Chapter 25

Hoagie was seated in the school cafeteria on the ground floor at a table near the cashier. He was having juice and a meat pie as he watched the students come into the big hall. He nodded in greeting at some of them as he continued to eat his snack. As he took another bite of his pie he saw a redhead who was on her way to the staircase. He hurriedly stood and covered his mouth as he called her. She turned in the direction of his voice and smiled when she saw him. She walked up to him, looking a little self conscious. They hadn't spoken since she had tried to make Abby feel guilty at the coffee shop.

Taking his seat again, Hoagie spoke, "Hi Eva."

"Hi Hoagie, long time no see, huh?"

"Yeah, economics class doesn't count," he said with a smile that just melted Eva. He was cuter than ever. "So, how are you…generally?"

She shook her head slightly as she seemed to have an internal debate about his question. "Well, you know, alright I guess." There was an awkward moment of silence during which they just sat there.

Hoagie broke the silence as he shifted in his chair slightly. "Um…Abby told me about the note you'd sent her…to apologise. That was pretty awesome. I know this whole thing has been pretty rough on you –"

Eva silenced him with a wave of the hand. "It's ok."

"No, it's not. I gotta say this, you're pretty awesome for doing that. I admire that. I'm sure it wasn't easy."

"Thanks," she said with an inaudible laugh. She ran her fingers through her auburn hair that was falling freely over her shoulders. "You're a great guy Hoagie. Any girl would be lucky to have you," she said sincerely.

He reached across the table and held her hand. "Thanks," he said with a little smile. And any guy would be lucky to have Abby, he thought. The brown haired boy looked at the clock on the wall opposite him. "I gotta go. Class," he said with a slight look of boredom on his face which got her laughing. He smiled. "Take care, alright?" he instructed as he rose to his feet and picked up his backpack. "Don't be such a stranger," he said as he walked away from her.

She watched him leave the cafeteria, and sighed as she propped her arms on the table and supported her head in her hands. She sat there daydreaming about what the future could bring for the two of them. "I love you, Hoagie," she said under her breath.

xxx

That evening Pauline had gone over to Kev's apartment to spend the night with him. They had gone to bed about half an hour ago, but he had been a bit restless as he tossed and turned. He strained his body though, as he tried to be as quiet as possible, hoping not to rustle the sheets too much.

"Sweetie, what's wrong?" Pauline asked into the quiet as she turned to face him.

He lay still, flat on his back. "I…want to tell you something. But I don't know how to begin."

She supported herself on her elbows and lowered her head to his to give him a kiss on the cheek. "You can start anywhere; the beginning, the end, anywhere." She brought her hand to his face and gave him a soft caress. "And start whenever you're ready. We've got all night, ok?"

He nodded and kissed her palm. She moved closer to him to snuggle and he wrapped his arm around her as he looked up at the ceiling. They lay there in silence for another fifteen minutes before he spoke again.

"My dad died when I was eight," he said, before going quiet again. Pauline stretched her arm across his torso and took his hand in hers, interlocking her fingers with his. He held her closer to him with his other arm. She did not speak as she waited for him to continue.

"He was a great guy. He worked hard to put food on the table. And it was an honest living too, not like most of the other dead beat dads in the hood. He worked at a construction site while most guys were out peddling drugs." Kev laughed quietly as he reminisced, before continuing in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "He was big and strong. I'd always wanted to be like him. He used to say that if I was to get muscles anywhere nearly as big as his, then I'd have to eat all the veggies on my plate." He smiled at his recollection. "I was probably the only kid who ate up all their veggies religiously."

He shifted a bit and continued. "So one day when my dad was coming home from work…things just went wrong." He laughed mirthlessly. "It's just crazy. He had pretty much arrived home. He was walking up the steps to the entrance of the flat…and he got shot. Just like that," he said with a shrug of the shoulders. "Some stupid gangs were having a drive-by. They just happened to do it by our street when my dad was coming home. He wasn't the only one who died. Those kids took out a number of people on the sidewalk. My dad was hit three times, and he bled out before the paramedics could arrive." He went quiet and was surprised to feel tears roll down his cheeks. He hadn't even realized he was crying. He slowly wiped away his tears, and Pauline gave his hand a little squeeze.

"My mom…well, she was inconsolable after that. The bottle became her only companion, which meant my brothers and I pretty much had to fend for ourselves. My brothers, being older than me joined the local gangs first. I'd tried to stay away, but I was too little to successfully rob anyone, so I joined them too." Kev swallowed a huge lump in his throat. He never spoke about his crappy past, and he felt very anxious laying everything out in the open.

He took a deep breath and continued. "The gang wanted to initiate me. So I was expected to kill or at least seriously maim a member of the rival gang. But man, I was scared. I was so small, there was no way I could have managed to take a fourteen year old kid in a fight and win…I was supposed to use either a gun or a knife. I refused to do it; I couldn't take a life. So the kids in my gang had to teach me a lesson. They beat me senseless. My own brothers instigated the punishment…coz I was a let down; an embarrassment."

Pauline was mute with shock. She would have never imagined that that was the kind of 'rough' childhood Mrs. Wyatt had told her Kev had had. She let go of his hand and stroked his hair. She was glad that the room was almost pitch black, for she was sure she would not have been able to look him in the eye as he recalled his heartbreaking story. The sadness and bitterness in his voice was enough to bring her to tears.

"I don't know how I didn't die that day. Somehow I managed to get home. I don't know how long it took me to get there, coz I'd lost consciousness a couple of times on my way home. I was in bad shape. My chest ached so bad, it felt like knives were sticking into me. It was coz some of my ribs were broken. I was battered and bruised. Everywhere hurt. I collapsed at the door, and I was sure I would die, coz I remember seeing my mom's face before I blacked out. And she was as drunk as ever. I knew that was it."

He rolled onto his side to face his girlfriend and held her close as she tucked her head under his chin. "I woke up in hospital the following day. Apparently mom got a neighbor to drive me there. But I didn't get to see her, coz child services was called. I was taken to an orphanage, but I ran away less than a week later. I just wanted to go home. For a year things were as normal as they could be. Mom was still a drunk. My brothers were still gang members. And they'd bring their girls home and sleep with them when I was right there; in the lower bunker."

Kev sighed deeply before he continued. "One day my eldest brother came home. Dylan, his name is Dylan, and my other brother was Marlon. So Dylan – he was fifteen then – came home and found Marlon in bed with his girl, with Dylan's girl, that is. So he went crazy. He beat them both up, and I tried to get him to back off Marlon. He shoved me away easily, and then he got one of mom's liquor bottles and broke it. He stabbed Marlon with it, and then he came after me. By then his girl had ran out of our house screaming at the top of her voice.

'I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. Dylan just laughed at me, like I wasn't going to do anything. I was shaking like a leaf, and he lunged at me. I tried to avoid him, but he came at me again. I tripped over a chair and he fell over me, right onto the knife. I got him in the gut, and I was so scared. I was crying like a little girl, and I tried to stop the bleeding with my hands…but it just kept flowing out." He gulped. " I'd never seen so much blood, not since my dad.

'Next thing I knew there were cops in our house, and they dragged me away, into one of their vehicles. The paramedics came soon afterwards. They took three people from our house. Mom, who was in a drunken stupor; and there was Dylan and Marlon. But Marlon's body was covered with a sheet. He was dead…I'd forgotten about him when I was trying to tend to Dylan…I'd forgotten about him, and he died."

Pauline did her best to hold Kev as tight as she could. He was shaking as he remembered that evening. He spoke in a rasp whisper. "Dylan got treatment, and then he was thrown into juvie. After turning eighteen he was to be transferred to some maximum security prison. Mom was thrown in prison too, but she died two years later. I was sent to an orphanage again. I was there till I was twelve, when Maeve and Chris took me in. I don't know why they kept me, coz I was a crap kid. I was rude, I was scary, I didn't talk to them or their family for the first three months that I was with them. But for some reason beyond my understanding, they didn't give up on me." He was quiet for a short while. "I just thank God they didn't give up on me. They changed my life." Kev then planted a kiss on his girlfriend's forehead. "You changed my life too," he said in a whisper.