He was bleeding.

The murky red trickle of liquid oozed away from his scalp, following the curvature of his nose, dripping onto his cheeks. Wavering at the edge of his chin, as if unsure at its departure, the droplets fell unceremoniously into the dirt.

That is what he focused on.

Forget the bruises that dotted the lower-half of his arms. Forget the possibility that his wrist was broken. Forget that his shirt was covered in mud, ripped in half a dozen places. Forget everything, except for the fact that those drops darkening the soil and sliding off leaf blades once belonged to him.

He blinked as another dribble of blood flooded from his hairline, passing dangerously close to his left eye. Unlike the first, this drip didn't pause on its journey, opting in favor to splash on the ground. He concentrated on this splatter, watching as a bit of himself flowed around the pebbles and speckled the dandelions.

So inconsequential.

So unnoticeable.

So pointless.

He was dirtying the dirt.

Sticks and stones can break my bones

"Get up. Get up, you. Fucking four-eyed faggot. You can take it. Get up."

Two boys stood above him, like ominous dark shadows, blocking the sun. One of them, the shorter of the two, stepped forward and kicked him hard in the stomach. Doubling over, Jonathan Crane glanced up at his attackers.

Bo Griggs. Scott Eaton.

Both sporting identical sickly sweet smiles and shadowy eyes, the only difference between them coloration and stature, they loomed into his vision.

"Sticks. Come on, stand up, Sticks! Come on, show us how!" Scott, burly and scraggily haired taunted. Bringing a hand to Jonathan's hair, he grasped and pulled, igniting another sharp burst of pain. Closing his eyes, he heard a low chuckling.

The hand lost the grip in his hair, forcing Jonathan to tumble down to the soil, face crunching into the soil. Dirt, intermixed with his dried blood smudged his cheeks-filling his mouth.

"-Wonder," he heard the other, Bo, mutter. "Keeps his fucking nose stuck in damn book all the time, but can't fight worth shit. Not a big surprise."

"Bet he uses those skills to fuck his grandma."

Another chuckle.

"You hear that, Sticks? We know what you get up to in that farm of yours. Tell us, is it nice, fucking your grandma?"

But words can never hurt me

Mouth mashed into the ground, Jonathan could hardly breathe, much less than speak. He heard what they were saying, but it was a distorted sound in his ears, like television static.

Maybe, maybe if he pushed a little farther into the dirt, he'd have the peace he desired so badly. The dirt would clot his mouth, fill his lungs. He'd suffocate. And it would be over. Mercifully over. He wouldn't have to stumble home to his grandmother. Her eyes wouldn't widen. She wouldn't clutch the dog-eared, weather-worn Bible to her chest. She wouldn't scream at him, spittle flying from her lips. She wouldn't push him into the church. He wouldn't stagger into the darkness of the cathedral, pinwheeling his arms about. He wouldn't see the crows. He wouldn't feel them scratching at his already-torn clothes. He wouldn't hear them.

He wouldn't hear anything.

But, Jonathan knew, from a good deal of experience, that it wouldn't happen.

He would not be spared from life, or even allowed to rest. Something conspired to keep him alive, keep him suffering.

And death, peaceful and oh-so-desirable as it was, wouldn't open its arms to him.

Death, as with Bo, Scott and his grandmother, reveled in his suffering.

So, when the two boys walked away, kicking his shins and dumping the rinds of their apples on his chest, Jonathan wasn't surprised that his body willed him to sit up. He wasn't shocked when his hands reached up to brush off the loose clumps of dirt from his t-shirt. He wasn't horrified as he fished his backpack and his books (all waterlogged) from a line of assorted mud puddles. He wasn't amazed at his stumbling gait as he headed back to the farm.

But she, the grandmother, was all those things.

Being dragged through the great doors of the church, Jonathan could only gaze at the specks of blood on his shoes.

Thinking of the part of him he hadn't been able to remove from the road.