Damaged (8 page)

Adam cut in, "Yeah, right. Maybe in another life, or dimension, or a billion years."

Chris took a hit and blew the smoke purposely toward Adam. Adam coughed and brushed it away.

Chris laughed. "Remember the time I blew smoke in your face and you blew chunks all over the brand new rug your mom got?"

Adam laughed. "God, she was pretty mad, and you actually thought for a while that the cigarette smoke was the reason I threw up, when it was because I ate way too much pizza."

“
We had fun that night—"

"You remember us playing the Bloody Mary game? Jesus, you and Josh rigged that mask with the light in the corner—"

"—And you screamed more like a girl than I've ever heard."

They shared a laugh. "Oh, guess what?" Chris said. "Your woman was crying again today."

"That fucker. Why does she like him when he treats her that way? I just don't get it."

"It don't make much sense to me either," Chris said, finishing his cigarette. Adam, noticing this, handed him an empty soda can off the stand. Chris dropped the butt inside.

"Why is it that Erica goes out with him—that fucking idiot who has even cheated on her, calls her names, does God knows what else to her, makes her cry almost every day in school, and yet, she stays with him?" Adam asked.

"It's the social classes, man."

"Yeah, but I'd treat her like an angel, y'know? She's beautiful as hell and she'd rather be with him, with
that
. And she looks at me, a nice guy, like I have fucking antlers growing out of my head?" The pain was rising to the surface. Adam often thought, had life been better to him, he could have been the next Casanova.

"It hurts to think about it," Adam said.

"Then stop thinking about it. I tell you, you think too damn much. Try smoking or something. I go a day without a smoke and I start thinking in overload."

Adam did not show it, but he was insulted. He felt like Chris was indirectly pressuring him into smoking—something he would not do in a million years. Both his parents smoked, and his uncle and grandmother had both died from lung cancer. He'd learned their lesson.

But he could not verbally stand up to his friend. Or friends. What would he gain if he lost what little companionship he did have by standing up for himself?

"So," Chris said, "am I still staying this Friday?"

Adam was lost for a moment. Then he replied, "Well, since I skipped school, my mom said no, but that'll change. I'll get her to agree."

"Your mom's pretty cool."

Adam believed that, agreed to it, then completely denied it.

He did not like her.

The sorrow was mounting, shifting, shaping, building like a snowball plummeting downhill, strengthening itself into a monstrous, complex, hideous hellbeast that seemed in every sense invincible. Only one of those past therapists had the ability to spot it,
if
he'd gotten the boy to spill his guts in the beginning.

"Adam! Get up. Better hurry. Time for school!"

God, if you're up there, take me now. Instead, shoot her down with a bolt of lightning.

“
Adaaaam!"

A huge, deadly bolt of lightning. While you're at it, blow up the school, too, if you would, please.

"Adam, come on now!" his mother barked.

God, thanks for nothing. Nothing at all. And I really, really appreciate all the problems You put in front of me. Real loving Master. Thanks.

"Adam, you getting up? Come on, don't make me come up there!"

Ewww, how intimidating,
Adam thought, chuckling. His face shoved against his pillow, he closed his weighted eyelids. There was no other place he would rather be... here behind closed doors, resting, comfortable, miles away from
—

"School!" his mother said, standing over him now. "You going, or what? You going to pull this today? I don't have the time for it. I have a meeting with my boss." She stopped there and sighed heavily. "You skip school today and you're grounded. Got it?"

Adam finally opened his eyes. That was one thing he had never heard his mother say. He had never been grounded by either his mom or his dad. Granted, he had been in mild and moderate trouble recently, but for all he knew, his parents didn't know what grounded meant.

"What?" he said, lifting his head. The whole right side of his face looked disfigured from the lumpy pillow.

She swiped her hands across each other, as if karate chopping two imaginary muggers. "End of this!"

Nasty
, Adam thought.

"I'm calling your father, your principal, and the truant officer, and telling them, myself, that I'm not responsible for you not going to school. You're—"

Adam jumped to his feet, mouth contorted into an insane little pucker. He was taller than her by a foot. His fists were clenched. He wanted to do something rash, something with minimal thought and maximum power.

"Fuuuuuck yoooou!
" he screamed in her face.

She did not falter. "I'm calling the juvenile officer!"

The fire in his eyes brightened and dimmed all at once. She knew she'd injured his ego. "Why, mom?"

It worked
, she thought. "Because you won't go any other way.
Final.
"

Crying now, Adam mumbled, "You're not my mother."

"I am, Adam, but the way you treat me is unacceptable. The way you act—I can't deal with you anymore."

"I'll go. Just please don't call the juvenile officer."

"It's too late, Adam," she said as she walked out of the room.

Adam shut his bedroom door like he’d just notified that his family had been hacked to death by an ax murderer.

***

The bus ride was worse today, primarily because Adam's anxiety was at an all-time high. The thing that bothered him most was knowing the final destination, that end point where the bus brakes screeched and he had to deal with the real world.

Adam often wondered if the kids in the bus, in school, and in town, weren't actually human. Just what if the reason they were so cruel and crude wasn't as obvious as mere teenage aggression? What if they were soulless? Wolves in sheep’s clothing? What if, in truth, they were genuinely evil? If so, where were the good ones? The real ones? Did any still exist? Or was he the last one?

The closer the yellow beast got to Blake High, the faster Adam's heart pounded. He had to sit on his hands to keep them from shaking. He licked his lips so many times the skin on them began to flake. He tried what so many people had promised to ease tension: deep breathing and visualization ... but after three full minutes of doing both, the anxiety did not go away.

The bus turned into the parking lot, making its way to the front of the building.
I'm here... Hades, Academia.
other kids on the bus stood in unison and walked off the bus with stupid smiles on their faces. Adam could not stand; his legs were too feeble. He did not want to risk falling a third time.

But somehow he mustered the courage to stand and did so without fail. The bus driver watched him in the rear-view mirror the whole time, shaking his head. Adam was aware of this without even looking.

Adam entered through the fiery gates and looked around at the hundreds of backpacked demons. One tall, husky boy with a mohawk—John Casivlin—a hard-core Goth who never showed himself in public without wearing black clothes, walked past Adam and commented, "What's up, gay boy? Screwing your boyfriend lately?"

He snickered, looked around for teachers, saw none, and did to Adam what he'd always wanted to do—

John spit a big, slimy hocker in his face.

No contest, no battle, nothing Adam could do but tread away toward the bathroom.
They don't like me. Not a one.

Adam hurried into the bathroom.

He had tried more than once to befriend John and his friends, since they were Goths—different and non-conformists. People picked on them, too, but to Adam, they seemed to stand for everything they rebelled against. They did mostly the same things all other cliques did. For one, they were in their
own
group, which seemed to contradict their code. Secondly, they smoked the same pot the jocks did, slept around like the preps did, and caused more trouble than the bad boys did. They were no better, no worse; they were the same as everybody else. Blind followers of a goofy Marilyn Manson character. Freakish-looking but completely
normal
within. Adam deemed himself the purest freak, the purest outsider in Blake High.
Loner is I; to join is to be a part of the cyborg.

After spending ten minutes staring at his tortured face in the mirror and cleaning the spit off his check, Adam left the Boy’s Room and walked to his homeroom. When he entered and took his seat, that short, inevitable time caught up to him for the second time in under fifteen minutes. One of his classmates had stuck a wad of gum on his seat. He, of course, sat right on it, and knew something was very wrong since they were all laughing.

He covered his head in his hands and tried to disappear. That did not happen.

"I can't believe the dolt sat in it!"

"What a fucking tard."

"Just call him bubble-gum ass. Be blowing bubbles out his poopchute.”

Demons need to be published. I'm the angel.

Adam often wished he had a brother, an identical twin with the same everything as him. Only then would he have somebody to relate to.

"Hey, sticky butt, whatuuuuup?" the geek across from him said.

You see, even the geeks are normal in retrospect.

A thought—faint, distant, but real—slammed into Adam. He imagined grabbing that kid's face, grabbing his pencil, and jamming it through his immense glasses and into his useless brain.

Blood flies.

A demon dies.

No more intentional schoolyard cries.

What a story I could make of that!

The boy stared at him as if he could read Adam's thoughts. The nerd suddenly looked frightened. Never again would he speak another word to the McNicols boy.

"That's enough, Tom," the teacher said to the four-eyed amphibian as she entered the room. The bell rang. The teacher, holding something tiny in the palm of her hand, sat on the front of her desk.

"What is that?" a metal-mouthed girl in the front row asked her.

She held up a small, dark-colored ring. "It's a mood ring. Ermel the science teacher gave it to me. See, slip it on your finger and it's supposed to tell you your mood. How you're feeling. Want to try it?"

The metal-mouth girl nodded.

The teacher smiled, looked over at Adam, and winked. He did not smile. His eyes did not blink. His face remained without emotion.

Mrs. Gavin stepped forward and handed the ring to the girl. The perfect little cheerleader slipped it on her pinky.

"Give it a minute, it'll change," the teacher said.

A minute passed. It became light purple. The girl didn't know if this was good or bad.

"What does it mean?" the girl queried.

"To be quite honest, it could mean many things. Dark purple can mean a calm, soothing feeling. Light purple can mean a more energetic, openness emotion.

"Does red mean passion? Love?"

"Yes, well, it can."

Adam stared at the girl as she said the word
love
.

He despised the word.

The girl took the ring off, handed it back to Mrs. Gavin, looked over at Adam, and mouthed the word
Loser.

The teacher gave the ring to a second person: Davey Longstorm. He slipped it on, and the color of the ring turned light yellow. The teacher seemed impressed.

"Yellow doesn't mean I'm a wuss, does it?" he wondered. Some kids laughed.

The teacher replied, "No, Davey, it means energy. You're energetic. Light-souled."

Davey did a little dance with his arms.

Before Mrs. Gavin even said a word, Adam knew he was going to be the next to try on that dreaded ring. He thought he'd melt the damned thing once he put it on his finger.

I would not fucking doubt it.

Davey handed her back the ring. Adam already held out his hand.

"Adam, here, try this on," the teacher offered.

He looked at nobody when he grabbed that little yellow, out-of-a cereal-box ring and slid it over his ring finger, expecting a disaster.

It did not turn.

Still, it did not turn.

Slowly, the yellow drifted away.

Soon it turned mars black. The entire class held their breath. The teacher appeared concerned, as if Adam had fallen, cracked his head against a desk leg, and was bleeding profusely. His hand trembled. He knew it meant something abnormal.

"Adam," the teacher said, "what are you—is everything okay? Is anything wrong?"

"What does black mean?" someone asked.