I heard the doorbell ring. I knew who it was but I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to answer the door. This would be the first time I have ever met him. My mom and I are very close and I wasn’t too happy with the guy coming between us, but if he made my mom happy I guess I could make an exception.
I opened the door and introduced myself. As we shook hands my name flowed off my tongue, “Danny Strray” I spoke.
He replied “Joe”.
He seemed really nice, I mean if you like that cheesy smile, bad jokes, trying to make me smile to impress my mom kind of person. He had to be nice if my mom actually brought him here. As the microwave continued to beep Danny’s flashback quickly came to an end. His sizzling Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes dinner was ready. Danny ate in his room, by himself, ever since his mom passed away. You would have never guessed but he was a happy child even though his best friend was his mom. She was all Danny had ever known but that was okay with him because she was all he had ever needed. Danny spends more time in the past then he does in the present. As Danny walks to his room with his tray of food in hand, he hears a door slam. Startled, Danny becomes hysterical and begins frantically looking around like someone is going to walk around the corner, and someone did.
Danny’s step dad, Joe, turns the corner and sees a frightened Danny standing in the hallway with his food. Joe gives him that look, and Danny takes off running down the hall to his bedroom. Potatoes and gravy flying everywhere on to the walls and the floor as Danny runs faster, looking behind him and seeing Joe chase him with an even scarier look on his face. Joe’s rough voice pierced Danny’s ears like nails on a chalk board,
“I TOLD YOU NOT TO BE OUT HERE WHEN IM NOT HOME!”
Danny knew what was coming next; he knew that he had two choices.
1)
run faster a couple more steps and not get beat
2)
give up and take his beating.
Danny did what any 16 year old would do, he ran faster. With food flying everywhere, the tray almost falling out of his hands, he made it too his room and locked his door before Joe could get to him.
Danny thought to himself, “Joe is never home this early. Why is he home?” Sitting there alone in his room with what is left of his dinner, Danny, curious but content with not knowing why Joe was home early, went to sleep.
Danny wasn’t a nerd really, he was just different. Danny had black hair that is soft to the touch. It swayed when he walked, and looked luxurious when he swooshed it out his eyes with a flinch of his neck. Danny was on the tall side and not too buff looking, he wore grungy looking clothes because he didn’t have money nor privilege to buy new ones.
Danny stalked the halls alone every day, knowing that he only had one year left until he could get out of the hell hole he called home, and wishing it would come faster.
Danny never got flashbacks at school until the one day he was at his locker and a sweet red haired, blue eyed, skinny, freshman girl said “hi” to him. Standing there flabbergasted that a person, let alone a girl, was actually talking to him.
Danny opened his mouth nervously but only a whisper came out. He tried again after clearing his throat, “H-hi” he stuttered.
The red head opened her locker which was two away from Danny’s. Danny was still shocked by just that one “hi” that he didn’t know what to do so he awkwardly turned back to his locker. As he finished he closed his locker and started walking away. As he passed the girl she let out a slight “see ya later” with a smile. Danny, letting the fact that someone actually talked to him sink in, just waved with a small smirk on his face and continued to walk to his class.
While Danny sat in his next class his mind started to wander off. He started to think about his mom.
I walked down the hall to my mom’s room, she was lying there, sweat slowly dripping down her face mixing with her unwanted tears. As soon as I walked through the door she frantically wiped at her face.
“Danny come, come sit down” she uttered emotionally.
I sat next to the bed and held her hand; we both didn’t want to get it through our minds. We sat there silently. We didn’t need to talk, the only words that we would be able to mutter is “I love you.”
My mom muttered something that I could barely understand but I managed to hear. “One day a girl is going to love you just like I do, maybe even more.”
All of a sudden my mom’s grip on my hand got looser. I wiped my tears and looked down at her, as she was lying there, wide eyed and a glazed look on her face. Her breath heavy with a wheezing sound, almost gasping for air. Her grip on my hand tightened then got loose again, so loose it was like she wasn’t even holding my hand anymore. Her body was still as a rock, her eyes open, laying straight with one hand by her side, the other grasped by my hand. I couldn’t believe what just happened. I didn’t even want to think about it. I sat next to her, in the silence of the room, holding her hand and trying to believe that what just happened was just a terrible nightmare and didn’t actually happen.
I sat there for the next hour until Joe got home; he walked through the door nonchalantly but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw my mom laying there. He rushed over not even acknowledging me, he unconsciously pushed me out of his way grabbing my mom’s hand right out of mine as I fell.
‘Ding, Ding, Ding’ the bell rang, feeling a gentle nudge on the elbow Danny wakes up. He looked up to see Mr. Martin staring in his face. Danny notices that he is now the only one still in class so he quickly wipes his tears on his face, picks up his stuff and rushes out the door leaving the words of the teacher behind.
Danny didn’t want to go home after school but he knew if he wasn’t there when Joe got home he would get beat. On his way home he thought about the flashback he had in class about his mom. Danny got this tiny twinkle in his eye as a lonely tear found its way down his cheek. Quickly he wiped it away before it brought its friends. When he got home he decided that he would do his homework and go straight to bed avoiding his step dad, and dreaming about his mom. The next couple of days at school were no different than any other mindlessly boring day. Same at home, Danny was trying his hardest to avoid his step dad and the few times he didn’t, well you could guess what happened.
The days went by at school and the one day that stands out to Danny was the day the red head with the locker next to his talked to him again. Danny and the red head were at their lockers at the same time and the red head looked over to Danny and stuck out her hand. Danny, surprised, stuck his hand out and shook hers.
She said “I’m Olive.”
“Danny Strray” he replied.
“Nice to meet you Danny Strray, what year are you?” she questioned.
Danny couldn’t believe his ears, some actually talking to him.
He stuttered “I’m-m a senior”
She giggled at the fact that he was nervous to talk to her when he is the upperclassman.
She replied “wow that’s awesome, is it fun?”
Danny was kind of getting use to the conversation thing and smoothly answered “Yea, I guess.”
“Oh nice, well I have to get to class, I’ll talk to you later. Kay?” she said with a gentle smile.
“Okay, later.” Danny replied, trying to keep his cool.
Danny decided that he was going to go to the gym instead of going home from now on, so he left to the gym. Danny was already pretty big but only because he had bulky shoulders which made him look big.
When Danny got home he went right into his room. After a while he heard a door slam and yelling. Danny thought his step dad wasn’t going to be home till later on. The pounding on his door assaulted his eardrums.
Joe started screaming viciously with his slurred words “OPEN THIS DOOR NOW!”
Danny frightened, nervously opened the door, as soon as he unlocked it and turned the door knob his step dad pushed his way in and knocked Danny to the ground. Joe jumped on top of Danny and started punching him and yelling in his face. Danny could smell the alcohol on his breathe.
“STOP! STOP! YOU CAN’T DO THIS! STOP!” Danny yelled back.
His step dad stopped, looked directly into Danny’s eyes like he was looking into his soul, and calmly said “I can do anything, I’m bigger than you.” That had been his excuse every time. “I’m bigger than you”
All of a sudden Danny passed out; he woke up the next morning on his floor with bruises on his body, sorrow in his face, and thoughts racing through his mind.
Until spring break everything was pretty much the same: constant beatings, little conversations with Olive at school, and consistent visits to the gym. Danny’s life became more extreme around spring break; some good changes other bad changes.
Olive and Danny had talked almost every single day since they first met 7 months before. The day they got back from spring break Danny decided to take a big leap and ask Olive to hangout outside of school. As Danny was walking up to his locker he and Olive made direct eye contact, which made both smile increasingly.
Danny’s got as red as a tomato when he opened his mouth to say “hi.”
Olive giggled as she said “hey.”
Danny anxiously said “I was wondering if you would like to hangout after school one day, I mean if you want to.”
Olive smiled and replied, “Yea, I’d love to, how about today after school?”
“Yea sounds good”
“Okay I’ll meet you right here after school” she said happily.
“Okay see ya then” he replied as he walked away with the biggest smile on his face.
It seemed to Danny that the school day went extremely slow, like it was almost staling and didn’t want Danny and Olive to hangout. Finally the last bell of the day rang and Danny did a fast jog to his locker because he was so excited. Olive and Danny met up and started walking together with big grins on their faces. Danny was just happy that she showed up. They walked and talked, mostly about nothing,
Olive asked the most common question “what do you want to do?”
Danny replied “I don’t care, anything” he was just happy to be with her.
They walked to the park and directly went to the swings. As they sat on the swings they talked more, then out of nowhere olive leaned in and kissed Danny. Shocked, Danny didn’t know what to do so he kissed her back, to the best of his ability. They got off the swings and started playing at the park, Danny tried to kiss Olive more, but she jokingly said no. Danny not knowing it was a joke got really mad, and at that moment Danny’s whole life changed. He smacked her. Olive not sure as to what just happened stood there bent over holding her stinging, red, hand printed cheek. She looked up and that one lonesome tear traveled down her face, sure to be followed by many more. As she looked at Danny the only thing she was able to mutter was “why?”
Danny replied “because I can, I’m bigger than you, that’s why.”
Olive quickly ran away before Danny could hit her again. He started to chase after her but then realized what horrible thing he had just done and silently made his way back to the swings. He sat there in the silence with the squeak of the swing in rhythm and thought to himself. He thought about his mom again.
The sound of sniffles, that one baby making loud noises, the birds not singing but crying just like everyone else there. The smell of fresh rain and the thought of death went through my whole body. I shivered just thinking about it, tears pouring out of my eyes just when I thought I had finally stopped. I couldn’t control it, they just kept showing up whenever I thought of her. We all knew this day would come when we found out about her cancer, but we never knew that it would actually show up so soon. I got that sick feeling in my stomach, the one you get when you cry a lot. I was almost shocked that my body had enough water to generate all these tears. I just couldn’t get it through my head, first my dad when I was little now my best friend. We had a nice funeral and service with our family and friends all there for comfort. It would have been better if my mom was there though. I would be so happy if I could just talk to her one more time.
When we got back to the house, I looked at my step dad and he wasn’t crying, now that I think about it he hasn’t shed a tear since that day she passed. He noticed me looking at him and this angry, stern look appeared on his face. As a confused look showed up on mine, he started walking towards me. As he walked toward me I slowly started backing up in fear, even though he saw me backing up he continued to walk forward as if he were under a spell. Backing up at the same speed until I had no more room to back up, I was trapped. I didn’t know what to do, as Joe got closer I got more scared as to what was going on.
“THIS IS ALLYOUR FAULT” Joe said in a rough whisper.
“How is this my fault?” I replied.
“If you didn’t spend so much time with your mom and would have had other friends she wouldn’t have been so stressed out all the time.” He yelled in my face.
“My mom loved spending time with me” I said as a tear appeared in my eye.
“Well, if she loved spending time with you so much she would still be here.” he said.
As that statement left his mouth, I lost it. I pushed him out of my face and yelled at him to “leave me alone!”
Joe stumbling over his feet backwards, caught his balance and began walking toward me again in the corner. He looked scarier this time he had a crazed look on his face, veins were popping out of his arms, hands, neck, and even his forehead. He puffed out his chest, and stood up straight flexing his muscles to make himself look bigger.
As he got in my face again he looked directly in my eyes as the words rolled off his tongue. “What did you just say?”
I became more scared, my adrenaline was gone and tears began to become clearer in my eyes. “Nothing” I silently stuttered.
Joe took a step back and I let out a deep breath, that’s when with all his force, hit me right in the stomach. I let a loud cry as I fell slowly to my knees.
I looked up at Joe as I held my stomach and asked him “why?”
He replied “because I’m bigger than you.”
Shocked I didn’t know what to do that’s when he kicked me while I was down. I started gasping for air and all he could say was “shut up, you don’t deserve to breathe you murderer!”
I thought to myself what did I do to deserve this?
No sound, no taps on the elbow, nothing brought Danny back to reality except for himself; he knew he had to do something. He wasn’t sure what he had to do but that didn’t stop him, he hopped off the swing, and walked away like he was on a mission. Danny walked straight to his house, he knew Joe was home but he didn’t seem to care. He marched his way right into the house, still unsure of what he was going to do. When he got into the living room he saw Joe sitting there in “his” chair watching television, sports network, beer in one hand remote in the other.
Joe slowly got up, putting the remote down but keeping his beer with him. He glared at Danny as the words “what do you think you’re doing” made their way out of his mouth. Danny didn’t say a thing as he started to glide forward toward Joe. Danny made his way right into Joes face, but Joe didn’t move backwards, he just stood there and stared into Danny’s eyes.
Joe whispered “who do you think you are?!” right into Danny’s face.
Danny nodded his head, took a step backward and right as Joe was about to say something Danny punched him straight in the face.
Joe stumbled backwards holding his bloody nose.
With tears leaking out of his eyes Joe managed to say “you can’t do that! Why did you do that?!”
Danny straight faced, looking directly into Joes tearful eyes said with no emotion “Because I’m bigger than you, that’s why.” Then gave Joe one last good kick in the stomach and made his way out of the room.
Joe yelling from the ground for Danny to ‘get back here this second’ but Danny just ignored him and continued walking to his room to get his things. Danny decided he couldn’t stay in town anymore because of what happened with Olive but also didn’t want to stay with Joe anymore. As he packed his things he thought about where he would go, that’s when he decided he would leave early to the college he got accepted to weeks earlier. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to afford it, so on his way there he called the school and made an agreement to work in the library. Danny didn’t care what he had to do he just wanted to stay far away from this place as much as he possibly could. He thought to himself as he was on the train ‘who knows maybe I’ll actually make some friends’.