Hi everyone! First of all, thank you to everyone who has left me a review, either on the last chapter and on my one-shot I recently posted. Shoutout to thepopcornpup and ValandMarcelle- you guys both are such great writers and feedback from you means so much to me!
I'm so excited to be posting this chapter- I've been working on it for a long time and it's going to be a big part of moving the story along. It's a long one, but I really hope you guys enjoy it!
Please let me know what you think! :)
Davey cursed. He usually made a point to avoid doing so, but Les wasn't around, and he felt that given the situation, it was appropriate.
His right eye throbbed and his left side was killing him. It was his ribs, he guessed. At least a few of them must be cracked. He knew he was also covered in bruises, had a bloody nose, and a deeply scraped arm. Davey knew he should be grateful he wasn't bleeding out of any of his vital organs, but he was finding it hard to feel grateful about anything at the moment, given the excruciating pain he was in. That combined with the fact that life seemed to be doused in utter hopelessness, he thought, more than justified a curse word.
Davey knew he had about six more blocks to walk until he would reach Katherine's apartment. It really wasn't very far, but every step hurt, and Davey was exhausted. Regardless of the relatively short distance, it wouldn't be easy, that was certain.
Davey decided he needed a break. He curled his fingers around a nearby lamppost, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to stay standing. He was vaguely aware of the realization that this had probably been the worst day of his entire life, and the past few weeks had all been leading up to this ironically terrible nightmare of a climax.
For the first time all day, Davey was able to collect himself enough to think back to when it all began, in a way that was somewhat rational. He decided that he would give himself five minutes of a break; five minutes to let the lamppost support his weight and to let his mind remember everything, and then he would put all of his effort into moving forward. It was crucial that he get to Katherine's before any of the newsies found him. That is, of course, if they were even looking.
Davey took a shaky breath, passed a hand lightly over his ribcage, and closed his eyes. Five minutes.
It had all begun weeks ago. Davey remembered that it had been a normal day—reasonably warm for the beginning of November, a fair headline—everything had been regular and routine in the best of ways. Davey had been happy: happy with his life as a newsie, happy with his new friends, happy with the knowledge that he and those new friends had formed a family that had done something incredible together. He had been getting better at selling papers too, under the expert tutelage of Jack Kelly. Crutchie had been right: Jack truly was the best.
If there was one thing Davey was grateful for, it was that he had happened to be selling alone on the day that it all started. Les had been with Race and Romeo and Jack had had something to take care of in the Bronx. And so Davey had been left to fend for himself, to choose his own spot instead of being constantly on the move as he was with Jack, and prove to everyone (and himself) that he could sell as much as his kid brother.
He'd decided that it was best to stick with an area he knew. He'd finally settled on a street near his old school, and he had been met with immediate success. He hadn't been there in a while, so it had been good to see what the place looked like. And everyone passing by had genuinely wanted to know what was really going on in the world, so Davey hadn't even had to make anything up. He had been feeling very proud of himself.
And then, about an hour before the end of the selling day, Davey had seen a gang of familiar faces approaching, and everything had gone south. He should have known that he couldn't have avoided them forever; he was lucky to have made it to November without an encounter.
Davey had tried to cover his face with a paper and turn the other way, but he knew they'd seen him. Even worse, he knew that he was their target.
"Well, look who it is," a voice had said sarcastically. Davey could never forget that voice—it belonged to Sam Gates.
Sam Gates and his crew, all of whom had incessantly tormented Davey since he'd been about Les's age, had stood in front of him, smirking. Davey had gone to school with them for as long as he could remember, and they remained a large part of why Davey hated the school system. They were the worst kind of students: idiotic, arrogant, rich, and from families who were significant benefactors of the school. They put no effort whatsoever into anything requiring the use of brainpower, and instead directed their energy towards ruining the lives of those who did. Davey had never seen the point of them even attending school, but they were the rich kids, the sons of publishing giants and company owners and managers and politicians, so it would have been ridiculous for them not to. And of course, they could get away with anything, considering that their parents were the reason the school even existed in the first place. Davey had always hated them with a sort of dull anger even exempting the things they'd done to him; they were just another example of how screwed up society was.
Sam and the others had taken a special interest in Davey. There weren't many poor kids in school, and the ones who were usually didn't show any particular aptitude for any intellectual matters, having spent their entire lives being prepared for a life of simple labor. So Davey, with his intelligence and his determination to be the best, had been an obvious focus. Since he had been ten or eleven, Sam and his gang had roughed him up almost every day, and Sam had always demanded that Davey do his schoolwork for him. Davey hadn't really had a choice in the matter: it had either been a black eye (which he couldn't have let anyone see, let alone the pain of it) or an extra half hour of homework every day. It had become normal practice for Davey, something he just accepted. Sam kept his violence to a minimum of shoving, smacking, and slamming, nothing that would leave bruises, as long as Davey gave him work that kept Sam significantly above a failing mark.
Davey, of course, had never told anyone. His father was obsessed with the idea of Davey attending school, Les too. Mr. Jacobs had always made such a big deal about the education he had never gotten to have that it had been drilled into Davey's brain that school was all that mattered. Davey couldn't very well tell his father that school was in fact miserable for him, and only partly because Davey was a little afraid it wouldn't matter: Mr. Jacobs had prioritized his sons' education over all else, and Davey knew he wasn't allowed to do or say anything at all that might challenge that.
So Davey had lived with it. The bulk of his school years had been shadowed by Sam, his father's expectations, a mostly dormant disgust for the system itself, and a deep loneliness. Davey had been instantly taken back to all of that when he saw Sam again—he'd let most of the memories fade when he'd become a newsie.
"Davey Jacobs, selling papers on a street corner," Sam had snickered. "Now this is interesting."
"What, you haven't heard about me Sam?" Davey had said steadily. "The newsboy strike that was such a big deal over the summer? I helped lead it."
Sam had laughed. "Oh yeah, I know. I just never could find you, Davey. Been looking for you ever since I heard what you were doing. You know, school just isn't the same without you." The words themselves were kind, but Sam had a special way of making them sound nasty.
"All right, well good to see you Sam, bye," Davey had tried brushing him off, hoping that all Sam wanted was to poke a little fun at him. Unfortunately, that hadn't been the case.
"Ah, not so fast," Sam had grabbed Davey's shoulder and jerked him around. "You thought we were, what, just going to say hi and move along? Think again, Davey Jacobs. See, you're a special kid. As obnoxious and worthless and pathetic as you are, you've got a real brain, and I'm going to take full advantage of it. I know you can't afford to come back to school or some shit like that, but it's going to be in your best interest to help me out anyway. Okay?" Davey had felt the first stirring of fear then, and he'd begun to realize what was really going to happen that afternoon. He had seen the four other boys from his school surround him, and he had given up on any small hope that he'd go home unharmed.
And sure enough, it had been like school all over again. Dragged into an alley, shoved around, taunted—and it all hurt more than Davey had remembered. Not only the pain, the pain that didn't really leave any bruises, because Davey knew that Sam liked to keep it so that what he did to people wasn't obvious; it was just Sam's way. Davey had been surprised again by how much physical pain one could inflict without leaving any evidence. But also, Sam Gates had a unique and unparalleled gift for inducing pain with words. To be fair, he didn't have a great many at his disposal, considering the fact that his lack of effort in school had far outweighed the duration of his education, but he had a way of twisting certain words into tools that could make someone hurt inexplicably. It was all the talk about friendship, Davey thought. How Davey had never had a friend in his life (which was true) and he'd never be happy and he'd never have the relationships he wanted and things that had made Davey feel like a little kid, because after all this time hearing them, they shouldn't have hurt anymore. But they hurt worse because it had been true for so much longer, and time hadn't proven Sam wrong the way Davey had always believed it would. Because Sam had done the worst thing he could possibly have done that first day, among all the hitting and shoving and yelling, and that had been to infect Davey with doubt about the newsies. And about Jack. The person he had considered his best friend in the world, Davey now wasn't even sure liked him at all.
And when Sam and the boys had finally decided they had enough, Sam had knelt to the ground and dragged Davey up by the collar of his shirt. "And Dave? I have a paper due in a couple days. I'm supposed to write about a president. Ten pages at least, about why he was the most effective. I want it tomorrow afternoon—meet me here, or we're going to make it even worse for you tomorrow. And it better be good, I'm failing right now." Sam had spit in Davey's face and kicked him in the side, and then walked away, leaving Davey panting on the ground, feeling the same kind of hopeless the Sam had made him feel so many times before.
It had gone on for about two weeks. Davey hadn't told anyone—how could any of this possibly hold a candle to the things all the other newsies had gone through? He was reminded daily of how lucky he was to have folks, to have his own apartment—he had everything, according to them. And it was as if all of a sudden, the very idea of the newsies and Jack and the family he had formed with them, had been ruined. Davey felt like Sam had poisoned him, and now he was unable to feel comfortable with the newsie anymore. He felt like he couldn't trust Jack, and that Crutchie was a liar and Race hated him and none of them really cared about him whatsoever. Every day, Sam reminded him that Davey was all alone. And telling his parents wasn't even an option. They needed Davey to be fine, so he just had to be.
There was, of course, very little evidence of Sam's work. The bruises were mostly limited to his chest, and nobody saw them there. He made sure Les suspected nothing—Davey knew Les was perceptive for a ten year old. None of the newsies had noticed until the night Mush got sick, which only made Davey feel worse, because privately, he had been holding every single one of them responsible for figuring out that something was wrong. Davey had managed to save time every night for Sam's essays and homework and examination preparation; he stayed up an extra hour and got everything done while Les was asleep. It was all eerily similar to his school years: a routine had begun to form around Sam Gates, a routine of pain and depression and finding a way to make it work.
And then everything had changed the night Mush got sick. Race had snapped at him and essentially destroyed any lingering faith in the newsies that Sam had left intact. Davey straightened up and took a deep breath. Well no, he supposed he couldn't blame Sam for that entirely. Sam had planted the doubt, but Davey had lost faith in the newsies on his own.
And that night had basically broken him, Davey thought. After hearing the newsies attack him when he was only trying to help, he gave up. He'd had to console Les first and foremost, but after that he'd felt hopeless. He didn't finish Sam's work, and he hadn't been able to hold the tears back when he went to bed. He knew Les had heard him, but the older brother part of Davey that usually berated him if he ever showed signs of weakness in front of Les had just sat back and let it happen. He had barely slept all night, and when he'd gotten up in the morning, he had felt as if he had lost all of his classic Davey common sense. He decided that he cared about nothing anymore—not Sam's threats, not the newsies, not his life—and so Davey had decided to stand up to Sam. Who the hell would care anyway? What did he have to lose?
Once Davey had made the decision, he'd made sure to give Les to Jack for the day, and he had sold with a newfound determination and ferocity, throwing morality to the wind and lying his face off. He'd sold straight through the day, not stopping for lunch, and had finally sold his last paper at about four o'clock. And then he'd waited for Sam Gates and his crew to show up at the exact spot he'd met them two weeks before.
Davey wished he could go back to that moment and smack himself. It was his own stupidity that had caused this, had caused him to be doubled over by a lamppost, on his way to throw himself at the feet of the only outside party he could think of and beg for help. His pride was killing him just as much as his injuries.
Sam had shown up, of course. At about six, he'd come striding over to Davey, obviously expecting his essay and a timid kid who'd put up no fight when Sam started to beat him up.
He had gotten neither. Davey had stood there, feeling his anger strong inside his chest. He'd waited for Sam to speak.
"Uh oh, somebody forgot to do their homework," Sam had smirked. "I thought we had a deal Davey. I'll give you one more chance, but I think you'd better show up with an extra good paper tomorrow or-"
Davey had exploded then. "Never again," he'd snarled, as he approached Sam. "Will I ever do anything because you told me to." And then he'd thrown the hardest punch of his life.
Looking back, Davey presumed it had been his most heroic moment. But unfortunately it had been just that—a moment. Immediately after Davey had landed his punch, he had been tackled by the other boys, thrown on the ground and immediately put on the defensive. Davey had fought hard; he had almost enjoyed the chance to be able to do something with all the crap he felt inside, but it hadn't been enough. It couldn't possibly have been enough.
Sam had finally let up. Davey had felt even more broken than before, even more angry. His emotions had been everywhere and out of control, in every part of his body there had been strong emotion. Sam and his gang had executed a first rate beating, and Davey had known it. Damn, he had felt it.
And so Davey had lie there on the ground, fighting for breath. Had seen the boys walk casually out of the alleyway as if they'd done nothing more than talk. Had dragged himself up and into a standing position. Had fought through his confusion and exhaustion and tornado of feelings to come to the conclusion that he needed to get somewhere to rest. Had thought of Katherine and her little apartment that she had said was always open to any of the boys. Going to the newsies had out of the question. They hated him.
Davey sighed and straightened up, wincing. The five minutes were up. It was time for him to start walking again.
He had barely taken a step when he heard a familiar voice. He cursed again. Why the hell had he taken a break?
"Davey?" Specs said uncertainly. "Is that you?"
Davey closed his eyes. He had no energy left to care. Whatever happened now would happen. He turned around.
"Holy shit," Davey was vaguely aware of Specs murmuring under his breath. "Are you okay? No, never mind, you clearly ain't. Um—I don't wanna leave you but—yeah, I think I'd better. Dave, I'm gonna go get Jack. I'll be quick, I promise."
Davey nodded. He knew Jack didn't care though. In fact, if he was sure of one thing, it was that no one at all cared.
Davey immediately rejected the idea of trying to make it to Katherine's before Specs got back with Jack. He knew he could never do it.
Davey sat down on the sidewalk, and leaned his head against the lamppost. This had most definitely been the worst day of his life. He wanted to stop being here. Everything hurt, from his head to his heart to his entire body.
Davey let himself start crying. The street blurred together with the night sky until all Davey could see was darkness. But as he waited for Specs to come back with Jack, he made sure never to close his eyes, even though it wouldn't make any difference in what he was able to see. It was the only way he had even a chance of seeing some light.