[Brendon]
I was meant to meet Ryan at the end of the street the next morning. I waited for about 20 minutes or so, he was a no show. Obviously thought he was too cool to hang out with anyone. I'd already missed the bus and figured I had to walk to school. Yay, for only just being on time.
I managed to make it to school just in time, although I didn't see Ryan anywhere, not until about halfway through the day when I saw him stumbling down the hall. No one really bothered to notice, everyone just pushed him to the side, and it seemed that nowadays, anyone who looked as bad as he did was an inconvenience. I know I probably looked weird when I ditched my bag and ran towards Ryan to try and help him get to a seat, but I didn't care, he was a friend.
I managed to convince Ryan to go to the school nurse and get him calmed down and fixed up. He claimed that he fell down the stairs at home, but honestly, I didn't believe him. I managed to convince the nurse to let him go and lead him back to where I had left my bag. Shit, it was gone. Oh well.
"Ryan, will you please just tell me what happened?" I asked after about 15 minutes of awkward silence at lunch.
"Look, I can't tell you here," he mumbled. "Do you think it would be cool if I was able to stay at yours for the next few nights though?" I nodded, it was the least I could do for him, especially if there was shit going down at his house.
The worst thing that probably happened that day went as follows:
We were sitting around at lunch, just joking around and Tayla decided to show up. This was the first I had seen of her all day, shock horror, honestly. The first thing she saw were the bruises on Ryan's face. She proceeded to run up and hug him and be all over him. The next thing was when she turned to me and said:
"Brendon, can we please talk..." she looked around, "alone?" I nodded and she dragged me off by the wrist.
"What is it now Tayla?" I asked, bored out of my brains and actually knowing what was going to happen.
"I don't think what we have is going to work out," she said bluntly and walked off after flipping her hair in my face. I saw it coming, honestly and next, I knew she would end up all over Ryan, typical of her...and any of her friends really.
She headed over to Ryan and sat in his lap, I decided I would just go off to the side and watch. I could see he was uncomfortable; he was just too polite to push her off.
The day ended as quick as it began and as soon as I bothered to notice I found myself waiting outside the front gate for Ryan. He slowly came up and we started walking together. I knew that he probably wasn't going to tell me, but I decided to take a shot anyway.
"Ryan, what really happened?" I asked.
"It's too hard to explain," he replied. He obviously didn't want to talk about it.
"Please?"
I heard him sigh and figured he finally decided to tell me. "My dad's an alcoholic. When he gets drunk, he's really violent." He looked down and I swear I almost saw him start crying. The next few minutes were spent in silence until we got to my house.
"Mum! Dad! I have a friend staying over!"