Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not Newsies, not LOVE. NOTHING!
Title: Violence Recovery
Author: Buttons14
Genre: Drama
Rating:R (subjects to change)
(Note: this quote was taken from different places throughtout the song and was not arranged in this order.)
Just cast away and I am lost at sea
Another lonely day and no one here but me...
A hundred billion castaways all looking for a homeJohn Mayer, Message in a Bottle
Chapter 7—David
Mornings are my new favourite things. They are still and peaceful. Bad things happen at night, in the dark when no one is watching. They can't happen in the morning, at the beginning of a new day, a new start. And I love breakfast smells and breakfast conversations. They are always cheerful because no one has had a bad day yet. It is too early and good dreams are still wafting around in our heads.
We actually laugh. Ele looks normal, but I keep thinking about her aunt. We actually laugh, but not because we've forgotten our old lives, but because we're doing pretty well in these ones. And we know it. At least, I hope we do.
0o0o0o0o0
David canoes.
"I don't just read and sit around all day," he told me as he flipped a red canoe over.
It was still early. The sun was peering over the hill ahead of us and into the bay. I held two paddles in my hands and a boat safety kit sat at my feet. The water was slow, not even breaking on the shore. We each wore orange life bests over our coats. Mine was riding up around my armpits, but David looked comfortable, his long arms bent out the arm holes with relaxed ease. He has on a red baseball cap, covering his neat, curly brown hair and shading his grey-blue eyes.
He began to shove the boat into the water. At about half way he stopped and I climbed in. Then he shoved the canoe in all the way and jumped in himself.
I handed him a paddle and we began to row. The sounds were smooth and melodic. Leaves rustled on shore and an animal scurried somewhere nearby. We paddled against the light breeze and out of sight of the cabins.
My arms ached as I plunged the oar beneath the water's surface, but David didn't complain so I didn't either. After a while his strokes grew longer. Thicker and more angry.
"I used to row with my brother and sister," David told me.
I hadn't thought that David once has siblings, but I suppose now that it fits perfectly with him.
"They were named Les and Sarah." Good names; Sarah, Les and David. It has a good ring to it. "My dad taught us to row and my mom taught us to swim. I was twelve the last time we went up to our cottage. That means Les was six and Sarah was thirteen. It was the summertime and we brought up my cousins who were eight and ten. We took the paddle boat out on the lake. Les would sit on the back, in the middle, because he was the lightest. Sarah and I would have to paddle. Sometimes we brought out sandwiches and juice for lunch."
I couldn't see his face, but I was sure he was smiling. There was an eerily nostalgic air about us. Just the two of us, floating on water, looking like crystal glass that could break any second. He had stopped paddling.
"I miss it. I miss the rowing and the sun and the summers. And the cottage. Sarah liked rowing the most."
Slivers of reminiscing floated inwards. I fought to push them out. To forget Lucas' face. I didn't want to remember where he is. I didn't want to remember what that man did to him.
"They all died in a fire," we were drifting with the slight breeze. "My cousins were moving and I had nowhere to go. I went to a bad school. There were knife fights in the halls and kids dealing drugs from bathroom stalls and in their lockers. You had to be careful not to get on anyone's bad side. So I didn't date and I didn't have a lot of friends but sometimes there are misunderstandings. I still don't know why he did it. A kid just charged at me and tackled me to the floor. He punched at my face and my stomach and my neck until I went unconscious. He had a knife and it met with my arm…" David's voice quivered, breaking off. I heard the oar hit the side of the boat gently.
"Ready?" he asked.
For what?
He started paddling before I could even answer.
We came into view of a thin bridge. In the safety kit we found a rope which we used to secure the canoe and then we climbed the bridge. We sat on it with our feet dangling over the side. Over the treetops we could see the cottages.
"You had a brother, right Spot?" David asked.
I nodded.
"I miss my brother. There was nothing I could do to save him." Tears covered David's face. I pretended not to notice.
"I know what you mean," I said sadly.
We didn't move until the sun reached its highest point in the sky, at which time we climbed back into the canoe and let the growing current take us back.
0o0o0o0o0
The rest of the day drifted by like clockwork. Things were slow and easy, nothing was hurried, everything leisurely and simple. I found a 'library' in one wing of the lounge. I pulled novels off the shelves and retreated to my cabin to read. And I stayed there all day, missing the casual lunch and resting until supper.
I miss my brother. I miss him a lot. Something inside of me yearns and bleeds and screams to me. You let him die! You let him bleed on the floor!
I try to tell myself that this isn't my fault, but something in the pit of my stomach retches when I say this.
And my mother. The reason for our suffering and the reason we stayed around so long. I kept telling myself that one day she would get it right. That one day she would stumble across a gem that treated her like he should. And he would treat us like he should. Us. There is no 'us' anymore. There's just me, Simon Conlon, a boy with no family, but a house full of people willing to let me in. And for some reason I can't let them in.
End Chapter
(scattered applause) Yes. Quite. I hope you liked that! I also hope you don't hate me for killing off all of the Jacobs'. I'm sorry, with them there would be no David! Really! And what would we do without our Davy-Boy? That's right, nothing.
Shoutouts:
Erin Go Bragh—I know how it is with the computer messing up all the time. I used to have that problem! No it's fixed! I love Sympatico, yay!
Charlie!Muse: dear God. Please stop dancing.
Me: Huh? No. Who asked you?
Charlie!Muse: It's late and you're delirious. Do stop before you fall and hurt yourself.
Me: (stops)
Charlie!Muse: there's a good kid.
Me: wait…you're only ten…
C.M. Higgins—Aw! You always say the nicest things!
Dreamer110—I love all my charries in this! They're all so cool! And I like writing their stories because it's fun. And my middle name is in Chinese and it means 'Perfection'. Yep, that's right!
Utopia Today—(eyes pop out) Seven chocolate-covered newsies? How can I choose? Do you buy them in bulk or something? OK, I want Itey, David, Jack, Swifty, Race, Specs and Dutchy. Got that? Good.
Coin—Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha! Be intrigued! Be very intrigued!
Tom!Muse: Hmm…something's wrong here…(injects Buttons with needle containing unidentified substance)
Me: (sinks to floor)
Tom!Muse: that's better.
Nakaia Aidan-Sun—They told you to stop writing? How dare they! Don't fret (tee hee, fret) I think you write fabulously! I'm also glad that you like the way I portrayed Ele, I wouldn't want her to be OOC or anything.
SpellBell—(gasp) please don't grovel. I'm really not that great. At all. I'm actually pretty bad because it takes me a decade and a half to update! And I don't know if Jack will have a girlfriend. I haven't thought that far ahead yet.
antiIRONY—I don't like making the PoVs a girls. Well, OK, I don't really mean it like that. I don't like writing my own character into my own story because I am (admittedly) a big perpetrator of the Mary Sue. I will make my character a Sue no matter how hard I try to give her flaws. That's why I usually just stick to newsies as the main characters, otherwise I will unknowingly turn the girl into a prefect version of me. It's Godawful! Yes, Godawful. Just like that.
And I like the name Simon for Spot. I don't call him Patrick much (like some people) because there was a Patrick in the movie (hence Patrick's mother) and I have no idea who her Patrick is, so I don't feel I have the right to steal the name.
((Also, everyone, as a point of interest, I want to point out that it is stupid to put the 'w' over the 's' because of imbeciles like me who turn the sentence into 'The water was slow, not even breaking on the whore.' Yes, that would have been bad.))