He didn't even notice when his father left, but he must have. The whippings with the belt had stopped, but it took him a while to realize that.
"Oh, Ricky," It was his mom's sad voice, and she had a cool cloth against his face.
He was still on the kitchen floor and everything hurt.
"C'mon, Ricky, honey. C'mon," His mom helped him up. Held onto his waist as she helped him get to the couch. He laid down, the ratty old couch felt so soft after the kitchen floor.
He wanted to tell his mother he hated his father and he was leaving, but the words stuck in his throat, and tears coursed down his cheeks. When his mom took the cloth away from his face it was bloody.
He groaned and rolled over, away from his mother, away from everything. He wanted to leave but he didn't have the energy. All he could do was lay there.
He didn't go to school the next day but the school didn't give a shit. He was a fuck up there anyway.
Days later, bruises started to heal, he'd gone back to school. The teachers either ignored him or figured he got what he deserved.
The only one who looked at him with any degree of softness was the girl with the black hair and big dark eyes, Maryann.
"Oh Ricky, Jesus Christ…" She trailed it off, hovered her hand near the dark bruises, the cuts. He jerked away from her. He didn't mean to but he couldn't help it. She reached out her hand again but slow, touched his hair. He let her.
"Hey, let's get married," he said, and her eyes widened at the desperateness in his tone. But she laughed, nervous, tinkly laughter.
"No," he said, tilting her chin up with the ball of his thumb, "I'm serious,"
"Ricky, God, are you crazy? Get married at 15?" There was a type of laughing in her voice that made him mad, just for a second. Like he wanted to hit her. He felt his hand curling into a fist.
"Forget it," he said, jumped up, ran. He knew she stared after him, knew how pretty she looked with her eyes wide like that, so dark they looked black, he loved her, loved everything about her, how could he want to hit her?
He ran until the air tore through his lungs, dry and gritty. His ribs hurt. His head hurt. He saw a little dog along the side of the road, one of those mangy junk yard dogs, sniffing for scraps. He lifted his foot up and kicked that dog square in the ribs, felt a vicious satisfaction when it whelped and he kicked it again. It ran off, yelping and whimpering, and the vicious feeling turned to a cold regret. Ricky squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his hands against his temples, doubled over and tried not to puke.
What the hell was wrong with him? He shuddered and looked back toward Maryann. He'd run too far, couldn't see her at all.
Good lord he needed a drink.
After awhile he headed slowly toward a bar he knew didn't give two shits about how old he was. He drank, from the golden top to the clear glass bottom of beer after beer, and the beer blurred everything to a tolerable level. He could almost stand to be in his own skin.
"Ricky?" Maryann had found him here. Her eyes looked shiny like she'd been crying.
"Oh…hey, hi," He knew he sounded drunk. Everything felt blurry and just out of reach.
"I'm, um, I'm sorry," she said, sliding onto the barstool next to him. He looked at her, her hair as black as a gun, she was so pretty. Her apology confused him, he had thought he was wrong.
"It's a, I guess it's okay," he said, trying to say each word right, without the drunken slur.
"Hey, have a drink," he said, and ordered her one. She smiled as the yellow beer was brought before her. She had a ways to go to catch up to him, but she thought she could. She knew she could.
