his hands. He needed to feel that wave of false power wash over him. Bam wanted to hold the large branch and close his eyes, imagining what it would feel like to swing it hard against the back of Ryan’s skull. He wanted to picture sharpening it down and stabbing it into Chris Raab’s chest, to use it as a pike for Dico’s head. So he searches through the snow desperately, wanting so badly to feel that power again.
The voices of the teens have quieted down to a low murmur. Bam pauses when he hears Kelly whisper his name before their voices become inaudible again. The boy peeks over his shoulder and sees the group looking in his direction. He makes eye contact with Deron for a brief second before the teen turns away. Please leave me alone, he thinks. Bam turns around and digs his hand in the snow, determined to find his weapon. The voices behind him are gone when he finally wraps his hand around the base of the stick.
With a small grin of victory, Bam pulls his weapon from the bank of snow. Unfortunately, the smile was short lived when he realized that his weapon of power was cracked in two, the pieces connected together by a sliver of bark. He had forgotten about that…. In his rage the other night, he had attacked the tree, breaking his weapon in half…. It was no longer his Spartan doru, nor his Viking long-sword. His power had been broken…. It was completely useless now.
“Fuck,” the boy cursed, throwing the stick back onto the ground. The one thing that made him feel as if he had some sort of control was nothing more than a rotting piece of wood at his feet now.
“You shouldn’t curse so much. Its not very polite.”
The boy’s spine straightens at the sound of the familiar soft voice. She was here. His disappointment is quickly forgotten, instead replaced by a sense of nervousness. Bam can feel his heartbeat quicken, thinks it silly to be so anxious. But this is the moment of truth that he had been waiting for all day. Either this is the moment that he’ll realize that she’s accepted him, or he’ll have to live with her rejection. Tucking his lower lip between his teeth, the boy inhales deeply through his nostrils and holds onto that breath as he turns around.
Ville is not behind him as he thought. Confused, his blue eyes scan around until he spots her small form on the swing-set…. There was something off about that. The swings were a good thirty feet away, yet he heard her voice almost as if she had whispered in his ear. Those thoughts are dismissed though once Bam sees her feet…. She was wearing the boots. Bam can see his old, worn brown boots on her feet as she kicks at the snow in front of her. A feeling that Bam can’t even describe begins to wash over him. It reminded him of the first time he managed to do a kick flip on his board.
Grinning from ear to ear now, the boy runs over to the swings. “Hey Ville!” He greets, his voice coming out a little too high-pitched for his liking. He’s embarrassed, but Ville seems to have not noticed.
“Hello Bam,” she greets softly, tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her ear.
There’s something different about her tonight, Bam thinks. Actually, its not something… it’s everything about her that seems different. For one, she’s not wearing that big purple sweater anymore. Tonight she had on a large black hoodie with the word DEAD! written across the front of it. Much like her sweater, this garment was far too large for her as well. It was zipped up to the top, but it still hung off her shoulder, exposing her pale skin. A flush of crimson spreads across Bam’s cheeks as he looks at her skin…. If she were to bend forward, the boy was sure that the hoodie would slide down, showing Bam more of her-
The boy stops himself from continuing that thought. It wasn’t right to think of Ville like that, not while she was right next to him anyway. So he lets his eyes travel upward from her collarbone, until he’s looking at her pretty face. This was the biggest difference about her tonight…. She looked healthier. The dark circles under eyes are gone, her cheeks are fuller, and there’s actually some color to her skin. She looked even cuter than when Bam had seen her before…. Though her hair was still a ratty mess and she still smelled as if she hadn’t bathed in some time. Actually, the latter was a bit worse tonight. Bam leans in slightly, taking a small sniff. The smell was coming from the hoodie…. Had she taken it out of the trash?
“T- thank you,” she speaks, but doesn’t look towards the boy. Instead her green eyes are focused on the notebook in her lap. “Thank you for the boots. It was very sweet of you.”
The boy’s grin grows wider, hurting his cheeks slightly. She liked the gift! She even called him sweet!
“You’re welcome,” he responds. “I’m glad that you like them. I- I was kind of afraid that you wouldn’t get them…. That your mom wouldn’t give them to you… or something.” Bam let his voice trail off, feeling that he was starting to ramble.
Ville’s eyes cut quickly up to Bam, taking the boy a little by surprise. “My mom?”
“Yeah…,” Bam nods. Had he said something wrong again? “T- that woman in front of your house this morning…. She was your mom, right?”
“Oh,” Ville says, relaxing slightly. “Tarja… Yes,” Ville nods. “She’s my mother.”
“Ok,” Bam nods. “I thought you were going to say she was your sister or something.”
Bam laughs nervously, but lets his eyes fall to the ground when Ville doesn’t say anything else. The boy curses himself for mentioning Ville’s mom like that. Yes, he had already made assumptions about the woman, about what kind of parent she must be, based on Ville’s unkempt appearance, but she was still her mother. Bam knows that he doesn’t have the best relationship with Ape, the woman was a bit neglectful, but he still wouldn’t want to hear a bad word about her. Did he cross the line mentioning her that way?
There is a sharp stinging sensation in Bam’s cheek suddenly. The boy winces, flinching away from whatever it was. Looking up, he sees long, slender fingers just an inch away from his face.
“Sorry,” Ville apologizes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I- its ok,” Bam tells her. She was touching him!
“What happened?” Ville asks, her fingers reaching out to touch him again. The fingertips trace over a sensitive trail of Bam’s cheek. It was the cut he had received earlier. He hadn’t really looked at it since he had gotten home. He imagined that the blood had crusted on his skin and the cut was probably beginning to scab over now.
“Its nothing,” Bam lies easily. He was used to making up stories about his wounds to his mother.
“It looks like something,” Ville tells him, tracing her index finger beneath the cut, flakes of dried blood coming up under her touch.
Blue eyes look up into green. He doesn’t want to tell her the truth. She didn’t know him, didn’t know what he went through daily at school. This was his chance to reinvent himself, to build himself up as something great in her eyes. Bam didn’t want her knowing how weak he truly was…. But there was something about those jade eyes. The way Ville’s fingers were gingerly tracing his wound and the concerned look in those beautiful green eyes kept Bam from telling some wild story. Instead, he was surprised when he opened his mouth and the words came out so easily.
“Some boys at school,” he tells her, still locked in that green-eyed gaze. “They had a rock in a snowball.”
“…They do things like this a lot, don’t they?”
Don’t tell her the truth, he thinks. Just lie! Say it was an accident!
“Yes,” he nods.
“And you don’t fight back, do you?”
“…No.”
Bam finally breaks her gaze, casting his eyes down to the ground in shame. Now she knew how pathetic he was. The little boy who fantasized about revenge and pain was nothing more than a weakling in her eyes. She didn’t even know the half of it though.
“Bam… you need to start fighting back.”
The boy lets out a small breath and resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s heard this speech a million times before. Someone will tell Bam that he needs to have more confidence, that he needs to stand up to his bullies. Bam will just nod his head and tell whoever it is giving the speech that he will try, but nothing ever changes. Things will never change.
“I mean it Bam,” she tells him, her voice sounding so sure. “Start fighting back.”
“How would I do that?” Bam scoffs, daring to look over to her again. The look on her face is one of complete seriousness. The hand that had been gently tracing his cheek goes down to grasp his gloved hand. Blue eyes widen slightly when the fingers are laced together and she squeezes his hand tightly.
“Whenever they hit you, you need to hit back. Hard…. You’ve never done it before. If you do it now, then they’ll stop.”
“I… I’m not that strong,” Bam admits sadly. “If I try, it’ll just make him mad.”
“You don’t have to hit with your fists,” Ville explains. “You could use a weapon… like your tree branch.”
Bam’s brow raises curiously. How did she know about that? She had caught him playing with it the other night, but she couldn’t have known the images that ran through his head. She couldn’t have known the fantasies he’s played out in his mind a thousand times over, about what he would do if only he had the chance.
“I- it’s broken,” he tells her.
Bam hear’s Ville let out a low sigh and watches as she sets the notebook in her lap down on the ground. She gets up from the swing, still clasping Bam’s hand. She gently tugs him up and leads him along the path back to where his broken weapon lay. Ville’s hand doesn’t let go until they are standing over the snapped branch. Once she lets go, Bam lets out a breath he didn’t even know he had been holding.
Ville kneels down in the snow and grabs up the broken limb. She examines it for a moment before breaking it completely. The boy watches as she discards one piece and holds the other up for Bam to see. He doesn’t really know what she’s getting at with this. His imaginative mind can only see the remains of something once great. It was useless now. Why was she showing it to him?
Ville stands now and holds the broken limb out to Bam. The boy takes it, not really knowing what it is that she wants. That’s when Ville holds her hand out and places it over the jagged end of the limb. Bam’s about to ask what she’s doing, but his words escape him when she presses her palm into the points. Her cute face shows little evidence of pain as Bam watches the splintered wood penetrate her skin, drops of blood falling from the wound.
“What are you doing!?” Bam scolds once he finds his voice again. He drops the branch to the ground, little splotches of red stain the pristine snow. The boy takes her hand carefully, turning it over to examine the wound. There was a hole in her palm, it had impaled her pretty deeply.
“That was with the dull point,” Ville explains. “If you sharpened the end, you could stab it through almost anything.”
Shocked, the boy looks into Ville’s eyes, seeing that same stoic expression. She was serious…. Yes, Bam had dreamed of doing things like this, but he never thought that he’d actually do it. Ville wasn’t kidding though. She really wanted Bam to stab his bullies should he ever need to…. It scared him a little.
“Fight back,” she tells him again. “Fight back and they’ll leave you alone…. And if they won’t, then I’ll help you…. I’m a lot stronger than I look.”
Bam believed her. As he looked at her wound, seeing how badly she had hurt herself and how little it had affected her, he knew that she was stronger than he could ever hope to be.
“Y- you’re hurt,” Bam states the obvious, hoping to change the subject. Ville just shrugs and slowly takes her hand back. The blood is still seeping from the hole in her palm, but she wipes her hand on the black hoodie, smearing red over the pale skin.
“It’s just a little pain,” Ville tells him. “I’ve had much worse.”
Bam’s spine stiffens at her comment. He already knew that the girl was a little off, but now he was beginning to wonder how much. Anyone who could do something like that to themselves and not even flinch wasn’t in their right mind. What had this girl gone through in her life to make her so unfeeling to pain? What had made her so hardened, so… devious?
“…H- have I upset you?” He hears her ask.
The boy looks up into her eyes once more. The stoic expression is gone, replaced with what looked to be a hint of regret. The dark circles under her eyes have returned, making her look so… old. It was her eyes, he thought. It was the expression in her eyes that made her look this way. Bam remembers hearing once that eyes were the gateway to the soul; Ville has an old soul. This makes Bam sad. Ville was just a kid, only a little younger than himself. She shouldn’t have this aged look about her. She shouldn’t be dirty. She shouldn’t smell as if she had picked her clothes from a dumpster. She shouldn’t be so accustomed to pain.
Before he could stop to think about it, Bam steps forward and wraps his arms around Ville, pulling the girl into a tight hug. Ville’s arms remain down by her side and he can feel her spine stiffen, but he doesn’t let go. If anything, he grips her tighter, as if hoping to absorb her pain, to take it all away from her. He didn’t want her to hurt anymore.
“…B- Bam,” her soft voice whispers, her lips brushing against the boy’s ear. “…D- do you like me?”
“Yeah,” Bam replies without hesitation. He did like Ville, he liked her a lot. It wasn’t just because she had been one of the few people to not reject him right away; he understood her. She was like him, sad and so alone. He knew what it was like to have a neglectful parent, to hurt so much. Maybe together they wouldn’t have to be this way? Everybody needed someone after all.
“I like you a lot,” he tells her, giving her a gentle squeeze for emphasis.
“…W- would you still like me… if I weren’t a girl?”
The question takes Bam off guard a bit, mostly because it was just so odd. He pulls back a little to look at her and sees that she’s waiting for a response. His hands have moved from around her back to her arms. The material of the hoodie feels thin under his fingers and he can feel her boney arms underneath. She was so small…. She was his friend though. His first friend.
“Yeah,” Bam nods. “I’d still like you…. D- do you like me?”
Bam doesn’t know why he posed the question. Maybe he just needed to hear it out loud. He needed the confirmation of what he believed. If anything, it would make him feel like less of a freak.
“Yeah,” Ville tells him. “I do.”
Tarja sat at her windowsill, staring silently out the window in the direction of the playground. In the background, she could hear the reporter on the news talking about the fire at the apartment complex, the one that she had set that morning. She heard talk of the body that had been found after the blaze had been extinguished. The first time she had heard the report, she had almost fainted from fright. She had followed the story all day though, as it had developed and was immensely relieved to discover that the body of the young man had been burned beyond recognition. Tarja didn’t know whether or not they had known about the gaping wound near his jugular vein or that his neck had been snapped with the strength that no worldly man possessed. The fire most likely would have hidden evidence of the teeth marks. She could only hope that the medical examiner would find some kind of reasonable explanation to the broken neck.
Closing her eyes for a moment, Tarja brings the glass of wine in her hand up to her lips. She didn’t do this often, only when Ville was not around and when she’s had a particularly tiring day. She couldn’t afford to fall back into old habits… and she didn’t want Ville to be disappointed in her should she fall off of the wagon. Today though had been very stressful and she needed just this one glass if she had any hope of sleeping tonight. Tarja couldn’t get the image of the young man out of her mind. Lauri, had been the name on his license…. He was from her homeland. Was his family there now, waiting for him to come back to them? It hurts that they’ll never know what happened to their little boy. They’ll always be waiting for the day when he’ll come home….
Once Tarja opens her eyes, she realizes that she had finished off the entire glass. There’s an urge to refill the glass, but she needs to remain strong and not give in to her demons. So instead, she looks back out the window, towards the playground. Ville was making it a habit to visit the playground every night… and so was the little boy from next door. Tarja was upset by this. Ville shouldn’t be out there alone with him. What if the hunger struck, became too powerful to ignore? The blood of someone so young on Ville’s hands was something that she would never be able to live with. They also couldn’t afford having people recognizing their faces. The day may come when their secret will be revealed. They wouldn’t be able to escape if the town knew where the monster slept…. So she’ll have to keep an eye on Ville. She had to keep her baby boy safe.
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