Here's an excerpt from Micah's 45:
Chapter Three:
Paul's Betrayal
I woke up late that
day. Although my alarm went off at the same time it usually does, I
hit the snooze button twice instead of once. I don't know why I was
so tired that morning, but I heard the kids from my neighborhood
laughing and talking outside my bedroom window. I snapped out of my
morning stupor, practically fell out of bed, and struggled into a
clean pair of jeans and a new shirt. As I grabbed my backpack and ran
out the door, I caught the humor in Paul's eyes as he laughed at me
slipping down the icy porch toward the bus line. Paul and I had been
neighbors for many years. Although we had been best friends since
early childhood, we became closer during my first year of middle
school, when I moved into Paul's school district, within walking
distance of his house. During summer vacations we spent a lot of time
playing video games, riding bikes, and swimming at the local lake.
During the school year, on the other hand, we sat together at lunch
and hung out on the weekends.
Either way, we
always sat together on the bus. It was a promise. I remember the day
that we made that promise. I was scared because it was my first day
at a new school; my family had just moved to the neighborhood. Paul
was nervous because it was his first day of 6th
grade, which meant he rode the bus with the high school students now.
As neighbors and friends, we made a vow to protect each other from
any awkward, lonely situations that might result from riding the
school bus alone.
I didn't know that
it was time for our vow be broken. I just sat down like I did every
other day. Before I knew it I was in the middle of the aisle being
laughed at by an entire busload of kids. I gave Paul a questioning
glance as I stood up to find a new seat.
“You're making me
a loser, Micah. Get lost.”
I must have found
another suitable seat because I found myself in homeroom. As the
shock started to pass, I found myself feeling more and more angry by
the moment. What gave Paul the right to assume that I'm a loser? Or
that I'm the person negatively affecting his precious reputation?
What kind of reputation did he think he had anyway? He was just
another kid known for getting into trouble. He was smart but he
didn't apply himself nearly enough. He played a few sports but wasn't
really a jock. His life plan was to get a job as a car mechanic and
be a volunteer firefighter. He had other friends but I had never
thought that they picked on him for his association with me. I
guessed that maybe I was a loser because I was reputed to be a
goody-two-shoes. So, just because I didn't go to every party and
swear and talk about money, alcohol, and drugs, my best friend had
the right to call me a loser in front of twenty other kids? The more
I thought about it, the more angry I became. We had grown up
together. My parents met his parents when we were both wearing
diapers, before his mom became a single mom. We had been to daycare
together; my parents joked about him being their 'future son-in-law'
since we had learned to walk. I couldn't control my emotions. With
the anger came rage and with the rage came a feeling of desolation
that paled both the anger and rage. I could almost see the emotions
rising and receding like the tides of a great ocean. Whenever I felt
like I would drown in the rage, the tides of desolation came with a
helpless peace. Someone cracked a joke, but I missed the punchline.
As I walked out of
11th
grade homeroom, the teacher caught my arm.
“Are you alright,
Micah. You look lost.”
As I looked into
the teacher's eyes, I realized that I didn't even know her name. I
made a note to look it up on my schedule. She cares, I thought.
Eventually, my eyes dropped and I nodded before walking away. I'll
tell her I'm OK tomorrow, I figured.
The bell ripped me
from the tides passing through me. I realized that I was supposed to
be in a class when I saw the hall monitor heading my way. As hard as
I tried, I could not think of what class I should be in, where my
locker was, or why the hall monitor was giving me an evil glare. Had
the bell rang already? I slid into the accounting computer lab just
as the teacher was sending his students to their stations for the
latest assignment.
“Need a pass,
Micah?” Mr. Walters asked.
“No, thanks, Mr.
Walters. May I please just stay here for awhile?” I asked him, not
for the first time. He seemed to understand that his room was a place
where I felt safe, no matter what lay beyond his doors. Usually, I
came to him during my study hall or lunch period, when I found that
the voices of the other students were too loud, judgmental, or
immature for my tastes. When the period bell rang and his class left,
Mr. Walters asked if I needed anything. I told him that I was
alright, I just couldn't remember what class I was supposed to be in.
He pulled up a copy of my schedule and printed it out for me. He
didn't seem too concerned that I had skipped my gym class, but he
told me that Biology was an important subject and that I should get
going or I would be late.
That's one thing I
always liked about Mr. Walters. He never judges or lectures me. As an
avid runner and coach of the baseball team, he could have tore me a
new one for missing gym. But he didn't even give me a look of
disappointment. Other times, when I told him the truth like “I
visited with my friends too long and am going to be late for class,”
he always gave me a late pass or free access to his classroom. I can
tell him the complete truth and he never treats me any differently. I
know he has a soft side for me. Maybe he relates to me in a way that
he has never told me about, or maybe he respects me because I get
good grades and genuinely seem to care about my own education.
I know he must have
realized that something huge was on my mind, if over three-quarters
into the school year, I suddenly couldn't remember where I was
supposed to be or what books I needed. But he didn't pry, either.
I walked into the
Biology room just as the bell rang and my teacher gave the class her
usual look of disapproval.
“Get into your
lab groups,” she said, “you'll be examining fetal pigs this
week.”
After that I tuned
her out. I sat with my two partners. I don't remember how we got to
being partners, just that I wished we never had. I sit across the
table from Hannah, next to Danica. Danica hits me playfully a few
times to get my attention. I must have been really out of it because
the next thing I knew I was on the floor for the second time that
day. I picked my stool back up and pretended like nothing had
happened. Unfortunately, it was too late and the teacher made her way
to our station. After a lecture about the dangers of horseplay in the
laboratory, she assigned the three of us an extra essay assignment
and detention. As I was dissecting the pig, Hannah and Danica
whispered about what could be wrong with me that week. I got a
headache and realized that my ear was bleeding slightly.
“Did I hit my
head when I fell?” I asked them.
“Who cares?”
Danica asked.
“Yea, really
Micah. You get us stuck in detention and all you care about is your
ear? Hannah says.
I'm confused now
because I realize the reason we got detention was that Danica hit me
so hard that I fell off of my stool. I have the bruises to prove it.
She does it quite frequently. I had thought about it before and even
talked to her thoroughly about the source of her rage. Like me, she
was an outcast. Unlike me, however, she had formalized plans to
destroy the school and possibly the city if she was ever in the mood
and could acquire willing partners. I guess she told me because she
hoped that I could be one of the participants. I was afraid of her.
But, as crazy as she was, she was also understanding. She didn't
judge me based on what everyone else thought of me. And she had hopes
for the future. She wanted to graduate and go to college to become a
lawyer. I got the feeling that her anger and her creepy, bloody plans
were only a way of seeking attention or protecting herself. If the
rumor gets around that you're nuts enough to blow up the school, less
of your peers are willing to mess with you. The first time we had
been lab partners, I noticed some of the kids who usually bullied me
shied away and left me alone. Eventually, people must have gotten the
idea that we were forced to be partners though, because the reprieve
didn't last forever.
I was reading the
instructions to the lab assignment when I heard Hannah whispering
again.
“Go die, Micah.
Yea, that would be funny.”
I looked up.
Bewildered, again.
“What did I do,
now?” I wondered aloud.
“Nothing. But
seriously, you should die anyway,” Hannah retorted, “We would all
be better off that way.”
With barely a
moment's hesitation, I grabbed the bathroom pass and walked out. Mr.
Walters looks surprised to see me again, but I assume the lost and
horrified look on my face convinced him not to send me back. After I
handed him the biology bathroom pass, he ducked his head out the door
and presumably returned the pass to my boorish teacher. I sat down at
an empty computer and searched to see if Hannah was quoting lyrics, a
poem, a really horrible joke. Nothing. It was all her.
I spent the next
three periods looking for a song to play my family on Thursday. I got
stuck between Kick in the Teeth by Papa Roach or Thank You by Simple
Plan. I go over the lyrics to Kick in the Teeth with Mr. Walters
standing beside me. Although Mr. Walters wants to say something, I
could see him struggling to find the right words.
“You got in a
fight with your lab partner?” He tries.
“A fight usually
means that there are two sides to the story.” I muttered.
“And there wasn't
two sides?” He asked.
I shake my head. He
seems to understand, somehow. Maybe some of the faculty at our school
were more in tuned to the bullying that walked our halls. Regardless,
the ocean storm brewing and smashing about the beaches of my mind
stayed strong, like the winds of a hurricane that never passes over
land.
“Do you need
lunch money, Micah?” At first, I thought the question came from one
of the students in Mr. Walters' class. I guess Mr.
Walters heard my stomach growling.
“No, thanks,” I
said. I felt around for the coins jingling in my pocket, but I hadn't
really felt hungry. Even with my stomach growling, the thought of
eating made me want to vomit. He wrote me a pass, so I felt obligated
to go. He was only trying to help.
I walked to the
cafeteria with my head hung low, a look of rejection apparent in my
eyes. I tried to remind myself that kids my age are immature idiots.
As much as I wanted to believe it, I could not help feeling
mistreated and unappreciated. For crying out loud, I had been doing
the lab assignments by myself while Hannah and Danica watched and
gossiped. They got A's on every lab assignment because I did all of
the work. Not to mention the ridiculousness of this morning's bus
charade with Paul.
I plugged my
headphones into my ears as I got closer to the cafeteria. I thought
that if I couldn't hear what the other teenagers were saying, maybe I
could ignore them easier.
As I got closer to
the lunch line, I realized that I was stuck with quite the
predicament. I could go and stand in line behind Paul and his
friends, or I could turn around and face the wrath of the hall
monitor. Since I already had detention, I could face in-school
suspension if I turned around. I managed to hang my head low enough
to only glimpse Paul and his crew in my peripheral vision. He looked
my way and turned back to his friends as if I was just another
student he had never met. As if he had never collapsed in my doorway
crying when his Mother threatened to send him to an orphanage. As if
I had never wrapped my arms around him and told him that everything
would be OK, that he could live with my family, that he could be my
best friend and my brother.
But I guess his
actions were pretty much as I expected. I cannot really say that I
was disappointed. If he had apologized, I might have cried in front
of all of his friends and embarrassed us both. But I also figured
that if he had tried to pretend it never happened and was friendly,
then I would probably blow a fuse, based on the raging tides I had
been fighting throughout the day. So, my best guess was that nothing
would occur between us and that that would be the best option.
Except, there is a reason for that semi-vulgar phrase about what
assumptions make us.
As I was wallowing
in my own misery, Paul's friends came over to me one by one, with
Landon in the lead. I didn't notice Landon coming toward me at first.
As he slapped my mp3 player out of my hands, he raised his foot as if
to crush it in one blow. Luckily for me, my reflexes were fast enough
that I swiped the mp3 player out from under his raised foot. Before I
got the chance to come to my full height, however, Landon had
descended upon me like flies gravitate towards the smelly corners of
my little brother's bedroom. He slammed my body into the concrete
wall with force disproportional to the weight of my body hanging
limply from the collar in his fist.
As I struggled to
gain freedom, Paul's friends and another few boys I hadn't met
surrounded me with a look I have never seen humans take. It was the
look of ravenous monsters from myths and urban legends older than
time. The look of hungry wolves in nature documentaries. Or of
Dracula, in the old black and white movies, just as he is about to
bite the neck of a stunning woman. Landon made a swift upper-cut
punch to my lower stomach. It hurt enough to knock the wind out of
me. Another boy gave me a sharp fist to the nose to shut me up
quickly while Landon groped me.
“Feel's nice,
Micah. But you wouldn't know would you. We don't need your kind
around here, and we certainly don't want your kind around here.”
“What kind is
that, Landon?” I wheezed while shoving his hands away from places
they don't belong.
“Dikes. Butches.”
He sneered. “Paul told me all about you. He told me how you wear
men's clothes to bed.” “How you didn't want to be his
girlfriend.” Landon whispered in my ear.
I was going to say
that Paul had never said anything. That we had never talked about it.
Sure, we had joked about it as little kids, but I hadn't really
thought about it lately. I mean, I had briefly wondered about it a
few years back but didn't want to freak Paul out. We had been best
friends our entire lives and to lose that over a middle school crush
would be devastating. As I opened my mouth to tell Paul this, a boy
named Steven put his hand over my mouth. I bit him and called for
Paul.
“No,” Landon
yelled over me, “You're done talking to him. We don't hang out with
ugly dikes!”
I knew in my mind
that his logic made absolutely no sense, I was wearing a dress and
makeup with my hair down, maybe not beautiful but definitely not
butchy. I liked to think I was at least cute or kind of pretty. But
something snapped inside of me. Quick judgments, physical violation,
and harsh words all culminated into one solitary moment in my life. A
moment where I didn't know what to do. I looked to Paul, my best
friend, a person I trusted. The boy that had once promised never to
leave me in an awkward social situation was now standing by the
wayside as his friends humiliated and judged me over a lie that he
had told them. Paul never asked me out, nor had I ever given him the
impression that I would have turned him down if he had.
And
in that solitary moment, I made my own snap decision. I punched
Landon so hard, with a legal kickboxing punch, that I knocked him
backwards off of me. He finally dropped my collar and I took a few
tentative steps away from the crowd of boys surrounding me. All of
the things that I wanted to say were forgotten in the anger that
overcame me. I scowled at Paul and shook my head. A look of shock and
maybe guilt passed over his face. And as the eye
of the storm finally passed and the winds and waters picked back up,
I knew there was no way I could tread water any longer. My entire
body shook with rage. Rage at my own powerlessness in the situation.
Rage at my frustration over the events of the day. Time seemed to
expand and contract at its own will. Before I knew what had happened
my body spun in a swift circle, and the full force of that circle
ended at my wrist. My fist hit the concrete wall so hard that the
sickening crack of bone echoed down the corridor. Although I had
stumbled quite the distance from the boys, I could hear their thin
gasps of disgust as they realized what I had done.
Although I had
previously been fearful of the hall monitor's retribution, I no
longer cared. As my entire body continued to shake with the effort of
holding back tears for my lost friendship, I fumbled along to the
nurses office. When I got there, the nurse practically shoved me onto
a plastic bed to examine my hand. The nurses assistant tried to ask
me my name and grade but I wasn't exactly in a helpful mood. You
really can't talk if you can't breath. I didn't contemplate if my
lack of breathing resulted from shock at what I had done, the pain
radiating through my wrist, or the obnoxious amounts of emotion
wracking my body. Eventually, the nurse and her assistant gave up.
Apparently, the arrival of a whiny boy with a broken nose disrupted
their attention. I took the only chance I saw and slipped out of the
nurse's office.
The nurse had said
something about x-rays. I figured I could walk the three blocks to
the hospital rather than bothering my parents to come and pick me up.
The school wasn't overly security conscious and I didn't really want
to hear any lectures at the moment. Plus, I figured I would have
until dinner before the worried text messages would start arriving.
It was Thursday after all, kickboxing in the afternoon and family
time in the evening. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the first
thing hospitals do for an injured minor is call their parent or
guardian.
“How convenient,”
I grumbled at the attending nurse. I think it was at that exact
moment that I decided on Thank You, instead of Kick in the Teeth for
that evening's song.
I really hoped that
those lyrics could be the entire extent of my explanations and
excuses. If they could just take away that someone I trusted had hurt
me, then nothing else would have to be said. Right?
“Please
don't make me lie to them,” I prayed.
But there was no
lying to be done. Although I didn't know it, Landon had already told
the school nurse that I had hit him. He didn't tell her that he
attacked me or that he called me names and felt me up, but he did
manage to tell her that I had hit him.
