I Hurt Inside

By: Boo

(Hey everyone. Just a short little story. I got an idea this morning and am taking away time from 'Untitled' and doing this. Just for fun.)

**The Backstory** This is before the Animorphs. Tobias is about six or seven. He's remembering the event.

I remember, before, I used to live with my uncle. We lived on this street. West Main Street. I lived there with my uncle. He was about thirty-nine.

My uncle's name was Charles.

One day I was sitting in the living room of the small apartment. It was really messy. There was a bag of Doritos on this coffee table, left by my uncle. There were three beer cans, open. Two empty and one half. The time was seven-thirty and my uncle had left at six.

I was watching wheel-of-fortune. The man guesses the phrase. 'A Chip Off The Old Block.'

The door busted open and my uncle stumbled in. "What the hell is wrong with you Tobias! You lazy bum!" I came to be and yanked me up by my arm. His breath stank. He was drunk, again.

I was silent and looked away.

He grabbed a tuff of my hair and threw me across the room. "You ain't good fo' nuffin'. Wha' the hell s'wrong wit you boy?" He said to me, his speech slurred.

I recovered from the blow. I wanted my aunt. She wasn't mean like my uncle. She was scared of him like me though. She normally slept so he wouldn't bother her. But sometimes he went into the room and pushed her off the bed and hit her. Harder than he hit me.

"Where's aunt Maurieen?" I asked in a quiet voice.

"She's sleepin' tha' slut. I'm gonna teach her to sta' awake when she got to. She ain' neva' gonna try tha' one again."

He walked into the back room of the apartment. "Danmmit Toby, you clean up this mess."

After I heard my aunt crying in the back room. After my uncle beat her, I came back into the living room waiting for him to beat me. "Why didn' you clean dis mess boy?"

I got angry, but tears didn't come to my eyes. They never did. And when I was hit and abused, I never cried.

After my remark, I was hit and kicked and thrown around, 'til my uncle wanted to go out again. Probably to a show bar.

Aunt Maurieen called the police. They took me away. And then I went to my other aunt's. But my three years with my uncle were the worst. Had I stayed with him anymore, I probably would have been beaten to death. Some times I would have said, 'Too bad'.

Sometimes, Rachel wonders why I can't be affectionet with her. I think it's because of my uncle.

And because I hurt inside.