"Do you believe in angels?"
A small, blond boy spoke up. Next to him sat another boy, taller and lanky, with long scarlet hair and freckles covering his body head to toe.
"No." He paused and looked down at his hands. They were covered in scabs and scars. "I think we deserve whatever we get, even if it's bad. An angel would break those rules. They'd save you" The blond boy looked away and picked at his bandaid on his knee.
"I hope angels are real, so one could fly me away from here."
"You're such a child." The redhead scoffed as his arms curled around his knees. "If they did, don't you think they'd be here already. We prolly don't deserve an angel anyways."
Neither boys looked at each other as they sat together on the tall hill. The long grass swaying in the wind as the sun began to set.
Born with bright blue eyes and beautiful blond hair, Boomer was the epiphany of the perfect child to his parents. He'd inherited his mother's dimples and beauty marks as well as her smile. The beach was his one love like hers. In the summer his mother would take him to the families beach house. Soft Serve would drip down onto his perfectly creased shirt, sand creeping into every crevice of his shorts. His mother's laugh when he would play with the crabs, as she'd scoop him away from the waves and into her arms. She'd shower him with kisses as she spun him around, twirling on the beach.
He would ask to go into the water and she would again take him into her arms, slowly wading further into the waves. They'd stand for a while as fish swam around her legs, and Boomer would reach out to touch them, they'd be scared and swim away but it never bothered him. It always felt like home out there on the beach.
When they weren't at the beach, they were at home. His mother's hair in perfect ringlets and bigbigbig dresses. With her bigbigbig smile, and bigbigbig laugh. Always attending her husbands bigbigbig parties on his bigbigbig arm, she was a small woman. People thought she was a siren, too beautiful to be a real human, too perfect to be mortal. With her sweetsweetsweet voice and gentlegentlegentle demeanor, she didn't fit with her husbands rough attitude. She was the center of the room, the center of his father's world. But that didn't mean the bigbigbig man loved her normally. He craved all of her attention, all of her love. It was supposed to be hishishis. And his son got into the way. Even if he was the perfect image, the perfect little boy. With bright blue eyes, and a bright big smile, in his bright blue trousers with the perfectly creased button up. He was too perfect, too much like his mother. He took too much love away from his father, and he hated that.
So it didn't matter how perfect the boy was, how hard he tried. His father hated him. He scowled when the child smiled, and rarely was seen by him. He knew if his wife knew, she wouldn't give him the love he so wanted. So he hid it, his anger, his sorrow, his jealousy of a child.
As the years went on his mother got sick. Boomer was 7, there were no more beach visits, no more softserve, no more wading in the ocean. There was instead lots of hospital visits, lots of tears, and lots and lots of medicine. He held her hand as she squeezed it, her vitals beeping steadily. Her bright blue eyes, and deepdeepdeep dimples, with her bigbigbig smile. She couldn't wear her big dresses, or go to the big parties. Instead she got bigbigbig bouquets of flowers, that wilted too soon and bloomed too brightly. They wished for her to get better, but she never did. Boomer wondered if the flowers knew she was sick. Her husband was rarely away from her side. Even though the big parties still went on, and the people still talked without her, she remained happy. She always talked about how much she loved Boomer, how she was going to see him grow up to be a handsome young man, and how they could visit the beach again.
Boomer was 8, and his mother was taking him back to the beach one last time. It was raining that night, with loudloudloud thunder and brightbrightbright lightning. His mother was gone, she was going back to where she belonged. At least that's what Boomer believed. She walked into the ocean like she did with her son when he was young. Boomer was asleep in the beach house.
She didn't come back.
Maybe she really was a siren afterall, and she had spent too much time on the land. Perhaps it was her time to return to her home. The one where she really belonged, that's why she had to leave her husband and son behind. She just couldn't stay any longer.
Boomer's father had lost his love. His one love, his everything. Her body was found the next week, washed up on the shore. Boomer had already been taken home, he was the one to cry out for his mom in the morning. He cried and cried as he was pulled away from the beach, crying out for his mother, for her to come back. Soon his father had learned what happened. His hate for his son grew, if his wife had never taken him out to the beach, she would have never walked into the ocean. So he drowned like his wife, in whisky and vodka.
There were no more big parties, no more talk of beaches, no more love in the house. Instead there were new women, less money, and more violence. The bright smile was gone, the blue eyes faded. His tan skin turned pale with purple patches everywhere. Happy laughs and happy smiles turned into sobbing screams, and pleads to stop.
Boomer was 9. His father was running out of money, and Boomer didn't come out of his room. If he didn't go out, he couldn't remind his father of his mother. And if his father wasn't reminded of his wife, then Boomer wouldn't receive the kicks and slaps as per usual. His school changed as his father stopped funding the private one he once attended. Instead he went to public school, there were no more pressed uniforms. But no one knew about his mother, so Boomer was happy.
If they knew would they blame him too?
Boomer was 10, and he had just made his first friend. A tall boy with blood orange hair and lots and lots of freckles named Brick. He had redredred irises, and a coldcoldcold stare. But he was smart and kind, only to Boomer though. He said he reminded him of his brother. Boomer didn't ask about his brother, and Brick never spoke about him. Brick also had lots of bruises, and lots of scars lining down his wrists. But Boomer didn't ask about those either, because Brick never asked about Boomer's.
Public school wasn't a dream however. Although the kids never learned about his mom, they didn't like him. His eyes were too big they said, and he was too short they said. He got pushed and teased. But Brick was always there to scare people away, and soon they stopped. If Brick went somewhere, so did Boomer, following like a lost puppy.