A week had passed since he had been transported to the prison and instantly put into an isolation cell. The isolation cell had a shatterproof window where he could gaze out to see the forest from a short distance of the prison. The orange and red landscape that he could view from window had turned pitch white. Since he was not allowed to have much in his isolation cell, he settled for looking out the window lost in his own thoughts.
The snow fell to the ground. Everything was covered in a white frozen blanket. In fact, the forest looked like a card he received from his senile old grandfather once for Christmas. Speaking of which, that dreaded holiday was less than a month and he already knew what he was probably getting for Christmas; cards. How much cards depended upon who gotten guilt-tripped the most at his damn trial. At the most, he probably would get one from his mom and Eddy, Seth, Lucas, and his daughters. If they really felt guilt-tripped enough, they might part a bit of money for him to buy snacks and hygiene products from the prison commissary, not that he would be able to purchase anything from there any time soon due to his current predicament.
He cursed Sasha's name. If it wasn't for that damn bastard, he would not be behind bars in the first place. He wished Sasha never exist. In fact, he wished Sasha had never been born. He wished Sasha's mother had gotten an abortion in the first place. He wished that Sasha's father would have pulled out and made Sasha's mother swallow the semen that had created Sasha. Everything bad that happened in his life was all Sasha's fault.
He entertained himself with memories of how Sasha stopped being just another kid at the loser table and became a so-called victim of Matthew's "bullying." It had begun months after his first day at school. He had spent those months pulling pranks and scamming people out of their hard-earned allowances. He pulled numerous pranks during that time and was only caught twice; once when he TP-ed the principal's office and once when he throw a paper airplane at the teacher's head. Perhaps his favorite out of all of the pranks he pulled was when he filled Stacy's and Darcy's desk with garter snakes that he found outside of the school. To his amusement, both of them screamed and cried fat tears as the harmless snakes slithered around and hissed warnings at the screaming duo. Several other members of their little clique also reacted the same way to the snakes while the teacher quickly phoned the janitor to help her with the class's snake problem.
While the pranks were starting to become grand, the scams he set up were lackluster. Students walked by his early scams and did not even bother to check them out. He did have a few "pigeons" so to speak, but they were few and far between. He managed to scam a couple of students and the entire losers club. The losers club was not too happy about that, but Lucas and Seth could not stay pissed at the person that traded them his milk every day for pasta, pudding, or a cafeteria dish containing nuts. One day he decided that he needed an underling to help him with his scams.
After a process of elimination, so to speak, he set his sights on Sasha. Sasha was relatively smart and would serve his needs well. However, in order to make sure that Sasha was right for the part, Matthew had to observe the boy outside of school. He stalked Sasha as Sasha walked home from school. Matthew was lead into a different neighborhood that seemed like a relatively cozy middle class neighborhood with yards that seemed to be regularly tended to. Sasha kept turning around as he walked and Matthew hid himself to prevent from being seen. It seemed that Sasha was constantly anxious about something, but Matthew could not put his finger on what it was exactly.
Matthew hid behind a car as he watched Sasha walked towards and entered his house. The house was a one story house with a driveway, a little garden out front, and lilac bushes everywhere. Matthew hid amongst a large lilac bush and watched Sasha from inside of the bush with his binoculars that he brought for that particular purpose.
Envy immediately struck the eight year old. Inside of the house was Sasha sitting on the couch, doing his homework on a TV tray. Beside him sat a man that Matthew later found out was Sasha's father. Sasha's father was helping him out with homework and a woman was giving Sasha a small plate of homemade cookies. Sasha thanked his mom and returned to his homework. Matthew's own mom used to be that attentive, but since she announced to Matthew that she was pregnant, she spent most of her attention on the unborn baby. As for Matthew's dad, however, he was always cold towards him. He acted more as an authority figure than a father.
It took about two hours until Sasha left the living room. Matthew worried about his mother getting pissed that he would arrive home later than he usually did. He started to doubt that when he considered how obsessed his mom was over her swollen stomach. During that two hour timeframe, Sasha finished his homework for the day, ate his snack, and watched TV.
Matthew watched as Sasha exited out of the living room. He wondered where the redhead was going. He had seen one of the lights turn on. He sneaked to another lilac bush to continue to spy on Sasha. Sasha was in what looked like to be his bedroom. The room was covered in plastic Halloween decorations and action figures. A Dungeons and Dragons board sat in the middle of all of the tacky decorations around the room. An old basset hound sat on top on Sasha's bed, sleeping like an old bear. It was kind of bizarre to see so many Halloween decorations in one room. The decorations also stayed up year round as if every day was Halloween to Sasha, as Matthew later found out.
Sasha greeted the old dog on the bed by petting it, "I'm home, you lazy old mutt."
The dog immediately woke up, wagged its tail, and started licking Sasha's hand. Then the dog started sniffing the air and then barked, growled, and howled at the window from the bed. The dog had picked up Matthew's scent from the yard. Matthew hid deeper within the lilac bush, knowing that if Sasha caught him, he would get in serious trouble over being in someone else's yard. He could still see from where he crouched down. Sasha opened the window and gazed out it.
Matthew let out a quiet sigh of relief when Sasha turned around, closing the window behind him, and scolded the dog, "be quiet! You can chase after the darn squirrels in the morning."
The dog made one last whine and lay down uneasily, knowing that a stranger was still in the yard. Sasha sighed, "If you're good after I get a bath and go down to dinner, I'll give you half of my pork chop. The dog turned and wagged his tail. "Good dog!" Sasha turned towards his dresser and got out a pajama set. Sasha changed out of his clothes. Sasha then put a dark green robe on and grabbed a basket that was filled with toiletries, most likely getting ready to go take a shower.
Matthew blushed at seeing his fellow classmate naked. He had never seen anyone naked before with the exception of walking in on his parents changing once. He also did not even know the similarities between boys and noted that his and Sasha's private areas looked the same. He did not want to think about it any further. He ran from the lilac bush, running straight home without taking a single glance back.
The next day at school, Matthew sat down at the loser's table for lunch. He avoided looking at Sasha all morning. Besides the awkwardness of seeing the other boy changing the night before, Matthew also feared that Sasha or his parents might have seen him lurking around their house. At the lunch table, Sasha did not scold him for trespassing nor flinch in Matthew's presence. The only one that probably knew he was there that night was the dumb dog.
Matthew tapped Sasha on the shoulder and asked him to meet him in a secluded part of the playground near the large pine tree. Sasha agreed and everything seemed to have been going according to plan. He would have asked Sasha to join him in on his schemes and Sasha would be his right hand man. That is if things went Matthew's way.
Sasha met up with him and asked him what he needed, Sasha's face filled with curiosity. Matthew decided to cut to the chase, "Sasha, wouldn't you like to not get picked on anymore by Darcy, Stacy, or their jerk friends?"
"Yeah, I hate being picked on by them," Sasha agreed. It seemed that Sasha and he were in the same boat regarding that issue.
"Great, I am too!" Matthew cheered, "I know just how to get them to leave us alone."
"How?" Sasha asked curiously.
Matthew grinned, "We'll be liked by them by scamming them out of all of their allowances and by pulling pranks on them. Think about it, they would do nothing to us if they are too poor and afraid of us. It would be great! We'll fight fire with fire!"
"It would not be great!" Sasha protested loudly. "You would just be acting like them!"
"They deserve it, Sasha!" Matthew yelled, "They pick on us every single day and I'm tired of being called fatso! I bet you're tired of them calling you a dweeb."
"I am tired of it," Sasha retorted, "but I'm not taking part in your stupid failed scams! They're lame and stupid! You're acting no better than Darcy, Matthew McGee!"
"You have ten seconds to take that back!" Matthew hissed. His young eyes were probably filled with rage, because Sasha flinched when he saw them.
"No!" Sasha shouted, "I don't want any part in it!"
Matthew charged at Sasha as fast as his little legs could. Sasha tried to push Matthew away from him, but Matthew was much heavier than he was. Sasha was pushed into the pine tree, his head and back hit the bark and his arms hit the pine needles. Sasha wailed at the pain of getting pricked by pine needles and from the pain in his back and the back of his head. Hot tears streamed down Sasha's face. "If you tattle-tell on me for what happened; I'll break your legs!" Matthew whispered harshly, before walking away.
That was the first time that Matthew had ever hurt Sasha. Sixteen years later and things have not changed much, except for the fact that Sasha never told on him for the incident involving the pine tree. The biggest irony of remembering that incident was that he was now in prison for hurting Sasha. It's funny how things turned out.
After that incident, Sasha pretty much became his lifelong enemy and sex partner at one point. Neither Seth nor Lucas knew about what happened at the pine tree. Matthew was not willing on telling them about what had happened. In his eyes, it was just a moment where his lost his temper. Just like the time after that and the time after that. Just like what happened at Sasha's bar. Sasha pushed Matthew's buttons, so he dealt with redhead to put Sasha back in his place.
Also after that incident, Sasha sat further away from Matthew at the loser table. Seth and Lucas found it kind of bizarre and even tried to figure out what Sasha's problem was when Sasha was out of earshot. Sasha would not tell them what happened. Lucas came to the conclusion on his own that Sasha thought he was too good for them and begun to despise the redhead. Seth did not express what he thought, other than Sasha was acting strange.