Static
Cael
Despite all paternal problems surrounding him during the years of early development, he was brought up as a good kid. At school he was the kid that always had his nose stuck in a book and always ran in to anything ever. He was the kid that tripped on air and crouched in the grass for an eternity, looking for his glasses and hoping the heartbreaking 'crunch' of cracking glass wouldn't float to his ears that particular day.
He was the kid in the front of the class that answered the questions and did the homework and blamed the budding spots of purple across his arms on his clumsiness.
In town he was the 'nice little boy' with the impeccable manners that picked things up for people with a permanent grin and made friends with the shop keepers and sat in the corner of the bookstore reading until his father came to get him.
At home, when his mother was out, he was a thing, a tiny ragdoll with a broken face that his father would toss around until his breathing evened out or his wife returned home.
At night, in bed, he was the child that held the pillow over his head and cried while his parents yelled downstairs. For years this life was on repeat, only the occasional business trip for his father to hiccup the cycle.
When he was 12, the cycle was disrupted with the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. He was at home, waiting to be his father's 'thing' and doing what was necessary to keep up appearances. His father came in and the touches were different, the sliding hands and the hot weight at his back were not as they should be, the feeling of heaving his book across his chest, the rush of movement in his arms and the sudden distance between him and his father was alarming and wrong. The beating, harsher the arrival of his mother, perfect, the snap of bones, too loud and the wail of sirens confusing.
Shortly after, after his mother returned from the hospital and he could go back to school, the cycle was dismantled and a new one set into motion. When the bruises faded, and with them the ever present need to lie, he became the kid in the back of class, silently getting passing grades and doing his homework.
At home he was the "good boy" that cooked and cleaned and took care of his mom and the occasional fish that graced the empty table by the door. The appearance of an ability he had no need for made no impact on his life. He didn't talk about it and, outside of the week or so of experimentation, he didn't use it. He shopped and studied and did little else except sit on the couch in comfortable silence with his mother. When she began to work full time, when she abandoned him to better busy herself, he would sit on the couch alone, eventually would sit in his room and spend his time there.
Sometimes, weather permitting, he would take a book outside and wish he weren't so awkward, that he were able to go up to the other kids and play ball or climb trees. As he entered high school, a time thought by the other students as a chance to figure oneself out and make oneself an outstanding individual, he continued his role as the static character. There was no attempt at being outgoing, there were no club activities, and there was no participation in school functions. The frequent visits to the shopkeepers remained intact solely because some form of socialization was necessary and adults judged less.
There was no one across the dinner table or on the other side of the couch, there was no one on the other end of a phone call, no anticipatory teen in which he could hang out with and talk to.
There was only Cael and his homework and his books and the space he occupied.