Edit (5-26-13): And it continues. Still minor edits and continuation fixes.
No one understands.
Of course no one understands, this is seventh grade, who would understand what it's like to grow up somewhere, with people you think your related to, to live with them, and then find out that they had been lying to you? To find out that your real mother, the one who gave birth to you, didn't want you particularly, but decided to keep her other two children, and your father, your real father was missing in action. To pretend that life was great in front of everyone, everywhere, when really, it was falling to pieces right in front of you, and there was not a thing you could do to react. Hell was coming to eat you, and you couldn't even fight against it. No one else understands this much like Gabriel Duncan.
His life was unsteady at this point, as most teenager's are, but in a different way. Kids Gabe's age were worried about popularity, and pimples, boys or girls, and their love life. How much skin they could show off without getting caught, how many texts they could send during class without getting their cell phone taken away. How loud they could blast their music, and how far from home they could get. They worried about their television shows. Smarter kids, the ones Gabe were stuck with in class, focused on politics and grades, earning money, and college. They worried about homework and work at home, requirements for graduation, and recessions. They dreamed of becoming doctors and computer graphics designers, and teachers, and cops. They didn't wonder how far they could slip by, they wonder how far they could get. How high they could reach and how many clouds they could capture. They didn't care about who got together with who, and when they did get together with people, they just did it, no questions asked. There was no sex, or drugs, smoking or drinking in Gabe's life. He wasn't beaten daily, and Amy and Bob were raising him fine. He didn't fight with his sisters; he enjoyed having them around really. He wasn't being bullied at school, and he wasn't being a bully either. His grades weren't slipping, but they weren't improving either. Maybe he'd be late to class once or twice, but he'd still be in the room when the bell rang, just not his seat.
If he had shown more signs, that he was drinking or doing drugs, or cutting himself, or trying to kill someone, maybe he'd be sent to a counselor. After he assured the man that Gabe Duncan was still the same old Gabe Duncan he had always been, he would slink back to class and curse his teacher for ratting him out. But they would only be trying to help. And life would go back to normal. Same routine in the morning, same route to all his classes, same response when asked a question, same things to do when he came home. Same everything. Same. Same. Same.
If it was anyone else in the entire world, anyone at all, they would have gone completely insane by now. If it was anyone else in the world, they would be running up and down the hallways screaming their guts out, clutching their backpack for dear life, and climbing the fence to be set free. But not Gabe. He was cool, calm, and collect. He didn't run, except at PE, he didn't scream at all, an he only hung onto his belongings when he need to, and never, ever, for dear life. Yes, he was still Gabriel Duncan, the poster boy for any family but the Duncans, and yes he was still a thirteen years old, but after that first day of school, after realizing he wasn't wanted, he became new. Newer. Different. He wasn't happy go lucky.
In other part of the square state, specifically, Manitou Springs, a brunette little girl awoke to the sound of yelling, coming from the general master bedroom area, for maybe the fourth time this week. She got out of her pink polka-dot bed, and subconsciously grimaced when she heard the sound of glass crashing to the floor, but continued. She opened her door just a crack to check in case her father or mother were out there, then snuck across the hallway, opened her brother's door, and entered his room, as she had for most nights now that fighting started. In the beginning she had scared him when she came in, but now David knew that it was just his big sister who was coming in his room. She took a heavy breath before she closed the door before feeling the wall for a light switch. Then she listened for more yelling. All things seemed quiet.
Just when it seemed to stop, the yelling and screaming, the fighting and the crashing of objects that were glass and breakable and she thought she could leave, it decided to start again. "David?"
"I just want them to stop. It's always like this now. I can't think a time when things were better." David called from his race car bed. It was a gift from their father, before their parents use to fight, maybe a year ago. Their mother didn't approve, but David and their father had loved it, and David had slept soundly the first night he had it. Mom was so proud the next morning, she decided they could keep it. However, the next month, things started to happen.
"I know, David." Emily sat at the edge of the bed of four year old David, and sigh inwardly, feeling older than six-going-on-seven. Though she knew that her mother and father didn't mean it, they now battled over words almost every single day, something more than one, sometimes of the stupidest of things. She felt helpless; it use to be just a small thing, fighting over what to eat, who goes out, where they go. She stroked David's hair, mahogany brown, that matched his eyes, and made his features all the more cute. "I know. I want it to stop too."
Suddenly, they heard the door of their parents room slammed against the door frame, which was loud and scary. They could hear everything going on just outside of the room; Courtney, their mother, screaming Jordan, their father, to get his ass back in the room and to talk to her. Jordan yelling like hell he would, and then him opening the front door and leaving the house. The sound of police sirens and the smell of midnight air made Emily shiver, and falter, but she smiled at David. Still, it couldn't mask her horror when their mother stood right outside the screen door and shouted in her loudest voice "Jordan Elliot Levenger, you get your ass back her and talk to me right this second! I know you can hear me. Get back here!"
They knew their father came back to their mother because in the next five seconds, they heard him shouting at her, "You want me back? You got me back! You wanna be a bitch? Well, I don't care about you! I could care less. In fact, I want you to burn in hell!"
"Don't you dare talk to me like that!"
"I can talk to you any way I want!"
"No you can't." A sick, loud, sound of skin hitting skin made Emily pause. This was it. This was what she feared.
Emily pulled back the comforter that cover David and said in a quiet urgent voice, "Get in the closet David." She nearly pushed him off the bed, and shoved him in the closet. This was the part that Emily hated the most. She was always weary of this part; the physical part. She was six, but she still understood. Life was scary.
Gabriel woke from his soft slumber. He couldn't place why, or how, but he awoke and was instantly alerted by some earthy mitochondrial force in his world. He knew not what was wrong, but he knew that something, somewhere was wrong, and he couldn't fix it. But he was most certainly going to try, starting now.
So, was it good? Hated it? Whatever? Well, review it anyway, and I'll get to it as soon as I'm not too depressed.