November, 2004
He held the phone to his ear, listening to it ring, wincing slightly at the yelling in the next room. He glanced around at his dirty, tiny one-bed room, a night table sitting beside the bed with a deck of cards, a half-empty pack of cigarettes and a few sticks of gum laying atop it. Underneath his small, creaky, worn-out bed were clothing pieces thrown around, most of them old and dirty, some torn up and ragged, many of them too small for him.
He gently drummed his fingers against the phone as he listened to it ring, ring, ring. He sighed, and was about to put the phone down, when finally there was a quiet, audible click and then a familiar female voice.
"Hello?" Sarah asked.
Thomas paused, took a breath, and then responded.
"Hey, uh, Sarah? This is Thomas, the guy from the party? You gave me your number.." He said with a friendly tone, smiling slightly.
"Oh, Yeah! Of course I remember!" She said quickly, and then "What's up?"
He stuttered slightly, shaking his head and composing himself.
"U-Uh..Well, I was wondering if you wanted to go out and get a coffee with me sometime. I really liked meeting you, and..I kinda want to get to know you better." He said, smirking to himself and even managing to blush slightly, even though alone.
She chuckled quietly, and then responded with "Yeah..Yeah, I'd like that. How about The 3Fe coffee shop in..Say, an hour?"
Wraith smiled widely and then almost talked too excitedly, stopping himself, taking a breath and then responding.
"Yeah, sure. See you there, Sarah." He said relatively calmly.
"Seeya!" She said happily, a second later there was a quiet click as she hung up. Thomas hung up his own phone and went out through the living room, where his father was sitting and watching television, to the porch and slipping on his coat.
Just as he place his fingers around the door handle, his father spoke up.
"Where are you going?" He said.
Thomas tensed up, sighing through his nose and slowly looking back to see his father looking over at him over his shoulder, a brown glass bottle half-filled with liquid in his right hand. Thomas winced slightly, before responding with simply "Out."
"Don't you give me that, you-" But before his father would finish his sentence, the door was already opened and closed, Thomas out the door, his father glaring after him.
Twenty minutes later, Thomas sat down on a bench out front of the coffee shop named "3Fe", and waited the next fourty minutes for Sarah to arrive, watching people go by on the streets somewhat sadly, chin resting in his hands with a quiet sigh, kicking his feet at loose rocks absent-mindedly once in a while. The leaves swayed gently around him, he turned his gaze up towards the soft, blue sky, as the few visible clouds drifted by lazily.
Absent-mindedly, he reached up with his left hand and gently crossed his fingers across the scar across his eye, a scar that would not leave him for the entirety of his life. He took a deep breath, exhaling it into the crisp air, a thin mist forming before his parted lips. He remained like this for quite some time, troubled thoughts on his mind as he waited for a little less than forty minutes.
Eventually, he heard a female voice pipe up after some footsteps stopped, with a cheerful "Hey!". He immediately lowered his head and turned his gaze to look at Sarah, who had stopped two feet away from him, looking down at him and smiling widely.
He raised one hand in a small wave, as he spoke out softly to her.
"Hey, Sarah. How are you?" he said, his gaze holding her own, never looking away from her eyes for now.
She tilted her head, closing her eyes for a moment while she smiled, before opening them and responding with "I'm good, how about you?"
He shrugged offhandedly, with a hearty "Fine. Shall we head inside?", to which she responded to with a small nod of her head, holding out her left hand. He took it happily, standing up from his bench and walking inside the cafe with the young lady, stirrings of love and affection in the air between them.
May, 1997
He sat alone in the shade against a tree, watching the other kids run about as they kicked a football (Well, soccer ball), back and forth between each other about halfway across the field from him. There was a little less than a month left of school, and this year he had once again not made any friends for more than a week, been included in any games, but he was still pulling through in school, for now.
He looked down between his feet, settling his gaze upon a little spider crawling along the blades of grass in the soothing, fresh spring air. While most people hated a lot of bugs and specifically spiders, Thomas did not. He smiled slightly to himself, watching it with curiosity, leaning forwards as he watched it make its journey across what, to it, was a forest in such a massive world. He tried to imagine himself being in the spiders position, with such massive, human creatures around it, in a crazy, massive world, and he could not.
He leaned down, bringing his left hand towards it and stopping in front of it, intending to let it crawl onto his hand. Instead of doing so, the small thing touched his hand for a moment before turning and heading in the other direction, away from the sudden warmth.
He quickly moved his left hand to bring it to its other side-
Crch
He stared down at the now dead spider. He had moved his hand too quickly, and now it laid in a crumpled heap, still twitching slightly but soon becoming still.
He stared down at it, wide-eyed and still for a few seconds, before suddenly bursting into tears. They poured down his cheeks as he held back weak sobs, leaning down and bringing the dead spider into his palms, muttering "I'm s-sorry..I'm s-so s-sorry.."
He stayed like this for quite some time, body shuddering, tears dripping down into the grass, sobbing for reasons no other child his age could possibly understand, for reasons many would not understand until their late teenage years.
Soon, though, the recess bell rang. The children began to head inside, carrying the soccer ball with them, sighing and complaining about school, while Thomas sat there shivering. He waited for them all to have passed by, before setting the body of the spider down in the dirt, digging a small, finger-sized hole, setting the spider inside, and then burying it. He patted the dirt, stood up, staring down at that spot for a few moments, before wiping the tears from his face and jogging towards the school.
His footsteps thudded heavily as he ran across the pavement, he sprinted towards the door, but he stopped halfway across the school yard, looking to his right at the basketball court and the basket up on the wall. He lowered his gaze down to the small orange basketball that lay in the middle of the court, left by the other children until some teacher were to come across it.
He turned to continue on his way, but stopped again, and then took a few steps back, looking at the ball before walking over to it. He leaned down, picked it up, and then walked back to the chalk like a few meters away from the basket. He turned back towards it, looking up towards the net and sighing.
He'll never get it anywhere near the basket...
He dribbled it up and down on the cement, keeping his eyes on the basket. He knew the older kids were right, he couldn't get it anywhere near the basket, especially after missing the first time so badly. He was just too young.
He sighed, stopping the dribbling and turning away, thinking of walking away, before slowly turning back, looking at the net.
They were right, and yet...
And yet...
Sometimes, Thomas was already beginning to understand, it didn't matter if somebody was right. It didn't even matter if you knew they were right, at least when it came to things other than facts or history. When it came to things that involved pride, or skill, or effort, sometimes it didn't matter. Sometimes you gave it your all just to prove them wrong, and prove to yourself that you could.
He bent his knees, brought his arms back and threw it, because
November, 2004
"So, you grow up here?" Thomas asked her, sitting across from her at a small, two-person cafe table. In front of her sat a small mug of steaming, ural grey tea, and in front of Thomas sat the same. He had never tried it before, so he decided to order it when she did, and found it was pretty soothing.
She nodded slightly, smiling and taking a sip of her tea before responding with words.
"Yeah, in this neighbourhood, actually. Never moved once my whole life, live in a nice little house a few blocks away. How about you?" She asked curiously.
He shrugged slightly, nodding, and responding with, "Yeah, same here. Lived in the same little house my whole life, couple of bus stops away."
"Neat, so we live pretty close to each other!" She said happily.
He smiled slightly at this, nodding in response and slowly looking back around at the cafe, then outside the window beside them at the few people walking up and down the street, with an occasional car driving by.
"What do your parents do?" She said, piping up during the short silence. He turned his gaze back towards her, blinking once and thinking for a moment before responding.
"Mom doesn't have a job, really. Dad's a doctor down at the hospital, he's pretty good at his job."
She nodded slightly, but sensed some odd, faint sadness in his eyes and voice as he spoke. She said nothing about it, instead she asked, "What about you? What do you want to be?"
He considered this for a while, looking back out the large pane window, watching the people that walked by as he pondered, before responding a short while later.
"Likely a doctor like my dad. That's what's on my mind the most, anyway." He said.
"Ah, want to be like yer old man?" She asked teasingly.
He looked back out towards the window, his eyes closing halfway with a sigh through his nose. He took several long seconds, before responding.
"No."
She stared into his eyes for a while, looking curious, waiting a while before asking,
"Thomas...Where did you get that scar?"
September, 2003
He sat at his kitchen table, looking down at the steak and mashed potatoes on his plate. He poked lightly at his steak with his fork, haven not eaten much more than one bite of his food.
His mother sat at the end of the table, his father sitting directly across him from, staring at him. Both had identical meals. Thomas had a glass of water, his mother had a small glass of wine, his father had a bottle of beer (with several empties laying scattered about in the living room).
"Eat your food." His father spoke quietly, eyeing him.
Thomas looked up from his plate after poking at the steak once more with his fork, looking into his fathers eyes for just a moment before looking down towards the table instead, not holding his gaze.
"Not hungry.." He mumbled quietly.
His father set down his beer bottle against the table quietly, before speaking the same words once more. "Eat your food."
"I don't like it, dad..." He mumbled again.
His father slammed his right hand down slightly against the wooden table, glaring towards Thomas.
"S-sir.." He said, correcting himself.
"Eat. Your food."
Thomas did not respond in speech this time, just shaking his head slightly, fingers shaking slightly.
For a few seconds, there was simply silence and stillness. Then his father stood up, reached forwards and swatted the plate of food to the left flying off the table. The food splattered to the floor, the plate smashed to the ground and shattered to pieces, which flew across the smooth, black tiled floor.
Thomas flinched slightly before just staring down at the table, blinking a few times.
"Clean it up." His father spoke calmly.
His mother, meanwhile, sighed, and slowly stood up, taking out a cigarette from her sweater pocket and walking into the living room, and then out the front door, closing it behind her.
Thomas stood from his chair, slowly, and went to the kitchen sink. He bent down, opening a cupboard and removing a small garbage bag and some paper towel. He walked over to the mess, going to his knees and beginning to gather the pieces of the plate into the garbage bag.
A few seconds later, he took an unexpected blow to his right side as his father lashed out a kick from behind him. He stumbled to his left on his knees, catching himself by planting his left hand against the floor, right on top of a piece of the plate, which dug straight into his hand. He let out a hiss of pain as the blood began to drip onto the tiles, slowly looking up towards his father, shaking slightly. He then looked back down towards the floor, scooping the rest of the pieces into the garbage bag, along with the food, and wiping the blood off the floor with paper towel.
He began to stand, and a moment before he could lift up the garbage bag, a hand grabbed him around his collar and neck. His father shoved him against the kitchen counter, Thomas stared up at him, wide-eyed and shaking, trying to resist and break free from his grip.
His father simply got angrier at this, slapping Thomas across the face with his other strong hand, a bit of blood starting to drip from Thomass nose, before punching him once in the gut. The air whooshed out of Thomas, who stopped moving after getting the message, just staring up at him, shaking.
"The next time we put food on the table, you eat it." His father said, the scent of alcohol seeping from his lips like a vile poison.
A few moments later, his father reached with his free hand to the knife holder, pulling out a decently sized butcher knife.
"N-N-No p-p-please don't-"
His father slapped him once more before bringing the butcher knife up to his sons face, who began to breathe extremely quickly, his heart hammering in his chest, his eyes wide with fear and pain, a few tears rolling down his cheeks.
His father dragged the blade across the skin above and below his left eye, from top to bottom, a gash opening, blood dripping into Thomass eye and down along his cheek, mixing with his tears and dripping onto the counter as he groaned in pain and blinked repeatedly from the irritation to his eye.
His father grabbed him by the collar, pulled him off the counter and tossed him back onto the floor, onto his knees, beside the garbage bag.
"Finish cleaning up."
Thomas looked back up at him with wide, teary eyes, one stained with blood.