"I die every time I see you like this."
He closed his eyes, but it didn't help. The memories he tried desperately
to keep at bay only came faster, clearer. The dark night, the flashing
lights, the stench of gasoline.
"I die"
And the
pain. The overwhelming, all consuming pain. He was paralyzed, unable to
separate past and
present. Pain skittered along his nerves
and burned away all reasonable thought.
"Every time."
The past could not be changed, or taken away.
"I see you."
He was aware of nothing, not even the chaos that surrounded him. "Like this."
***
"Isaac, why don't you invite some of your friends over this afternoon?"
Isaac Glen hardly paid any attention to his mother, he didn't even look up from the book he was reading. "They're busy."
"They're always busy," Dora scrutinized her son carefully. "What could they possibly be doing?"
"Stuff."
"Excuse me?"
"Stuff," this time, Isaac looked up. "You know, stuff."
"What were their names again?" Dora continued to look at him. "Garet Jones
is a friend of yours, isn't he?
Why don't you call him up and ask for
a ride to school?"
"He had study hall this morning," Isaac replied, not missing a beat. "He left an hour ago."
"Well, how about Jim Kraden? I could call him up."
"No, mom, that's okay," Isaac slid his book into his backpack. "I like to walk, remember?"
"Isaac, don't tell me you're still afraid to get in a car."
"That's not it," Isaac shook his head. "It's just that Kraden's car is old, rusty, it smells like really old cottage cheese, and it's not really a car. It's more like a bomb on wheels. Have you ever heard him start it up?"
"Isaac, it's been three years," Dora continued as if she hadn't heard him. "It was a horrible accident, but it shouldn't ruin your life."
"Mom, are you listening to me?" Isaac asked. "I just said I'M NOT AFRAID."
"Or do you still blame yourself?"
Isaac hesitated. "I, I gotta go, Mom. I'm gonna be late."
He swung his backpack into his shoulder, and walked out the door.
"Goodbye, sweetheart!" she called after him. Isaac didn't turn around, or make any sign that he had heard her at all.
***
"Are you listening to me?"
"Uh huh," Ivan answered absent-mindedly. He knew he should be absorbing what Jerry said, it was good advice, and Jerry was his best friend, but he wasn't. "Yep."
Jerry slipped through a tangle of people and ended up next to him. "Then why are we still walking down the main hall?" he gestured to indicate the white walls, puce green lockers, and tight knots of teenagers. "We should go upstairs!"
"If we do that we'll be late," Ivan pointed out.
"Oh, screw it!" Jerry growled. "You can get stuffed in a trash can and be late anyway! I'm gone!"
Ivan knew better than to try and find him and apologize. Not only did his friend sound completely pissed, but he was just passing the axis of the four halls of Vale High School, and it was packed.
"It's a little sophomore."
He had come face to face with the football team. More accurately, he had come face to chest with the Captain of the football team. As it was a game day, he found his nose practically pressed into the "08" on Garet Jones' green and white jersey. Four of his lackeys fanned out behind him, stupid grins on their wide, ugly faces.
"Hello, Garet," he said after he got his voice working. Garet and his muscle bound morons had been tormenting him since the first day of school at VHS. He had been expecting some form of orientation, being a sophomore, but never had he thought he would be facing some form of orientation every single day. *I should have known,* he thought bitterly. *Not only am I one of the smallest sophomores in this dumb school, but I'm also John Hammet's only son.*
Garet smirked and backed up a step. He was at least two heads taller than Ivan, made even taller by the fact that his auburn hair had a liberal amount of gel in it, and stood nearly on end.
"Hello, sophomore."
His lackeys snorted with laughter for no apparent reason. They were stupider than they looked, which was rather pathetic.
"So, boys, what do you think we should do with him?" Garet held up a hand, causing his thugs to fall silent. Ivan wondered bitterly if they rolled over and played dead, too.
Garet leaned down so he could look his latest victim in the eye. *And the other problem is that I look like a girl,* Ivan thought again. Garet's smirk widened. "Stuffing people into trash cans is getting old. Let's try something new with this one. Like duct taping him to the door of the girl's locker room but I bet this queer would like the boy's locker room, better."
He grabbed Ivan's hair. Ivan couldn't help but yelp, forced nearly to his tiptoes, but he didn't bother to struggle. He knew better than that. Above him, the bell rang it's continuous, monotone note, then cut off. He was late.
"Leave him alone."
The halls were practically clear now, so it was obvious who had spoken. A scruffy, blonde Senior dressed completely in black, and sitting up against a row of lockers. He stood, and Ivan felt the hopes that had been rising drop. He was scrawny, and shorter than Garet. To top it all off, this particular Senior was somewhat of a joke. Even Ivan called him Nameless.
"Come again, freak?" Garet mockingly tilted his head to one side. "No one was listening."
His goons positively guffawed at that. Ivan almost began laughing himself. Nameless was a subject of constant ridicule for all three grades, more so than Ivan was. At least Ivan had a name.
"Leave him alone," Nameless repeated in the same, soft controlled tone.
Garet laughed, but there was a note of genuine humor in it. "Think you're big stuff, huh? You've got guts, Nameless. There's no reason that I should listen to you, and anyone here could pound you into the tiles. What's in it for you?"
"Nothing," his blue eyes turned to pure ice. "But people like you disgust me. You run the halls of this school, building your reputations off of people smaller and weaker than you are. Cowards."
"You wanna repeat that?" Garet released Ivan and cracked his knuckles Isaac smiled, but it didn't reach his cold eyes. "Oh, what, did you miss all of those big words like 'is' and 'the'?"
"No, I just don't like to be insulted," Garet pulled back one fist and hit Nameless in the face. The other senior reeled back and hit the lockers, falling to the ground. He looked up, his eyes slightly glazed, a bruise already forming on his cheeks. "Oh, what, want some more?"
"Garet! Leave him alone!" a girl in a cheer leader uniform stomped over, her long brunette ponytail swaying with every step, her brown eyes smoldering. Ivan knew who she was, Garet's girlfriend, the Head Cheerleader, Jenna Hunter.
"Defending freaks and nobodies now, Jenna?" Garet grinned at her. "Cute, but I thought you were done with your community service."
"Oh, go hit your head against a punching bag for a while," Jenna ignored him, and pulled Nameless to his feet. "Are you okay, Isaac?"
Isaac looked at Jenna with surprise, as if no one had ever called him by his real name before. Maybe no one in this school had. "Y-yeah, I'm fine."
"We'd better get you to the nurse," Jenna held his chin between her fingers, turning his head so she could inspect the damage Garet had inflicted. "That's going to be a nasty bruise."
Isaac nodded dumbly, and allowed himself to be dragged in the direction of the Nurse's Office. Garet watched them go, and odd expression on his face. "Well, sophomore, you got off easy this time. Don't expect Nameless and Jenna to save you every day."
Ivan nodded, and walked down the hall, not looking back.
***
The nurse wasn't in her office.
Jenna cursed lightly under her breath, and pulled Isaac through the door anyway. Isaac didn't say anything, simply sat down in one of the chairs around the room.
"Oh, Isaac, that looks horrible," she held his chin again. Garet's class ring had dug into the skin of his cheek, and a steady trickle of blood slid down Isaac's face. "I'm sorry, Garet can be such a jerk."
"I was being an idiot," Isaac smiled ruefully. "Trying to save someone that didn't give a damn about me anyway."
"I'm sure that kid appreciates it," Jenna left him to find some gauze. "I've seen Garet picking on him before. His name's Ivan Hammet, if that gives you any clue to why."
Isaac winced in sympathy. "Poor kid."
"I agree," Jenna returned with a couple of pieces of wet gauze, a bottle of antiseptic, and a Band-Aid. She sat across from him and began dabbing at the cut. "I've tried talking to Garet about it, but he just laughs it off every time."
"You can't save everyone," Isaac winced again, this time for his own sake.
"I know," Jenna wiped the last of the blood away, and began gently applying the antiseptic. Not gentle enough, Isaac tried to jerk away. "Oh, don't be such a baby, Isaac."
"But it stings!" he protested.
"You sound like you're four," Jenna smiled at him, then stretched the Band-Aid over the cut. "There, all better."
"What, no kiss?"
Jenna laughed. "I always liked being around you, Isaac."
"Why?" he shot her a quizzical look.
"You're so easy to be around," she explained. "I don't feel like I have to be something I'm not around you, like I can just be myself. Do you have any idea how nice it is to be able to bring all of my problems to you?"
"I guess, I feel the same with you," he grinned at her, and she winced. The area around the Band-Aid was turning an angry shade of red, that would deepen to a dark purple before school was out. He noticed her actions, and began to look worried. "It looks that bad? Lord, what am I going to tell my Mom?"
"The truth?" Jenna suggested.
"Completely out of the question," Isaac stood and began to pace around the Nurse's Office like a caged panther. "I told her Garet was my friend-"
"WHAT?!" Jenna spluttered, trying not to laugh. "Why in the world would you tell her something like that?"
"So she doesn't worry," Isaac turned to her, looking into her eyes with his fathomless blue ones. "So she doesn't know that you're the only friend that I have."
Jenna couldn't think of anything to reply to that. Isaac turned from her, running his fingers through his scruffy hair that seemed to ignore all laws of gravity no matter what he did. "Guess I'll just tell her I was being stupid and ran into a locker."
She managed a faint laugh. "It won't be too hard to convince her of THAT. Shouldn't you be sitting down or something?"
"No, and shut up," Isaac mock glared at her. "Hey, wanna go get something to eat?"
"But we have class," she tired
weakly to protest, caught off guard by his question. Completely off guard,
not only was it a complete change of subject, but Isaac had never asked
her to go ANYWHERE with him.
"Oh, like we're going NOW," he
grinned deviously. "Shall we?"
"Can Garet come?" she asked. "His truck is a lot better than my Geo Metro-"
"Uh, I actually thought we could just go to the 7-11 across the street," Isaac shrugged.
"Well, can Garet go there?" she asked, all wide-eyed innocence.
"The guy just hit me half way into next week and you want me to grab a bite with him?" Isaac gave her a disbelieving look. "This COULD be interesting, I suppose spot me some cash?"
She laughed. "Oh, so you expect ME to pay?"
"Well, I'm poor! So sue me."
"But you're poor," she pointed out.
"Fine, fine, Garet can come."
***
Ivan ended up being later than usual for class.
His teacher shot him a disapproving look when he came in, half way through the lecture, but continued on once he took his usual seat next to Jerry, who apparently had forgiven him for the earlier incident.
"Man, I TOLD you to go upstairs," he hissed. "What happened?"
"Garet tried to maul me, but I was saved," Ivan whispered back.
Jerry looked impressed. "Who in the heck is THAT crazy?"
"Nameless," Ivan replied, before the teacher gave him a disapproving look. He fell silent after that, dutifully taking notes and ignoring Jerry's prompts for further conversation.
The bell rang, and they filed out into the halls.
"NAMELESS saved you?" Jerry started laughing. "The freak that's always listening to his CD player?"
"Yeah, saved my butt," Ivan nodded fervently. "Even took a punch for me. 'Course, that's when Garet's girlfriend came onto the scene."
"Poor Nameless," Jerry said, completely sympathetic.
"That's the weird thing, she defended him," Ivan turned to his locker, and spun the dial. Putting in his combination was second nature this late into the school year. "Wonder if they knew each other."
He didn't get any farther. He was grabbed from behind and turned around. Someone much bigger than him slammed his back into the lockers next to his open one Ivan tried not to cry out when his back was pressed into one of the locks. Jerry, he noticed, had conveniently disappeared.
"It's a little sophomore."
It wasn't Garet, but it was definitely one of his goons. Garet seemed to have disappeared for the time being. Ivan wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.
Let's have some fun with him."
He hit him in the stomach, hard enough that the wind was knocked out of him. Ivan staggered sideways a bit, trying to get air into his lungs, dark spots swimming across his vision. Garet's absence was definitely a bad thing. Garet was mean, but he had never physically harmed him beyond grabbing his hair to hamper his escape. His lackeys were MUCH meaner than he was.
As he thought that, one of the other goons back handed him across the face. Ivan sunk to the floor, still not able to breathe. It was a bad move, the first lackey kicked him in the ribs. This time, Ivan managed to cry out in pain. The goons thought it was funny, and kicked him again, and again, and again.
Somewhere through his haze of pain, Ivan heard one of the teacher's voices.
"What's going on here?"
"Just a bit of fun," one of the goons answered.
"'Just a bit of fun'?" the teacher mimicked him mockingly. "Get out of here!"
The goons scattered, and the teacher kneeled next to him. "Oi Hammet. Are you alright?"
He managed to nod.
"Nurse's office, now," she ordered him, looking around at the assembled students. Only now Ivan realized that a crowd had gathered around the beating. "Owen! Take him there!"
"Alright," an Angel took his hand and helped him up. She had long blue hair and blue eyes, and he didn't remember seeing her ever before. She supported him carefully and lead him to the Nurse's office.
Something about her felt calm and assuring. His bruises and aches suddenly didn't hurt as much anymore, and he could stand up strait instead of the half hunch that he had been forced into before.
"My name's Mia," she introduced herself. "What's yours?"
"I-Ivan," he answered shakily.
"Well, Ivan, you'll feel better in a minute," she smiled warmly. "I promise."