Hey, Mister Marshall (St. Mary's Rebels 4)

“He’d usually read and keep his head down. He was always at the top of his class, always had his homework done well ahead of time. He was very intelligent and smart. Not strong though. Still not strong. Still smaller for his age. And when you’re like that, a scrawny kid with his nose buried in a book, you become a target at school. And he was. Which means he was not only a target at home, he was also one at school.”

She pauses here.

And I know.

I just know.

As soon as she said ‘school,’ I knew.

And by this point, we’re both gripping each other’s hands so tightly that I think we’re both bruising each other. But both of us don’t care. Because the pain that the man we both care about has endured is worse.

It’s much worse than I would’ve ever anticipated.

“Target at school,” I whisper, my eyes stinging with tears but still dry, as if the tears won’t fall until I’ve heard it all.

Until I’ve absorbed every single painful word into my body.

Which is when I’ll get the relief of letting things out.

But I know already that I don’t want it. I don’t want the relief. I want to be tortured. I want to be in pain.

Because he still is.

“Yes,” Mo whispers.

“H-high school, you mean,” I go on and she nods. “Which also means her. Charlie.”

Mo nods again.

I press my free hand to my stomach. I dig my fingers into my flesh because it’s roiling. It’s turning right now. Bile is surging up, stinging my throat as tears sting my eyes.

“What happened?” I whisper thickly.

“It was me,” Mo whispers back, her tears already falling. “I encouraged him that night.”

“What?”

She lets them fall as she continues, “Charlie was... She was a good girl. We all thought that. We all liked her. Her father was a very good friend of Mr. Marshall. They worked together on the city council. So they hung out in the same circles, went to the same events, parties. Charlie would come to the mansion occasionally but since Alaric was so shy and withdrawn and often sick, they never really had much of a friendship. Plus I think at school, she was part of a different crowd. While Alaric kept to himself, Charlie was a social butterfly. Debate team, theatre, class president. She also ran track. Was a cheerleader, the homecoming queen. So yeah, they were different.

“But then they got paired up for a project their sophomore year. Alaric wasn’t happy about that. He never wanted anything to do with the ‘cool kids.’ They’d always tormented him, made fun of him, called him names. And even though Charlie had never personally done anything to him and they were family friends, she was friends with a lot of those kids. So he was wary. But I encouraged him to give her a chance, and he did. And well, I think slowly he started to see another side to her. They became friends. Not the kind who sat together at the lunch table; I knew that. But the kind where they’d acknowledge each other’s presence in the hallway. And after being neglected and hated and ridiculed, he liked that. I could tell. I could tell that he liked her. So when they had a dance coming up, I told him to go ask her. He didn’t want to; I could tell that as well. He wasn’t into school dances or asking girls out but I wanted him to experience that, you know. I wanted him to experience something more, something good, something that every boy his age wants. To go out with a beautiful girl. And…”

When she trails off, reaching up to wipe her tears off, I know I’ve drawn blood on my skin.

I’ve moved my hand from my stomach down to my thighs and drawn blood. I’ve raked my nails on the bare skin and scratched myself.

Not only because I know that this story doesn’t end well but because I also know that it’s my mother.

I know that she made it end badly.

“What did she do?” I ask in a low voice.

“She… said yes,” Mo replies. “And I remember being so happy for him. So delighted. He was too, I think. He wouldn’t say anything but I knew. Even as shy and reserved as he was, I could tell. He was also shocked. Anyway, I spent the whole week getting him prepped, giving him all the tips that I could think of. We all did. I even bought him a new suit. And then the day came and he went to her house to pick her up and… well, it was not as real as we all thought it would be.”

Her face takes on a pained look, even more so than before as she goes on, “Turns out it was an ambush. She, uh, had only said yes to make this other boy jealous. I think he was captain of the football team and she was trying to get back together with him or something similar. So she used this opportunity to make him jealous. And so when… Alaric got there, the whole football team was waiting for him. They… they beat him up. And they beat him up so badly that both his arms, four ribs, his jaw, his left knee were broken. Oh, and his nose. They shattered almost every bone in his body, and then they passed pictures of him around. They passed around his bloody and battered photos all through the school, along with the story that he dared to ask a cheerleader to a dance. That he dared to step out of his league and try to get with the most popular girl in school. They weren’t happy with just putting him in the hospital for a month, they ridiculed him as well. They made up stories about him, about how small he was, how pathetic, how nerdy, how stupid and desperate to want to be with Charlie. And Charlie supported all of that.”