Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ A Stagnation of Love (Remake) ❯ Friends and Bullies ( Chapter 2 )

A Stagnation of Love

 

Author's Notes: It feels so weird working on this fic again after such a long time. This one is strange for me, A Stagnation of Love, Mirrors, The Letter, The Demon, and Seraphim are the only fics in the first person and ASOL and Mirrors are the only full length ones. It's hard getting back into the mood of this piece. I wrote it for a literary journal in my Sophomore year of High School, then re-wrote it my Sophomore year of College (I swear, it's like some sort of ritual or something…) and now I'm re-writing it again two years later. For some reason, either because I like writing it and want to make it perfect, or I feel sentimental because it was one of my first pieces of fanfiction, it's something I haven't been able to let die until I've gotten it right. Anyway, this chapter takes place the day after the prologue and details significant events in Duo's first day of elementary school life.

 

 

Chapter 1: Friends and Bullies

 

September 4, 1998

 

 

Sometimes, when Daddy isn't so angry and Mommy's asleep or has a headache, he takes me on rides Saturdays and Sundays. It's odd, sitting next to him in the car. He doesn't let me sit up front most of the time, but on these rides he does. He even lets me pick the radio station, though he wears this sort of pinched up frown and I know he hates listening to the music. Whenever he turns on the radio, it's to listen to sports or people talking about things that are happening in other places. He doesn't get mad, though. I thought he would the first time he had taken me on those rides, but he never did, never slapped me and told me to turn it off. When we're together on those rides, he doesn't yell or hit. He just drives, in complete silence. I had learned, a very long time ago, that silence is a bad thing, but nothing like that comes out of the silence in the car, driving through town. It only makes me realize how little I understand. I'll never understand Daddy. I guess… that's the only thing I'll ever truly understand, how little I know. But, in those quiet moments, sometimes I feel like we're like I wish we'd be, father and son, and in those moments, I truly love him. I should love him all the time, I know, and I do love him, `cause he's my daddy, but it's easier when he's not yelling or hitting.

Driving with Dad feels like sitting in a cage with a wolverine. I've heard that expression from somewhere, though I can't quite remember where. I'm not sure what a wolverine is, but it must be something big and scary and Dad's just like that. Though he doesn't say anything, I don't feel safe, but it's still nice in a way. It's nice to sit next to him without him yelling at me. It's nice to be with him without worrying about gettin' hit. My favorite parts of those drives are passing by the school and the woods near it. I don't have any brothers or sisters and what little I know of school is what I've seen during those drives and on TV. We never see kids my age when we pass the school, `cause it's the weekend and it would be pretty stupid if kids were hanging out there. I fantasized about it, sometimes, like how they show it on TV. People hanging out together, laughing and happy as they eat pizza and talk about people that they like. I wonder what that's like, having someone to actually talk to, no matter what it is to talk about. Even if it was something stupid, I think I could be happy.

I hadn't been more excited for anything than the morning I, finally, got to go to school. I don't know if it was because it was something new, or that I would get to meet people my own age, or that I was going to leave the house, leave Mom and her weird stares, for most of the day, but I really was excited. I hadn't met anyone my age before. I stay in the house most days, only going outside when Dad's not around. I've learned that it's a very bad thing to not be where Dad can find me if he needs me for anything. I'd a hard time sleeping last night because of my excitement, but I didn't feel tired at all when I got up this morning. I fixed breakfast for myself, like always, and packed my things. Dad had an old black book bag from his time at school in the basement and it wasn't all that hard to scrounge up pencils and some paper. Last night, I had wondered if my parents even remembered that today was my first day at public school, because neither of them said anything to me about it, or what I would need to bring, but the shows on TV showed kids writing a lot, so I would need paper and pencils at least. I had worried a little about the calculators, but the shows had all been about big kids, so maybe I didn't need one. I got that same feeling, that no one knew where I was going or why, or rather they simply didn't care, when I left the house for school. Mom was still sleeping and Dad was getting ready to go to work, so neither had been around to ask me what the hell I was doing leaving the house. It made a bit of fear spark in me, thinking I was doing something that I would get punished for later, but I pushed it down and left. It was the right day, I knew that much, and I had to go, didn't I? I guess I could use that as a shield of sorts, but in reality, I didn't care if I absolutely had to go, I wanted to go.

I remembered how to get to the Junior School because of those weekend drives. Even if I didn't remember it, I could probably find it on my own, eventually. Nausten isn't very big like some towns, though it has `districts'. Mom says that means it's like a grocery store, each direction has different stuff. All the `official' stuff is in the west, like the school and town hall. The woods are down there if you get close enough to the school to see them. The east has the shops like the grocery store and the beach is there, too. The north has a really nice park and big houses. Dad says that that's where the rich snobs live, but Mom says only bums live in the south, our section of town. That's where the train goes through, but it's far enough away that I don't hear it too often. We live on Elm Street, though there aren't trees here, so I don't know why it's called `Elm'. Park Avenue in the North has a park, though. All we have is the train, nothing fancy like the north section with the public swimming pool.

I found that I liked walking by myself in the early morning. It's so early, people haven't had time to put their pretend faces on. They show what they're really like, `cause they're too groggy to put the effort on to make themselves seem nice and polite. The air seems fresher in the morning, too, and the grass was wet, though this time I didn't run through it, in case I got my sneakers wet. It took me twenty minutes walking to get to school, which isn't so bad. It was kind of chilly out, but since we live on the ocean, things get worse around December, but it's too early for snow, yet. There are two schools, one for kids like me and the other for the big kids, but I like the big kids school better, it's made of brick, not white-painted wood and the windows aren't completely covered up with brightly colored construction paper. It's pretty, I guess, but I'd rather look outside.

There were other kids around, playing on the jungle gyms out front, mostly, but I followed a few older kids inside the white building. I wouldn't know the games that those other kids were playing anyway. I'd seen kids on TV carrying huge books around, so it made me feel better that no one I saw had any. Maybe the teachers hand them out and there isn't any special place you have to pick them up from, I thought. I'd been to the hospital a few times, when Dad hit me hard enough that he couldn't ignore it, and that's what the inside of the school reminded me of, the quiet, sad hallways of the hospital, the bright, overhead lights gleaming off the floor and teachers standing around making sure no one did something they weren't supposed to. I suddenly realized, watching kids talk to other kids and others just going into classrooms like they had done hundreds of times before, that I had no idea what to do. I didn't know which room was mine or anything like that. I felt lost. In that moment, I couldn't help but think that at least I had gotten the date right.

I didn't want to look too stupid on my first day by walking around and maybe even missing class, so I walked up to one of the teachers. I felt unsteady and wanted to run away, but it seemed like the right thing to do. That's what they said on TV, that if you were lost, you should ask an adult. The teacher was pretty in a way that I think Mom was at some point. She reminded me of one of the elves I'd seen on TV, tall with dark brown hair and warm eyes. She was smiling softly, even though she wasn't talking to anybody. I guess she was just one of those people that liked what she did and it made her happy. I tugged on her skirt before I had the chance to really think about what I was doing, but then it was too late, she was looking down at me with those pretty brown eyes, kind of like a deer's or a bunny's. I flinched, sure that she was going to yell at me for grabbing her skirt like that. If I had done that to Mom or if Dad had seen me to do it to a lady, I would have gotten yelled at, for the very least. But, though I waited for something to happen, the teacher only smiled down at me and kneeled down so I didn't have to hurt my neck to look her in the eye. Dad says that that's important, for little kids to look adults in the eye.

“What is it, sweetie?” she asked in a way that was genuinely kind, not in the way our next door neighbors would talk to me, as though I were a dog instead of another human being, incapable of understanding anything except the simplest of commands. I blushed, though I wasn't quite sure why.

“I don't know where to go,” I admitted, completely embarrassed. A small frown came across her expression.

“Didn't your parents tell you?” she asked and I realized that she knew this was my first year. It made sense, I guess. If I had gone to school before, I would probably know where I was supposed to go, or she had simply never seen me before. I shook my head. For some reason, the gesture regained her smile and she took my hand in hers. I felt so tiny next to her. She was almost as tall as Dad, but her hand was very slender, not large or rough.

“What's your name?” she asked me.

“Duo Maxwell,” I confessed, blushing even further at my name. It was a weird name. Kids on TV were never named `Duo', always Bill or Susan or something else normal like that. I don't know why my parents picked such a weird name for me, it didn't even sound like a name at all, let alone an American one. I know that it means two, or something like that, but that doesn't make any sense. Normal kids' names mean shore or hill or moon or even `strong one', but never `two'. Her smile brightened.

“Oh, you must be Nathan and Helen's son!” she exclaimed. I felt like my face would combust, though I still didn't know why. As only one out of three of the only cops Nausten had, almost everyone knew who my Dad was. I think it was Dad who told me `boys don't cry', which was usually followed up with a slap to the face or something similar. It made me worry about asking the teacher for help. Whenever I ask Dad for help, he always tells me to `figure it out'. He says that doing things for yourself builds character. I never understood that. If you had a question and someone knows the answer, shouldn't you just ask them? What if you screwed up really badly because you didn't ask for help?

“Well, Duo Maxwell,” she said to me in a bright sort of voice, “I'm Mrs. Une Khushrenada, but you can just call me Une. I'm your teacher this year, so we'll get to know each other well, ok?”

I probably made a face at her insistence of calling her by her first name. Kids didn't call adults by their first names, it's disrespectful and rude. Dad always says that kids should respect their elders, but Mrs. Khushrenada… Une… wanted me to call her that, so wouldn't it be disrespectful to call her by her last name? I just nodded, afraid to call her anything at all, in case she was trying to trick me. Dad did that to me sometimes, to see if I knew the right answer, only, sometimes I didn't know if he was trying to trick me and he'd punish me for disobeying him anyway.

“Thank you,” I said, somehow remembering my manners, even though I was a bit scared as she walked me down the hall, still holding my hand.

“I went to high school with your Daddy, Duo,” Une told me with a gentle smile. I was immediately all ears. I'd seen pictures of Mom and Dad when they were younger, but they only told me so much, what they had looked like and what they had been feeling when the pictures were taken. I didn't have anyone to talk to about my family. My grandparents didn't visit, though Mom says they had when I had been a baby.

“You're handsome, just like him,” she said and it made me blush and look at the ground as we walked. It was the first time anyone had said I looked anything like Dad, “He was so stubborn as a teenager and he was always getting into trouble. I still can't believe he got into law enforcement and turned out to be good at it,” Une chuckled a little.

I didn't know about that. Dad grumbled about work sometimes, but he mostly kept it all to himself. I had no idea if he was good at being a cop or not, but he had had the job for a long time, so I guess he had to be good at it. I felt her let go of my hand and saw we were walking into the classroom. In the front of the room, a girl with brown hair much lighter than mine was yelling at a boy with golden hair and brilliant greenish blue eyes that seemed to merely want to get as far away from the girl as possible. With an irritated frown on her face, Une abandoned me to run over to them. I'd never been in a place so noisy before and it made me want to grimace. I'd dealt with my parents screaming all day and night, and I hated the loud noises, but nothing was quite like these… kids. Was it wrong for me to think that way? I was a kid, too, but I wasn't allowed to scream and run around like that. It was oddly overwhelming and I shuffled to a desk in the corner. I remembered my desire to make friends, to talk to people my own age, but it was so hard when they all had friends and seemed to ignore me like I was a rat or something else vile and small. I sat at the desk and suddenly felt achingly alone, just like I had at home. Nothing had changed… nothing at all. It never would change, I couldn't see how it could. I could wish for things over and over, but I was still as alone as when I had woken up this morning. All these kids were going to school for the first time, so why did I feel like the only one who was just… starting out?

Mrs. Une must have stopped the fight, because the girl and boy were shuffling back to their own desks and sitting down in them, the boy looking ashamed while the girl only looked annoyed. She sat ahead of me a few chairs and looked back at me with that weird `bug-in-glass' expression, like I was something strange and unwanted. She was pretty, I guess, like how Mom's old porcelain dolls are pretty, but in an almost fake, too-perfect sort of way. The look she was giving me wasn't pretty at all. I looked down, away from her blue eyes and fiddled with my pencils and papers a bit.

“Seats, now!” Mrs. Une suddenly said, not cruelly, but with enough power to her voice that all the other kids scrambled to the desks. Though it was all their first days, they seemed to know what to do, sitting quietly in their seats, though some seemed to be on the verge of exploding with the need to talk or do something. I didn't feel the same urge. I did what I had always been taught and told to do, I kept my head down and stayed quiet until my name was called, then I merely raised my hand like all the others.

 

*****

 

Classes were fun, I decided. We got to draw and learn how to write in different ways and read, too. I liked to read, but there weren't any books at home that I could understand. Math was weird and I didn't really get it, even though we got to use these little blue and yellow pebbles to show us how four plus four really could equal eight. The pretty girl had nodded through this explanation as though she had heard it a hundred times before, making me feel stupid. I felt better when Mrs. Une announced we could take a break to draw and the dragon I drew looked better than the horse the pretty girl tried to draw in thick, pink crayon. Mrs. Une said so. It was worth it to see that perfect face change from flat prettiness to something less… perfect. Even if she did glare at me all day. Mrs. Une seemed to notice and snapped at her. Even her name, `Relena Darlian-Peacecraft', seemed oddly perfect for her, though it was clearly bigger than the little girl was. It made me glad for my own strange, but short, name. We got back to the math pretty quickly after that, unfortunately, but Mrs. Une got called away for a few minutes and had to leave us, shouting back to us to mind ourselves. The second she left the room, the other kids abandoned their desks and scattered about the room, chatting loudly and doing what they had done when I had come in the morning. I looked up from my papers and out the window. Where I was on the left side of the room, there were a bunch of windows and you could see the woods outside. I hoped to see some deer or something cool like that, but I was content with the squirrels that were running around chasing each other. It made me think of wanting a pet again. Squirrels are kind of weird. Everyone hates them because they eat from birdfeeders and are little more than rats, but they're animals, just like the birds. I always thought it was a bit mean that people wanted to feed birds, but have this grudge against the squirrels. There're big words for thinking like that, but they don't usually apply to animals, just people against people.

I looked away from the window when I felt someone looking at me. It was the pretty girl, Relena, looking at me with that very same, intense expression. Her pink skirt with her white shirt reminded me of the pink horse she had drawn. What was it with little girls and pink? My Mom never wore it, said it looked cheap, but `cheap' wasn't exactly something I would use to describe Relena, not with the shiny bracelet she was wearing that reminded me of Mom's earrings, the ones she said were Grandma's and she never really wore that much.

“Where are you from?” she asked in a stern tone, crossing her arms over her chest in a pose I guess was supposed to be intimidating. It only made me feel like laughing. She wasn't intimidating at all. She was the same size as me and my own mother was scarier than her, but there was a hardness to her blue eyes that also made me want to shiver, as well as laugh.

“Here,” I said. What had that weird question meant, anyway? Where did she think I was from, the moon?

“Nu-uh,” she said, poking me in the shoulder as I turned in my desk to look her in her creepy, ice-blue eyes, “You're a no good liar! I've lived here my whole life and I've never seen you! You're a liar!”

I've been called a lot of things by Dad, some things that, I think, are a lot worse than being called a liar, but I just felt so angry with her calling me that. Was it because I didn't even know her or because it simply wasn't true? I don't know, but it made me hate her. The things that Dad called me sounded harsh and worse than `liar', usually `bastard', though I don't know what that means, so I don't know if it's really worse than being called a liar. It could be true, being a bastard, but I definitely wasn't a liar! I had lived in Nausten my whole life, it wasn't my fault she had never seen me before! I hadn't seen her before, either, though it wasn't often that I got away from the house. Still… the anger was kind of scary. I hated it when Dad got angry, which was all the time, but being poked by the girl made it rise in me and I wanted to hit her. How… how could I possibly want to do that? I know that Dad's… well… my Dad… but I didn't want to be that way! I didn't want to be like him… I guess that was why I didn't hit her, `cause just the thought of hitting another human being made my stomach feel icy. I wanted to shove her away. I wanted to hit her. I wanted to scream at her… but I couldn't move. I couldn't yell at her. I just felt sort of… frozen, just like I did with Dad. But, that was silly, wasn't it? Daddy is so big, so scary when he's mad and this girl was so small… so why couldn't I speak up?

“I'm not a liar,” I said softly, looking away from her, “I live here.” I looked back at her shyly, but kept my head low, not wanting to fight. Why couldn't she just leave me alone?

“Yes, you are!” she jeered at me, “You're a great big liar! I never saw you at pre-school!”

I stared at her a bit blankly. What was `pre-school'? The blonde boy that Relena had been fighting with earlier, and had been watching us along with the rest of the class, walked up to us and I could see the hate she had for him in her eyes. I was just glad that he had stopped her from looking at me that way.

“Not everyone's rich enough to go to pre-school, Relena,” the boy said in a terse, irritated tone. It was almost amusing, but more like sad, when she glared at him and I could actually see the desire to melt back into the crowd in his aqua eyes.

“Shut up, Quatre,” she snapped at him, “This is none of your business. Unless there's something else you want to say?”

As the boy blushed and instantly backed off, afraid of the girl for some reason, I wished that I could just get out of there before Relena even remembered my presence. I managed to take two steps forward until we were right next to each other, but she noticed my move and grabbed my arm, shoving me back. I wanted to quip that she shoved more like a boy than a girl, but if that blonde kid was scared at her, maybe I should be, too?

“I am not done talking to you!” she pouted, but the fire in her blue eyes was quite scary. She reminded me of Dad when he drank, completely focused and hiding things inside that I couldn't figure out. I took a step away from her and didn't feel like a coward about it. I had learned a long time ago that sometimes being a scaredy cat was safer and smarter than being brave.

“Well, where are you from? Answer me!” she yelled at me.

“I'm telling the truth!” I protested, feeling on the urge of tears, but I refused to cry in front of all these people. I just felt so frustrated. I wasn't a liar, I was telling the truth! Why did she care anyway? Just because she had never met me before?

“No, you're a liar, I know one when I see one! Everyone else should know you're a liar, too!” she crowed. You'd think that, after living with Dad my whole life, I would have learned a similar trait, to know a certain type of person when I saw them. I wish I had that ability to just look at a person and know that they were a bully. I could have avoided her… somehow. I don't know how, but it seemed like my fault that I was in this situation. It had to be my fault, why else would this girl be picking on me? I mean, what could I have done to her that was so bad? I could hit her, make her stop calling me names, but boys didn't hit girls. I don't know why. It didn't seem right, that she was allowed to make me feel bad, just because she wasn't a boy. I kind of did want to hit her. But… at the same time, I didn't. It had nothing to do with her being a girl. I didn't like being hit, so I shouldn't hit anyone, `cause I knew how much that hurt. But I thought that hitting someone might feel good, to be the one hurting instead of being hurt. Did that make me a bad person? Was that why Dad hit me all the time, not because it was what was best for me, but because he liked it. I didn't want to be like that. Relena didn't seem to think that way and she shoved me against my desk. My sneakers slipped and I fell to the floor, hitting my head on the hard desk.

Once, when I was four, I had left my sneakers by the door, instead of storing them in the closet. When Dad came home, he tripped over them. In one of his classic shows of anger, he dragged me down the steps and I hit my head on the stairs and wall. That time hurt a lot more than now, but it still did hurt. I think I must have slept for a few seconds, because the next thing I knew, Relena was nearly sitting on top of me, tugging my long bangs away from face, and writing something with a big, black marker on my forehead. I struggled against her, I don't like not knowing what's going on, but I couldn't get my back off the cold floor. Our classmates surrounded us and I knew I couldn't have been asleep for very long since Mrs. Une wasn't back yet. Some of the kids giggled as they watched Relena write something on my skin with the marker, others just watched with a dull expression. I knew that they weren't going to help me. No one helps people, even if they know you and these kids didn't know me. When Dad was hurting me real bad, and I screamed, Mom never came to help me. She just stood and watched. When I got really scared and tried to run away from Dad, and somehow managed to escape the house, but Dad would catch me and hit me out on the front lawn, our neighbors never helped. They just watched. That taught me that asking for help, even when you really needed it, was pointless. No one wanted to help you, it only got you in trouble. The way those kids watched me reminded me of how the neighbors and Mom watched me, like they were watching something that was on TV, something that was interesting enough to watch, but not neat enough to get excited about it. Sure, some kids got excited by it, the ones that were giggling about it, but mostly, it was like something that they had seen before, a rerun, and their eyes were dull. The only pair of eyes that were different were those of that kid, Quatre's. He had that same look of that he was watching something he had seen a hundred times, but his eyes weren't dull, they were bright with tears that weren't falling, and sympathy, not pity, but… what was that called… empathy? I remembered his fear of Relena and their earlier fight and realized that she had bullied him, too. Why did that make me feel better? I really was a bad person. You shouldn't feel good because someone else was hurting, that was just… wrong, but it did make me feel better, knowing that I wasn't the only one.

“There!” Relena exclaimed, standing off of me, twirling the black marker in her little, pale hand, “Now everyone knows what a little liar you are!” she laughed. I got to my feet like I had been shot, not wanting to give her the chance to do anything else. Not that I could stop her. I had already convinced myself that I wasn't going to hit her, so how could I stop her? I hated her laugh, it was shrill and mocking. I wanted to be strong about it, so what if she had written something on my forehead and I couldn't read it? So what if everyone was laughing at me? I could feel hot tears building up in my eyes and that only made her laugh harder. I suddenly wanted to know what she had written. I suddenly wanted to get out of there and away from the laughter. But, even when I pushed past the crowd of kids and out of the classroom, the laughter just followed me.

 

*****

 

I didn't take the time to think that I had no idea where a bathroom was, I just kept running down the hall until I saw some doors that were a different color from all the others. I guess it was lucky for me that there weren't any boys other than me in the boys room. I didn't want to talk to anyone, especially since no one had been nice to me so far today. I guess that wasn't fair. Relena was the only one that had actually spoken to me, but I couldn't get that laughter out of my head. If you laughed at someone when they felt like crying, didn't that mean that you had no intention of liking them or being nice to them. They didn't seem to like Relena much, either, but at least they had laughed at her stupid prank. So what if I hadn't gone to school before and she didn't know me. That didn't mean that she had to be so mean! As I stood in front of one of the many little mirrors that hang over each little sink, I pushed my bangs away from my face. There were little handprints on the walls made in paint, each one a different color and painted fish and stars on the bathroom stalls. I guess it was supposed to make the place look cheerful, but I just didn't have it in me to feel that way at that moment. On my forehead, in huge, thick black letters was the word “LIAR”. I sniffled, a few tears escaping my eyes, despite my trying very hard not to let them. It was stupid, very, very stupid. I'd thought that she would come up with something more hateful, more original than that. I'd been called worse things, but for some reason, seeing that word there, on my skin, made something hot and painful burst in my chest and, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop the tears anymore.

This wasn't how my first day at school was supposed to go! I was supposed to make friends and have fun! School was supposed to be my sanctuary away from home, but it had turned out just the same. Maybe no one had hit me or sworn at me, but this felt just as bad, because it wasn't as bad, so I felt like an idiot for crying, even as I felt this weird sort of pain inside of me. I wasn't a liar. Really, I wasn't, but seeing it there made it real, like if it was written, it had to be a fact. I had just wanted to get along with everyone, to be like everyone else and laugh and be like those kids on television, but in the end, I was just a freak. This was everyone's first day, but because the town was small, everyone already had friends and knew each other. I was stranger, no matter where I went or what I said. And now, no one would want to be my friend, because I was a liar. I grabbed a bar of soap from the sink and started to scrub at my skin viciously. I knew, even if I got it off, everyone in school would know who I was, the freak that had lied to his class, the kid that no one knew and no one wanted to know. Even as I scrubbed at my forehead, I couldn't stop crying. My skin became red, but the black print didn't fade at all. I gave out a frustrated cry, throwing the soap angrily into the sink, where it slid and fell on the floor. Rage filled my stomach, making it hurt, but I didn't try to pick it up. My tears became angry, too, but the sadness didn't go away. My hands were covered in brightly colored soap and I used them to keep scrubbing at my forehead, getting the suds in my hair and eyes, making them burn and turn a bit red, but I didn't care. I didn't care that I was rubbing my skin too hard, turning it red, and I didn't care when red spots started to appear and a tiny bit of blood started to drip down.

I squeezed my eyes shut and my hands fell down, covered in soap that was tinged pink a tiny bit. I just stood there in the bathroom for a few minutes, crying and feeling like an idiot. I didn't want to go back out there. If this was a TV show, Mrs. Une would come busting in and hug me and tell me it was ok, that Relena was being punished, but she didn't, she wouldn't. I might be my father's kid, but I was a stranger to her, too. Neighbors and mothers didn't help, so why would strangers help? The bathroom was so quiet, I hated it. It was like our house after Dad stormed out after a fight. How did hermits do this? Be lonely, away from everyone? I was surrounded by people, but I just felt… alone, in a place that I didn't understand. No matter how many TV shows I watched, I felt lost, and no one wanted to help me. How could I help myself when I felt that way? I started to scrub at my forehead again, feeling the stinging of the soap on my skin that I had probably made bleed more. This, at least, I was familiar with, this I could handle. Pain was something I'd always had in my life. It was easy, when you damaged something, it hurt, and all you had to do to make it stop was to take some of those white pills or get a band-aid. I'd rather get hit than be laughed at anyway.

“You're not going to get it out that way,” a small, yet somehow mature, voice said from behind me. I looked up and saw the little blonde boy in the mirror. I don't know why, but he didn't make me feel defensive about crying or want to run away again. Maybe it was because Relena had hurt him, too, something I could instinctively see. Maybe it was because he didn't seem to have many friends, either. Maybe it was because he was the only one who hadn't laughed at me. I turned to look at him, suspicious of why he was here. Maybe he had come to make fun of me anyway. He looked a bit shocked when he looked at my head and I quickly realized it was because of the blood and not what was written there.

“You hurt yourself,” he said in a pinched, pained sort of tone. I shrugged it off.

“Doesn't hurt that badly,” I murmured, trying to, as my father put it, `save face', or at least attempt to be brave. It stung more than it outright hurt, anyway. I should have been mad at him, he hadn't exactly done anything to stop Relena, but I didn't . Sometimes adults said that, that you should stop something bad, and they get angry when you don't, but it's really not that easy. Besides, and I think this was the most important thing of all, he hadn't laughed.

“D… do you know how to get it out?” I asked shyly, hopefully. He smiled at me and that painful thing in my chest retreated a little bit, I could feel it. The hand that had been tucked behind him revealed a bottle of… something to me. I let him approach. There was that cynical part of me that Dad had put there that told me that he could be here to make things worse, to take Relena's prank another step further, but his smile was soft and friendly and I just couldn't bring myself to not like him. He was very… likeable. He really was prettier than Relena and non-threatening, like a fluffy golden bunny, too shy to be playful like a puppy, but safe and affectionate anyway. That was something that I had always been good at, relating to animals. They were easier than humans.

“The soap here isn't strong enough for permanent marker,” Quatre told me, “But this stuff works better. They keep it in the janitor's closet, but the janitor knows me, so he let me take it and didn't ask why. When Relena and I were in pre-school together, she'd stay up through naptime and draw on my face,” he whispered, his face blushing. His skin was even paler than mine and it made him look like a cherry.

“Why is she so mean?” I asked and couldn't keep my voice from wavering a little, probably telling him how hurt I was. He gave a little shrug, but I saw the same pain in his large, sea-green eyes. They were pretty too, kind of like the sea glass they sell to the tourists in the summer.

“I don't know,” he admitted, “Our parents are friends, so we've known each other since we were babies, but she and her brother have always been mean. I think it's genetic,” he said in a pondering way, as though he was actually contemplating it and that expression almost made me laugh. So… he knew how it felt? Despite every suspicion and hesitation I had, I felt… a little better, knowing that I wasn't as alone as I had thought. I watched as he took some of the paper towels and wetted them in the sink.

“What are you doing?” I asked nervously. He gave me that same soft smile and I instantly felt reassured. I really hoped he was a good guy. Bad guys shouldn't be allowed to smile like that.

“I need to clean the blood off or putting this stuff on your skin will make it hurt more,” he explained. I felt oddly… warm inside, that he would care enough to not want something to hurt. I'd never met someone like that before.

“Why'd you scrub so hard anyway?” he asked as he cleaned my forehead and bangs of soap and blood. It stung, but it felt kind of good, too, to just let someone else, someone more experienced, take care of me.

“I thought it'd be like dishes,” I told him, “If I just scrubbed hard enough, the gunk'd come off.”

He giggled a little, but I knew it was at what I had said and not at me. Besides, it sounded cute.

“Well, you hurt yourself. Be more careful!” he scolded like he was my mother. My mother had never told me that. It sounded weird coming from someone my age, but also refreshing. Then, I felt him add cream from the bottle onto my head. The stuff burned a little and made my skin feel all tingly, especially when he scrubbed at it with the paper towels, but then he wiped it off and I looked at myself in the mirror. My skin was still red, but the bleeding had stopped and, most importantly, though there were still smudges of black here and there, but the word was no longer there and when my bangs fell over it, you couldn't see the black very well at all. I gave out a small squeak of excitement and hugged the other boy. He didn't try to shove me off and actually hugged me back.

“All better now?” he asked as we let go of each other. I nodded excitedly.

“I thought I'd never get it off!” I exclaimed. He giggled again.

“Oh, it would have come off sooner or later, but it's easier this way. My name's Quatre Winner, by the way,” he introduced himself.

“Duo Maxwell,” I chirped. He kept on surprising me by not making fun of my name.

“We should get back to class. Mrs. Une might call our parents,” he warned. I hesitated.

“Even if they can't see it, they'll laugh at me,” I couldn't keep the fear and sadness out of my voice. He smiled again and took my hand in his.

“Yes, they will,” he said truthfully, “but I won't.”

 

 

*****

 

They did laugh, with Relena's shrill crowing above all the chuckles, but I discovered that I didn't really care because I knew that there was at least one person not laughing at me. And I couldn't help but feel pretty happy when Relena noticed that her mark was nearly all gone and she stopped laughing to glare at both Quatre and me. Class time seemed to go quicker and seemed more fun knowing that there was at least one person that didn't hate me over something I didn't even understand. It didn't really hit me until lunch, though. I didn't have any money or brown paper lunches like the other kids, but I was used to missing meals. Still, we weren't allowed out of the huge cafeteria and the smells of hot hamburgers and macaroni and cheese were haunting. The worst was how kids were sitting at tables together, talking happily with their friends and how they glared at me whenever I got close. I wanted to tell them that it was ok, I didn't want to sit with them, either. However, at the end of the cafeteria, in a corner near the windows, was a nearly empty table, with only Quatre sitting in it. It was when he saw me, smiled and waved me over enthusiastically with his own joyous, relieved expression that I realized it. I had a friend. With how he was all alone at the table, and that relieved expression, I realized that I was his first friend, too. That made me feel warm inside in a very good way, that I could make him happy, too.

Quatre was even nicer than I had originally thought, though. When he learned that I didn't have lunch, with a horrified look, he had given me some money, even when I told him I probably wouldn't be able to pay him back. He just gave me that cute, soft little smile and I knew he wouldn't let me leave the cafeteria without me eating something. So, I got into line with the other kids and waited to get my meal, my first, infamous, cafeteria lunch. They made fun on them on television, but the smells were incredible. Are older kids allowed to cut in front of younger kids? That must be the rule, because at least six older kids cut in front of me and no one said that they couldn't. There were so many choices! It reminded me of those breakfast places that serve something called `buffet', where you could pick from tons of different food, only at school, you couldn't get a ton of food for the same amount of money. It turned out the smell that had been getting to my stomach so badly wasn't hamburgers, though they did have them, it was some sort of beef stew. The person handing out the food gave me a weird look when I told her I wanted the stew, plus the French fries, a fruit cup, a chocolate milk, and some peas. I liked peas, they were the only greens besides broccoli that I liked to eat. Spinach and Brussels sprouts and green beans tasted weird. I guess ordering French fries and peas with beef stew was weird, `cause the lady asked me, twice, if that was what I really wanted. I didn't care if she looked at me like I was strange, I'd never been able to pick my own food before. Mom and Dad didn't really care about what I wanted to eat and Quatre had given me enough to get it all, so why shouldn't I?

Taking my tray filled with hot, fresh food that both looked and smelled good, and walking back to sit and eat with my very first friend, I could easily say that I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life. I should have been on my toes. Living with Dad, I had learned to never let down my guard, even when I was sleeping, because I never knew when he would be in one of his moods, even in the middle of the night, but I was off guard because of my happiness. It was too new for me. So, when I bumped into someone hard enough that I almost lost my balance and the person grabbed at my tray to steady themselves, I was completely unprepared for it. Crystal blue eyes glared at me, but they somehow lacked anger, like those eyes were trying to appear angry, though the disgust and irritation in them was very real. Just my luck, I had to bump into the ice princess herself.

“What where you're going, freak!” she snapped, but as she let go of my tray and stormed off, I could have sworn that I saw a little smirk on her face. I probably should have been more suspicious, but I had already decided not to let her get to me, so I just walked back to Quatre. He wasn't so absent about it, though, and he gave me an odd, searching sort of look as I sat down.

“What did she say to you?” he asked quietly. I shrugged.

“Nothing, really,” I assured him. I tried not to lick my lips as I picked up my spoon to dig into my stew. It had been a long time since I'd had something hot to eat. Despite being cold out, most of our dinners at home had consisted of leftovers of cold pizza, cold salad greens, and cold tuna.

“Don't eat that!” Quatre suddenly snapped out. Instinct made me drop my spoon and I stared at him in shock. I looked down into my stew and fought the urge to throw up. I had been so eager to eat my lunch, the best one I've had in a very long time, that I hadn't even looked at what I had been eating. Writhing and squirming in my dark brown stew were a bunch of slimy, pink earthworms. Someone had dumped them in there and I doubted that the lunch lady had mistaken them for noodles. The stew didn't even have any noodles in it. I wanted to scream in anger. I had been looking forward to that!

“Relena,” Quatre muttered and it was the first time that I heard anger in his voice. It shocked me a little and I didn't think that such a… base emotion suited him. In a moment of shrewdness, though I was grimacing as I did it, I picked out each earthworm and placed them on my tray, watching in a bit of sympathy as they continued to squirm frantically, probably a bit annoyed at having no cool dirt to lie in. I imagine that they felt a bit like I did whenever Dad woke me up really early and dragged me out of my warm bed. They were gross to eat, but I couldn't begrudge them their lives just because they were icky. I don't think Quatre understood because he looked at me with confusion, then disgust as I started to eat the stew, worm free.

“That's gross,” he grumbled. I grinned at him.

“Tasty,” I teased, “No reason to throw out good food and I can put the worms back in the dirt at recess.”

He smiled at me and it looked oddly affectionate, if someone you had only known for a few hours could look at you that way.

“You're weird, Duo,” he giggled.

“Is that bad?” I asked worriedly. Had I lost a friend only an hour after making one? But he was still smiling at me and he shook his head.

“I like weird,” he grinned.

 

*****

 

At recess, I put my handful of worms back into the dirt. Unlike Quatre, I didn't have any problems touching the little guys, just eating them. The thought of something living squirming around on your tongue is just gross. Besides, I have nothing against worms and I'd feel bad about chewing on them when they were still alive. I put them by the bushes, so they wouldn't be out in the open where some robin could eat them. It felt kind of like a win for me. Not only did I not succumb to Relena's evil plot, but I saved a few lives in the process. Sounded like a win to me. To make the day even better, Quatre and I hung out near the edge of the woods, away from the playground where Relena was playing with some of the other girls. We got through the entire recess without her or anyone else bothering us. Quatre taught me how to play a game called `rock, paper, scissors' and we drew in the dirt for a little while. I'd never played with anyone before, but I felt bad when Quatre seemed so sad when I told them I had no idea what `rock, paper, scissors' was. I guess it was one of those common knowledge things that they don't cover on sitcoms.

For some reason, I felt safer out there on the playground than in class with Mrs. Une watching us. I guess it's because it made me feel trapped, like I had nowhere to run if I had to and Relena was so close to me. It was also probably because she had bullied me in there with no problem, but hadn't done anything to me on the playground. We spent the rest of the day singing weird songs about the weather and how many days are in each month and we read out loud from some books, taking turns. I did pretty well, except for when I got to words like `beautiful' and `through'. I'd never seen through spelled before and didn't realize that the `gh' was silent. Everyone laughed as they watched me struggle with it, even when Une yelled at them not to make fun of me. Quatre and Mrs. Une were the only ones that didn't laugh. Even when the classroom stopped laughing, I still felt sad. I asked Mrs. Une if I could go to the bathroom and I think she knew that I didn't really have to go, but let me anyway. I went to the same bathroom as before and the bright colors felt a little bit more cheerful this time, but not by much. I wondered if I would ever be like the rest of the kids in my class, would ever have a ton of friends that I could play with on weekends, know all the words in those books and how to pronounce them out loud, would understand what pre-school was and why Relena Peacecraft had to be so mean. Of course, I guess I'd have to have parents like theirs to really be like them. I could read all the books and try to talk to those kids, but in the end, I was still poorer than them, I still didn't have anyone to pick me up from school or buy me the clothes with the fancy pictures and sayings on them that those other kids wore. I didn't even have anyone to make me lunch. I couldn't have Quatre buy me lunch every day, that wasn't fair, but I didn't know how to make those things with what little we had in the house. I didn't think I could have another friend. I liked Quatre. He had nice smiles and never made fun of me, his name was weird like mine and he didn't care if I was weird. I don't think the other kids were like that, so how could I have another friend when I liked Quatre so much? I liked him because he was different. He wore really fancy clothes like Relena, he probably lived on the rich side of town and it was more than a little obvious where I lived, but he didn't seem to care about all of that. I heard the bathroom door open and, after thinking of Quatre, I really thought it would be him, like last time, but it wasn't. Relena stood there and, in the bright lights, her hair looked more blonde than brown. I was still afraid of her, not afraid like I was afraid of my dad, because he was so much bigger and stronger than me, but afraid because, no matter what she did, I wouldn't fight back, I couldn't, and I knew that she would never get in trouble, no one would try to help me. But even though I was afraid, I was angry that she had followed me. Had she come to write something else in permanent marker? It was her pride, her… gall, to be a girl and step into the boy's room, like she had the right to do so, like being rich and a girl gave her the right to do whatever she wanted, that made me so angry. That, and the knowledge that she had bullied Quatre, too. That thought was bad and good. It was bad because Quatre was nice in a way that no one else was and I felt protective of him. I couldn't even protect myself, but I wanted to protect him from her. It was good because it meant that Relena didn't hate me because I was poor or she didn't know me, it was something else. I folded my arms over my chest, mimicking the posture she had had earlier and tried my best to glower at her. I probably looked just as silly as she did. It's hard to look imposing when you're just a little kid. Adults made it look so easy, but when you're small, a lot of things look imposing.

“You can't be in here,” I told her in what I hoped was a solid voice, “This is the boy's room. You're not a boy.”

She seemed to rub my face in that statement and her complete non-caring attitude for it by walking up to me. That feeling that lived in the back of my neck whenever Dad was in a bad mood and I knew that he was going to try to hurt me suddenly made the hair there stand up and my neck felt chilled. I wanted to get out of there, but she was near the door and I was near the urinals, and I really didn't want to get close to her.

“How did you get rid of it?” she suddenly spat out, looking at my forehead, “And know about the worms? Though, I suppose something as lowly as you has quite a bit in common with them. Maybe they told you they were there!” she sneered at me, “Quatre helped you, didn't he?! I guess it's true what they say, scum sticks together.”

I was upset by her name calling, I mean, I wasn't a worm and I wasn't scum! Well, Quatre, at least, wasn't scum. I realized that she was trying to get me to blame Quatre, to betray him to her. I wasn't going to do it. Quatre was my friend, the only one who wanted to be my friend, and I wouldn't betray someone like him to anyone, for any reason. I shrugged.

“Maybe your attempts are pathetic enough that they are easy to spot,” I suggested, answering in a question so I wouldn't have to lie. Not really answering her only seemed to make her even angrier.

“You have to realize that he'll never be friends with you,” she sneered, “Even someone as dumb as you has to know that. Quatre's rich, what does he need with trailer trash like you? He feels sorry for you, but at the end of the day, he'll remember that you're trash and he's not!”

I knew it wasn't true, not really, Quatre would never be that mean, but it still hurt, because it was the truth, about me being poor and him being rich. I really had no idea why Quatre wanted to be my friend. Was it just pity, that he saw himself in me and felt bad about it? No, that didn't seem like him, or maybe I just didn't want it to be true. Either way, I wanted to be his friend, even if I had to live with his pity, it was better than being completely alone.

“I don't care,” I told her sharply, “Even if he's using me, he's still nicer than you and he has better manners.”

Even remembering what had happened that morning, I was still unprepared when she suddenly grabbed at my hair and shoved my head in one of the urinals, the one that seemed to be clogged because there was a big pool of water in it, deep enough that I couldn't breathe once she had shoved my head in there. Submerged in the water, the sounds outside of the water were muffled, like I had a pillow over my head. I tried to grab at the sides of the urinal to shove her back and get out of the water, but it was too slippery. Panic filled me and I wanted to scream. Was she really going to kill me? She'd get away with it, I was sure. Who'd care if I died? My parents would probably thank her for the service. Only Quatre would really care. Her little hand tugging at the hair on the top of my head hurt, but not as much as the effort to not swallow the water with the need to breathe.

“Drink it, drink it!” I heard her screaming. I didn't want to give in to her. It had nothing to do with drinking the dirty water, I just didn't want her to win. It was petty, I was probably going to die because of that pettiness, if not now, but at some point in my life, just because of this idea of right and wrong I believed in, but I never won in these situations and, just once, I wanted to win something. But I was terrified and my chest hurt too much. I gave in, too easily, just like always. I drank in the foul tasting water in huge gulps, crying in joy as I felt Relena let go of my head and I lurched out of the water, coughing and gagging and taking great big breaths and sweet air. I could hear her laughing through the pounding of my heart in my ears. I didn't even try to stand, I just slumped against the wall, gasping, my bangs stuck to my forehead and the back and a little bit of the front of my shirt wet with water. I wanted to cry, but it wouldn't make much of a difference. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the tears and the water anyway.

I wanted to be angry, to hit Relena, and I was angry, but I was beginning to see that there was just no winning against her. Even if I knew why she hated me, I couldn't win. I was just some little boy from the poor side of town, what could I possibly do? I stayed with my back against the cold, tiled wall and just concentrated on breathing. My chest still hurt and my eyes burned from the water. I might as well have been crying. I heard Relena leave, still laughing at the pathetic image I gave her, and once I was sure that she was gone, and I was no longer shaking so hard, I got up and tried to wring the water out of my bangs. Mrs. Une didn't notice when I walked back into the classroom with my wet hair and clothes. I don't think that she even knew that Relena had followed me. The other kids noticed, though, and giggled at me as I sat down, water trailing behind me. I had never felt so defeated before. The giggling made me feel so angry and I wanted to hit something. I sat and stared at the chalkboard instead. I felt Quatre looking at me and I smiled at him, though I didn't really feel like smiling. He smiled back at me and it felt enough like a victory for my smile to feel a little bit more real.

 

*****

 

I didn't know how to feel when school ended and Quatre and I walked out of the building. On the one hand, I had survived the day and was a bit happy that Relena couldn't do anything outside of school, since there was this shiny black car waiting for her as soon as she stepped outside. As she got into the car, I spotted one of the older kids getting in, too. He was pretty, in a boyish sort of way, with long, white-silver hair and eyes that were the same exact color as Relena's. Even before he got into the car, I could tell that he was her brother. He was still pretty, though, in a way that Relena was not, like he had an edge to him, or something, like his looks weren't so… perfected. I told Quatre this.

“Stay away from him,” Quatre warned, “He's even worse than Relena is. Kids say that last year he broke this little kid's arm for looking at him funny.”

I couldn't help the wide eyed look I gave him and quickly stopped looking at Zechs. I didn't want to get my arm broken. It had been broken enough already.

On the other hand, the end of the day meant that I would have to say goodbye to Quatre and go back home. I was surprised that no one was waiting to pick Quatre up, but he didn't even look for a car, he just kept walking until we were off school grounds and I followed him. I kept following him, even when we headed to the rich side of town. I saw in his expression that he knew exactly where I lived, but I hoped that he also realized that I wanted to stay with him for as long as I could before heading home. For the first time in my life, I felt a very real sense of shame towards my house. I didn't want Quatre to see where I lived or to meet my parents. So, we kept walking, past manicured laws and people walking those fancy little dogs. Dad hates those dogs. He calls them `foo-foos', whatever that means, and says that cats make better dogs than those things. I have to agree. They have their little tails up in the air, making them look as stuck up as their owners, and they yapped at us as we walked by them. I wanted to growl at them, but that would be silly. The cats that lived feral on our side of town would look at those little dogs in disdain, maybe claw their eyes out. I liked those cats, they were neat looking and always let me pet them, but they were like me, scruffy and underfed. We didn't talk about what had happened in the bathroom at school and I was glad. I didn't want to tell Quatre about Relena trying to kill me, or how disgusting it was to drink toilet water.

“Why don't your parents pick you up from school?” I asked. Most of the kids that lived on this side of town got picked up, even though it wasn't a very long walk. It was longer to walk to the poor side of town and I had made the trip with no problems.

“I'm a latch-key kid,” Quatre told me. What was a `latch-key kid'? I hadn't heard of one of those before. I suddenly got an image of a little boy carrying a huge ring, filled with keys.

“What's that?” I asked, tilting my head in confusion, a bit worried that he would laugh at my stupidity, but he didn't. He treated me like how I wish my parents did, answering my question with patience instead of irritation.

“It just means that my parents are never around. My house is big, like all these houses, but when I get home, there's no one there. My parents are always out on business or going out to dinner. My mom died when I was a baby and my dad remarried, but she's pretty much my mother. I'm alone more than I see them or my sisters. I have to unlock the door myself, though my mom puts food out for me, for dinner and stuff. By the time they come home, it's after my bedtime,” Quatre explained. His tone sounded so sad and lonely, abandoned. I made me want to hug him.

“I haven't seen my father in a week,” my friend murmured so softly, I don't think he had meant for me to hear it. I didn't know if new friends were allowed to hug, but I walked really close to him, to remind him that I was here, that I wouldn't abandon him like his stupid family had. If I had someone like Quatre in my family, I would never make him feel lonely. I'd always love him and protect him. He deserved it.

“My Dad's a cop,” I told him, it was only fair to tell him about my family, since he had told me about his, “But I see him at dinner all the time, and the weekends. My Mom doesn't have a job, so I see her all the time. They're almost always around, but they don't talk to me much. They just ignore me, so it feels pretty alone in my house, too.”

He smiled at me and we stopped walking. I realized that we had come to his house. It really was huge! I would have been jealous, but I remembered what he had said about being alone. All alone in a house that big… I didn't envy him. He reached his hand out to me, his pinky finger extended with his other fingers curled against his palm in a near fist.

“Do you know how to pinky swear?” he asked me, his eyes soft and serious. I shook my head. He took my hand and linked my pinky with his. His hand was warm, just like his eyes.

“There!” he exclaimed, “Now, let's pinky swear that, no matter what, we'll never, ever abandon each other.”

I felt myself smiling at that, this weird, strange heat filling my chest.

“Ok!” I agreed, “I pinky swear.”

Then, we let go of each other's fingers and said goodbye. As the gate to his house opened and I watched him disappear, that warmth inside of me started to hurt. Walking back to my side of town was terrible. All those little things that I had never seen or thought of before; the stray dogs, the buildings that needed to be fixed, the older kids standing outside of the convenience stores with hard looks in their eyes, stood out, especially after seeing the pretty white houses with their pretty, perfect lawns and remembering how good it had felt to promise to never be abandoned, and to never abandon. As I came to my house, I saw Mom sitting on our front step, staring out into space, her eyes bloodshot.

“Hi, Mom. I'm back from school,” I greeted, but she didn't look at me, like she couldn't even see me.

As I looked up at our dark house, with no lights on and no nice smells, just falling apart and lots of shadows, I never felt more alone.

 

 

 

End Chapter 1

 

Next chapter deals with the horrors of Middle School. It's also the start of some very dark stuff that was never included in the original fic. Now, I'm off to work on a new fic that has been calling my name for a few years now. As usual, feedback is loved and cradled like the lovely thing it is.