5Author's Notes: This story is unlike most you'll read. It tries to deal with the issue of abuse; most of the people in it are not all that good. Its not a happy story, though there are some happy stories stuck in the middle of it. If you want a happy, sweet story go read "Don't Be Afraid To Say I Love You", by me (of course). This story deals with homosexuality, sexual abuse and differences. It is PG-13 right now, but will be R by the next chapter. On a slightly lighter and more personal note, I am not satisfied with this chapter, but first I want to read what people think of it. There WILL be more action in the next chapter; this one sets up the character of Jinx and some of the underlying themes of the story (differences, sexual abuse, helplessness and Truth).
Chapter 1
Isolation
The boy sat alone. He was a slender, fragile and delicate. He had skin that was as pale as ivory, and his almost feminine features were crowned with golden-orange hair that fell in slightly curly waves. At eight and a half, he was often mistaken for a girl, and a six-year-old one at that. He sat now on the swing, long, delicate fingers wrapped around the chains. He moved not at all, preferring to keep his feet planted on the ground. He was dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, as a token obeisance to the heat of summer, and long blue jeans, so in that aspect at least he looked like every boy-child on the playground.
But he sat alone. Next to him, left and right, people swung on the swings, causing vibrations of air currents that irritated him slightly, though not enough to vacate his spot. But around the boy was a bubble of isolation, an unspoken, yet understood message that said 'here is something unknown. 'Ware!'. The boy's eyes, dark blue that hid all kind of secrets, were the only part of him that moved. They watched carefully, taking note of every activity, every movement, with an unsubtle paranoia. Little clusters, cliques and gangs of kids ran rampant around the school courtyard, under the watchful eyes of teachers.
He watched them all, observing without speaking. This child was a bully, and sassed all the teachers. But all he really wanted was to be noticed. To be different. This little girl sat giggling with her group of others, but when they weren't looking, she talked quietly to herself and drew pictures of castles. This boy pulled all the girl's hair and teased them, but he really liked them, in the shy, childish way boys of that age like girls. This little girl ate her lunch alone, and read beneath a tree in the courtyard, rebuffing any attempts to speak to her. But she really wanted to join in the silly games of all the others.
None of these were really conscious thoughts. It was just what he did, matching behaviors with reasons. He did it with adults, with children…he watched, and when he watched, he understood. I am the Watcher, he thought, and it was true, though it was not all the truth of what he was. But for an eight-year-old, it was pretty good to find any truth about oneself, and so he was pleased with himself.
Home was not. It was the third foster home he had lived in, and he didn't know how much longer he would stay in it. The couple he lived with now fostered four kids, counting him, and he was the quietest, least troublesome of the lot. The rest were loud, rambunctious and had a variety of emotional problems. The couple in question both specialized in kids with emotional problems, in getting them to open up, settle down and adjust to society. He had been sent to them two years ago, when he was a small boy of six, because his social worker thought that his long silences, resistance to physical contact and lack of emotional reactions were evidence of some kind of emotional scarring.
He knew, however, that this latest foster couple, the Murphys, was baffled at their inability to break down the emotional walls they knew he had. It had never occurred to them that this was just how he was. He had no walls that he knew of. When asked about his emotions, he normally responded with exactly how he felt. It was in his nature to be truthful. It was not his fault that they didn't believe him. But he had long ago accepted that they needed some kind of reaction from him to satisfy them that he was all right, and since he had no idea what the proper reaction would be, he knew he would not stay much longer in this home.
Still, he looked forward to going home simply as an escape from the physically oriented world of third grade. He picked up his backpack, a soft orange colored creation that was as light as he could possibly make, though the straps still tended to cause welts on his shoulders. The doctors simply shrugged, and said that his skin, even when callused, tended to be incredibly sensitive. They then went on to explain that there was nothing they could do about it. He knew already, of course. He just never told anyone exactly how hypersensitive he was. He felt the lightest touch through every layer of his skin, and he slept under only the lightest of blankets when at all possible, and with none at all during the summer. Everything that touched him he felt, the sensation lingering occasionally long after the source of the stimuli was gone.
As he packed up that day, though, a voice called his name. He looked up and then padded over. His teacher, Mrs. Kellen, smiled down at him. Everyone in the school said she was a wonderful teacher, the kind who really cared about her students. As for said students, they worshipped her, because she was always free to help the girls with their hair or show the boys how to toss a football. He was her most frustrating student, because she liked touching all her students personally and he was untouchable.
"I noticed you didn't do finger painting today with the rest of the children." Mrs. Kellen believed firmly in the arts, and tried to influence the students with such interests, letting them put out all their artistic urges on paper, or getting everyone to play with musical instruments. He shook his head, wondering why she bothered to state the obvious. "And you didn't play the tambourine I gave you yesterday." She continued. He nodded once again, his eyes focused on her. He noticed that she, unlike quite a few other adults, made no move to avoid his gaze.
"Look, Andrew, you're a good student, even if you practically seem to be mute. But you so rarely join in when the class tries to do things together…can you tell me why?" Her tone was sounded upset, and he noted calmly that she didn't understand. Andrew…no wonder. She thinks I'm Andrew. That he wasn't Andrew was so obvious that he didn't even need to say it. It was simply a name that someone had stuck on him because 'hey, you boy!' was inconvenient and too long to yell properly. What he should be called he didn't know. It didn't bother him much, except when people called him Andrew. The one time he had tried to tell his foster mother he wasn't Andrew had only confused, so now he accepted it like most kids his age accepted milk. It was simply a necessary evil.
As for her questions, he knew the answer. But how did one express in words the way the texture of finger paints made him feel dirty for hours afterwards, as though something was constantly dripping down his hands? He had had no words for why the sound of a tambourine jangling imperfectly set his nerves on edge. Having everyone around him doing it was bad enough, and made him sit under his desk, trying to cover his ears until Mrs. Keller coaxed him out and gave him the tambourine. He had had a headache all day after that and his body felt all shivery, like a leaf shaking in a strong wind. But he was eight, and he had not the words to express such concepts, and so he simply shrugged.
She stared at him for a minute, as though hoping for something more than that ambiguous shrug. "Well, go on, then. You might as well get on home…" He heard the sadness in her voice and sighed wordlessly. He knew somehow he should say or do something to make her feel better—society had conditioned him in that much, at least—but he didn't know how to do it, so he turned and walked out of the classroom.
Normally, his older 'brother' James walked home with him. James was in sixth grade, and therefore trusted to be semi-responsible. Obviously, though, James had gotten bored waiting, because when he came out, no one was there. He barely noticed. James was simply another presence to be tolerated, no more important than any another. He oriented himself toward home unerringly and started walking. He was so lost in silent introspection, watching a raven swoop to land on the monkey bars of the park playground, that he didn't even noticed the other boys until he ran into one.
They were older than he by a year or two, fifth graders who looked even older, due mostly to their sneers and the ugly look in their eyes. They were here every day, but they never messed with him when he was with James, because James was 5'8" and had hard muscles from wrestling. Besides, when he wanted to be, James could be meaner than any of them.
But now what they saw was a little boy with perfectly formed features in a slender, aquiline face, and a body that could not fight back. Quickly, the boy backpedaled, muttering a quick apology in some ridiculous conformity to the laws of society, the only thing that stood between him and these predators. For now, that was exactly what they had become, like a wolf pack that barely needs to communicate at all to know that prey is before them. They grinned wolfishly at each other and started to advance.
"Hey, little boy, where you running?" "Are you sure it is a boy at all?" "Don't you wanna play with us? We're gonna be your new friends." "Hey, that's a nice backpack. Ain't that a nice backpack, y'all?" "Where you gonna go? Your brother ain't here anymore. You'd just better play nice with us." "Yeah…we'll play."
He took careful steps back. He noticed a gap between two of the boys, as one of them advanced, and the other stayed behind. With a swiftness that would serve him well in later years, he ducked down and ran for it. One of the boys cursed, another reached for the orange streak that was running past him and missed. He was conscious now of nothing but running, but even then it was not mindless. He knew he didn't have these boys' endurance, but his size could be turned into an asset. As he turned a seemingly dead end alley, he saw what he had hoped to see; a gap in the chain link fence big enough for him to slip through easily. If the other boy's got through at all, it would take them time and effort that they seemed unwilling to spend.
He almost made it.
In the few precious moments it took him to duck down to climb through the hole, a hand snagged his backpack and pulled him backward. A hand clamped down painfully on his shoulder and he was spun around to look unfriendly brown eyes. "Ok, now, kid, we were trying to be friendly. But if that's how you wanna be…" Someone giggled and He felt a minor stirring in the pit of his stomach, his first real reaction to the situation. Before this, it hadn't seemed real. Now it was, but even as he began to feel a stirring or two of fear, he still analyzed everything. And his analysis told him only one thing; he couldn't fight. He let his body go limp as the first blow landed.
They left him bruised, but they could hardly have avoided doing that. Even the hand that had first seized him had left a bruise. His body felt like a mass of pain, and each slap and blow seemed to have imprinted itself on his consciousness. He could feel those phantom fists, as though they were imprinted on his skin for all time. His backpack had been opened and upended, the books splayed out haphazardly and he noted they were ruined. He also noticed, now that it was all over, that he wasn't scared or upset anymore. Even while it was happening, mostly he had been trying to deal with the overflow from his external systems, all that touching and hitting, the feel of the pavement against his body as he was shoved down onto it. His body had a hard time handling it all of it. Physical sensations he could not ignore had flooded him, making his mind basically blank out.
But now that it was over, he had learned two things from it that he had not known before. He was out of place in society; the taunts of the boys assured him of that. But more importantly, he had learned what it felt like to be helpless. Before, he had been helpless to control certain aspects of his life, but at least he could affect them, if he chose. If he wished not to go to school, he could run away; the same option was available if he hated a current foster home. There would be consequences, but at least he could do it. Avoiding the boys' fists had been impossible. He had had no option but to curl up and endure the blows until the boys decided to stop.
He rose, dusting himself off, and putting everything back into his backpack. He pulled the backpack onto his shoulders, and then squeaked with pain, letting it drop. Even his shoulders hurt, and the backpack straps irritated that even more. He stared at the backpack for a moment. It did not return the gaze. With a sudden, decisive moment, he leaned down and pulled it back on. The pain intensified. He closed his eyes, bit his lip, and stepped forward.
One step.
Another.
Another.
He was jarred back into reality when he saw the familiar front of the Murphy's house. He pushed open the front door, ignoring the fact that moving hurt. Ignoring everything but making his body act as he commanded. Mrs. Murphy looked up, and her eyes brightened for a second. Next to her, a rather sullen looking James looked up and flinched a little. Already, Mrs. Murphy was up and fussing, her eyes gone wide in sympathy. He endured it, silent and cut off from the events around him.
But in his own mind, he made himself this promise:
No one will ever make me helpless again.
And it was true.
He was fifteen. His body, once short and delicate, had stretched to become lanky and slender. He was 5'9", but the lack of anything resembling fat made him look taller. His hair was still wavy, and now hung shaggily around his shoulders, mostly because he never bothered to cut it. This occasionally resulted in it getting in his eyes, an effect he emphasized by keeping his head down, effectively shadowing his features. Said features remained delicate, high cheekbones in a face with full lips, and eyes with long, luxurious lashes. He was both exotic and attractive, leading to all kinds of speculations about his parentage. He never had anything to add to these discussions; it didn't interest him one way or another.
As for his current living situation, he had, as predicted, bid the Murphy's goodbye on his ninth birthday. Since that time, he had passed through one other foster home before ending up at his current home. His 'parents', Margaret and Kevin Thatcher, seemed to regard foster parenting as a way to supplement their rather meager income, and had three kids living with them. He was the oldest, and was therefore generally assigned care over the younger ones, but otherwise left to his own devices. This suited him. He had no wish to engage in any display of affection, and they did not expect it of him. He kept his grades up, did his chores and rarely bothered them. They got along.
School, however, had become a duty he regarded with a distant kind of distaste, like changing the cat's litter box. His teachers didn't know what to make of him and his fellow classmates seemed to have made it into a school-wide contest to get some kind of reaction out of him, mostly with a variety of taunts, threats and pranks. He adjusted to it silently, with a kind of long-suffering patience that simply absorbed everything that came at him. Occasionally, he managed a well-timed sarcastic jibe, but most of the time, he just let things lie. This irritated his classmates more than anything he could say anyway, so it was probably best that way. His abilities to analyze and, if necessary, react, had only grown over time. However, so had his hypersensitivity, while his emotional capacity seemed to have decreased. The only time he really had to react anymore was to physical threats; but there were fewer of those this year than any other before it. He had added some muscles to his body, and learned a few tricks and throws with money saved up from summer jobs. While he was not invincible, he could hurt his opponent, and showed no qualms about doing so.
At this moment in time, he was sitting in the bleachers, in the school gym, dressed in gym shorts and a t-shirt whose very color was bothering him (it was a bright yellow). He disliked P.E. worst of all his classes, which meant when he stopped to consider it, he thought that it would be nice if he didn't have P.E. The shorts were too short (hence the name, perhaps?) and they showed off slender, pale legs. He was curled up in the very top of the bleachers. A light touch told him that the surface of his seat was covered in carvings; names, four-letter words and attestations of love. He shifted a bit, trying in vain to attain some level of comfort on the hard wood. It refused to yield and he sighed, giving up. I'd better be careful; I'm turning into a real hedonist. He grinned humorlessly to himself. Don't animal smile to warn off others? Perhaps I bear this pseudo-smile to warn away all the other human animals that lurk too close.
He glanced at his other classmates, one of who was rapping silently, the other who concentrating intently on making sure her powder didn't clump. Something special has made her want to be attractive today. Whoever's eye she wants to attract, though, he isn't in this class and so she'll use her time to make herself beautiful. He glanced at the rapper, who had started drumming on the bleacher above him. He learns the lyrics of all the songs of a favorite rapper, because he is a natural mimic and his friends think this talent impressive. They don't know how much time he spends making sure he knows it correctly. The false smile disappeared, but it was replaced by a slightly pleased feeling. He was getting better at this. Something told him that perhaps these skills might come in handy when he was an adult, so he practiced whenever possible.
"Hey! You, boy!" He looked up. The coach, a balding, overweight man with a continual frown motioned him to come down from the bleachers. "You ready to play?" The man asked. The young man considered denying that he was ready, but he knew the question was only an exercise in rhetoric, so he rose silently, neither denying nor accepting the charge. He stepped with innate grace down the bleachers, letting his muscles do the job they were made for.
"Man, coach, I don't want that faggot playing with us. He's just looking for the opportunity to make a move on one of us." The young man didn't know the speaker's name, but it wasn't really necessary to know. He glanced at him disinterestedly, padding out to the center of the floor. The smell of sweat was strong, and he involuntarily grimaced. "Ben, even a fag wouldn't want to touch you!" There was laughter and the afore-mentioned Ben flushed and punched at the shoulder of the boy who had said it. "All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's play some ball." The coach picked up the ball and tossed it up in the air.
The game began.
Right away, one of the two gentlemen in the center slapped the ball out of the air; there was a brief skirmish over the ball. He stayed carefully out of it, stepping away from the cluster of people. He had no intention of getting himself jostled or knocked over by one of the too-eager participants of this game. He had no opinion on sports one way or another, as long as someone else was playing them. He stepped out of the way as a member of the opposite team raced past. The other boy jumped up and down, waving his arms, signifying that he was open and could have the ball passed to him. Or at least in his general direction. The members of any Physical Education class were rarely particularly good at sports, else they would have been playing on an organized team to earn their Athletic credit.
The boy who had the ball sighted his teammate and grinned. The ball sailed through the air. The young man noted, with a pleased smile, that the ball was orange. Orange was his favorite color, one that was easy on his eyes and somehow aesthetic in a sense that no other color ever achieved. He watched the orange streak as it flew through the air, and stepped back a bit so as the boy to whom the ball had been tossed jumped for it, he reached up and knocked it out of the air. It all happened much faster than that, of course, so before anyone realized it, he had the ball and was moving at a gentle trot through both teams. Someone cursed, and someone else grabbed for him and missed. This brought on an odd sense of déjà vu, but he had no time to stop and consider it.
He kept moving. He seemed to know where the hands would be, and moved the ball to make sure it wasn't there. He gripped the ball as he had seen basketball players do many times, bending at the knees and then jumping, releasing the ball so that it went flying toward the basket. And missed.
Oh, well, he thought, entertained by the mad scramble for the ball that resulted. He stepped to the side, and let the game continue with no more intervention. The part of his brain that analyzed everything was informing him that an interesting phenomenon had just taken place. The physical exertion had felt good; or rather, the fact that everything had gone perfectly felt good. It was odd to realize that he appreciated the way his body had moved, the way the opposition had fallen away… it was…was…
But he didn't know, not really, what it was he was feeling. That annoyed him; for it was unlike him to be unable to classify a feeling and having done so, file it away until he needed the knowledge. As he watched the mass of humanity range across the gym, jogging a little behind the crowd, he searched for a way to describe what he felt. Does everyone else feel this urge to rationalize everything that happens to them? I don't think so…most of them can barely explain their surface emotions. Some of them are so shallow that they barely realize there is anything but surface emotions.
But it was no use trying to understand how he was different from them. It was best to simply accept that he was and try to work from that premise. Humanity is diverse enough that we are all different. I am simply an extreme and therefore more obviously unusual.
He walked into the Thatcher's house that afternoon, pausing to hang up his backpack in the closet. He picked up his younger 'sibs' backpacks, doing the same with them. It had become habit to pick up after them. The Thatcher's home was small, a single story with three bedrooms and one bathroom. The living room was a mess, covered in cutup newspaper, beer cans and drawings that often flowed seamlessly off the paper and onto the walls. The TV, however, shone as though it was polished every day.
"Andyyyy!" His little 'brother', Todd, stuck his head out of his room to bellow, then immediately disappeared right back into it. Todd was ten, with spiky black hair and an attitude problem that made his teachers dread him. At least Andy is better than Andrew…though only by a minute amount. Still, he decided that whatever Todd wanted to tell him, have him do or throw at him could wait. He pushed open the door to the bathroom and stepped inside. He missed seeing his little brother stare after him, and then shake his head sadly, as though pronouncing his elder brother hopeless.
Said elder brother was about halfway into the room when he realized the shower was on and someone was very clearly inside. Huh? But Margaret shouldn't be home for another hour and I saw Kevin in the garage. Karen hates water too much to voluntarily take a shower…Just as he was about to turn around and leave by the same route he had entered, a slender form emerged from the shower. The first thing he noticed was that it was obviously female, and probably his age or a year to either side. She had wrapped a towel around herself, and her hair stuck to her face in strands. It was darker now, but it was probably blonde normally. He had seen a drawing of a water nymph once, and thought that she resembled the drawing quite a bit.
For a moment, they stared at each other. Then she blushed and bit her lip. "Oh, this is a bit embarrassing…I guess no one told you, did they?" She said. Her voice was soft, and high. He found that it was reasonably pleasant. "No…could you please tell me what they did not?" He said, wondering why it didn't seem ridiculous to be having a dialogue with a nude woman. "I…I'm your sister, I guess. I just moved in here today… My names Ashley. You're Andrew, right? Todd said that was your name." She stared into his eyes. He noted that her eyes were a very aesthetic shade of green, and that they seemed to have an odd sort of desperation in their depths. He also noticed that she was stepping forward slowly as she spoke, and this unnerved him quite a bit.
"Yes, I'm Andrew…" He tasted something burning in the back of his throat and swallowed it down quickly. He disliked lying intensely, and did it as rarely as possible. But it was impossible to explain that he was not Andrew; not when he didn't know who he was. She stepped forward a bit more, at the same time letting her towel slip down a bit farther. He glanced down at the sudden movement and noticed that a mound of white breast had been exposed. She followed his eyes and smiled demurely. "Do you want to touch them?" She whispered softly. He glanced up at her, startled. She looked into his eyes and then looked down again, letting the towel slip just a little more, to show the nipple that was startlingly dark against all that white.
For a moment, he started to tell her that she didn't have to show him this, tell him this…but then the part of him that analyzed other people stopped him cold. It told him that she was doing it for exactly that reason, that she acted like this because no one was making her. Because she had learned a long time ago that her body was her only means of controlling the events around her, and now here he was, innocent, pretty, and she wanted the thrill of controlling someone else, instead of being controlled herself. Because when he raised his eyes, he saw it lurking there, in her eyes, around the edges of her mouth, hidden by the demure smile. It was in the way her body leaned forward invitingly, but her hands were clenched into fists, so hard that the nails lay biting against the flesh. All her life, she had been the play toy of men larger, stronger and more powerful than she. But at the same time, she had learned the power her body had over others and so she played with those others, seducing and then doing her best to make them feel as worthless as she felt.
It was a vicious cycle and it flashed before his eyes in that moment and suddenly he wanted to get out of there. He turned and pushed open the door, not even bothering to close it behind him, feeling suffocated by a pressure in the air that he could barely explain. He pushed his way outdoors and into the sunlight, which helped to burn away all the shadows that his encounter with his newest 'sister' had brought about.
The backyard was overgrown and trashy; if you didn't watch your steps, you were liable to slice open your foot on broken glass. Old toys, most rusted and unrecognizable, lay scattered around. One corner of the backyard sloped down to form an odd little depression, a hole big enough for a grown man to sit in comfortably. Last year, he gone to the trouble of lining it with soft blankets that he cleaned regularly. He shared his room with Todd, but this was his spot, his haven from the outside world. He closed his eyes as he slid into it, curling up on his side. It took him a minute to relax, and he breathed deeply. He felt as if the world had just shown him a darker, dirtier side of itself and he didn't much like knowing it existed. They hurt, and so she learned hurt and spread it to others… How can anyone do that kind of thing to another person?
It was empathy that moved him to thoughts like that; it was disgust and contempt. He knew he was… emotionally stunted. I lack a capacity the others have. But I would never hurt someone like that, never find pleasure in their pain… These were issues that had always seemed clear-cut. There had never been any question of believing differently. This was not through any inner understanding; he simply watched what others considered wrong, effortlessly absorbing them and knowing that it was wrong. It is wrong because…because…This was harder. Trying to explain himself why what had been done to Ashley was wrong took a minute and he shifted about, feeling the blankets rubbing against his skin. It was better than dirt, at least.
It's wrong because it hurt her. Well, yes, but kicking her in the ankle would have hurt her, though not as badly. Somehow this is worse. Normally, it would have been enough for him to know that it was wrong; he had fallen into the habit of accepting the rights and wrongs of society. But a curiosity had filled him, seeking for answer, where before he had never even had questions. It is wrong…because it has changed her…from who she would have been…from normal… to someone who is stunted in ways I only begin to grasp. Like a tree not given enough of water, she has wilted and grown only in a twisted shadow of what she could have been. He couldn't help it; the poetic turn of phrase made him smile.
There it is again, that word. Normal. I have always held those who are normal in disdain, but in my own way I am as far from normal as Ashley. The thought made him fidget uncomfortably; while he and his foster sister were literal opposites, it was still uncomfortable to think of himself as…as twisted. I know what made her the way she is—
but why am I…me? A thought started to form, one that might have given him the answer, but it never fully gestated. Instead, he heard Todd yelling his name and rose from his haven, emerging into the sun. His thoughts got filed away for later consideration.
Still, though he never had a chance to return to that original thought line, the curiosity that his brainstorming session had awakened refused to fall back asleep. He spent days at the library, walking through the shelf of books, reading this or that, compiling a large amount of useless knowledge. Still, he returned always to psychology and philosophy, those two sciences that dealt intimately with humans; their virtues and their vices. He soon devoured the libraries stock of them, with occasional pauses to read about everything from fiction to pottery. He found them fascinating, though he noted psychologists seemed to have an obsession with finding reasons for every facet of human nature.
He even found things that applied to him. However, they all supposed that he had suffered some trauma in his early life, and as far as he knew, that simply wasn't true. Of course, he supposed he could have repressed it, but that seemed a bit far-fetched, even to him. Besides, they all seemed to assume that lack of emotion was a sign of some inside turmoil and he certainly wasn't in any turmoil that he knew about.
His new love of reading gave him a good excuse to leave the house more often, as well. Since Ashley had moved in, the house was no longer 'safe'. She seemed to have taken a dislike to him since he had refused her impromptu advances and had an annoying habit of pinching him; since she kept her fingernails sharp, this often resulted in him having bruises across his arm. Also, and more disturbingly, Kevin seemed to watch Ashley in a way that was definitely not paternal. It made him uncomfortable, but he didn't know what to do about it, so he spent most of his time curled up with his nose in a book even when he was at home. Ashley grew used to him in time, once she grew bored with taunting him, and Margaret never seemed to notice when her husbands eyes strayed toward Ashley. Todd left to be permanently adopted, but little Karen stayed. In this way, three uncomfortable years passed…
He was eighteen. His hair had been cut to frame his face, enhancing his angelic features in a way that most often got him shoved or hit by his fellow classmates. He had grown only an inch or two taller, and now stood at the respectable height of 5'10". He dressed less like a ruffian, having acquired a taste for aesthetics sometime in his teenager years. He kept to himself, though his sense of humor had slowly developed to being positively acidic.
As for his 'sister' Ashley, she had a reputation around school as 'one of those girls'. He avoided her as much as possible and she pretended to have no association with him. He heard sometimes, when he stayed up late to read, the sound of her crying. But she always denied it in the morning. He had noticed, though, the discreet way Kevin touched her when he thought no one was looking. Only once had the thought occurred to him to speak of it, though, and then it was quickly dismissed. Ashley had nowhere else to go; she was nineteen now, and therefore a legal adult.
So he made his quiet way through the halls of the school, until two separate events changed the path of his life entirely.
First, he listened to an Army recruiter give a speech to the eighteen year olds of his school. There was a war coming, everyone said so, and they needed strong, willing men to fight in it. The conviction in the man's voice impressed him, but he walked out of there with no opinion of it one way or another. After all, he was still in high school and after that, he hoped, college. If he had to spend some time working, that was all right. In college, they learned things. He wanted to learn things.
But when he approached the Thatcher's house— it would never be his house—he found Karen sitting on the front steps, eyes red from crying. He knelt down next to her. "Why so sad, little sister?" He asked; he was reading Celtic myths right now, and occasionally tended to use diverse patterns of speech. She wiped her eyes, sniffling. "M-mommy and Daddy and Sistah are fighting… Make em stop, 'Drew…" He stood up, and frowned, tentatively pushing the door. Ashley was sitting on the couch, exaggerated makeup smeared across her cheeks. The blotches of blue eye shadow resembled Native American face paint. Kevin was standing near the other end of the couch, trying to put as much distance between himself and Ashley as possible. Margaret stood, hands on her hips, face red from screaming and eyes full of tears.
Her words were still coming, at full volume and quite deafening. "You little slut! We give you food and shelter, and this is how you repay us? You skanky bitch-whore… how dare you touch my husband?" Margaret didn't really seem to expect an answer and no one tried to give one. Ashley glared down, not looking at all repentant, as Margaret continued in this vein for some time, sounding like an irate soap-opera star. So the metaphorical cat is out of the bag, hmm? I wonder if it's for better or for worse.
Kevin was staring at the ground, practically pouting. Margaret had started on him by now, calling him all the names she must have picked up from watching Oprah. But when she finally ran out of steam, he looked up and then started on her, informing her that a real woman would have made sure he didn't have to turn to anyone else. About this time, Ashley got up and ran past. Margaret made to go after her, but Kevin grabbed her and they started yelling again.
He shook his head, solely to himself, and started backing out of the room. They didn't even look up. When he had made it to the hallway, he pivoted slowly and walked toward Ashley's room. After a pause, he knocked softly on the door. After a minute, he heard a muffled 'Come in'. He did, pushing open the door and slowly walking into the room. Ashley had her face buried in a pillow, long red nails digging into the finely woven fabric. He sat down on the edge of the bed, inwardly amused at his reason for coming here. This, too, society has taught me. One does not leave distraught women alone, even when one does not like them all that much.
"I hate you! I hate you all!" Ashley's voice was harsh and he had the feeling he was seeing the real girl, the one behind all the seductress facades. "All?" He asked, tentatively stroking her hair. He wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do, especially someone for who each touch might have another meaning altogether. It obviously was though, because her shoulders stopped shaking and her grip on the pillow released. He noted absently that her hair was quite fine and had a nice texture. "All men…you ruin everything! You're like a…a jinx on the whole fucking world!" She started to sob again, body convulsing in short jerks. Jinx…
The word caught his fancy; perhaps it was simply the aesthetic sound of the word. It was unlike almost any other word, it did not follow any of the usual patterns. He could name few words that had both an X and J in them. Perhaps it was the meaning. Certainly, he knew that a Jinx caused things to go wrong, and it seemed to him the whole world was going wrong.
Before he could really fix on it, though, the door opened. Kevin stared at both of them, and the young man could almost feel the suspicion in that gaze. People inherently find their own failings in others. He got up and walked past Kevin, before anyone could speak. Suddenly, he didn't want to be in that room. But some impulse made him stand directly outside the door and what he heard made him feel almost as dirty as the first time he met Ashley.
"Well, found yourself a new patsy to fuck around with, did you?" Kevin's voice was slurred, as with alcohol.
"ANDREW?! Shit, Kevin, he's the biggest fag in the damn world." Ashley's voice was defensive. He wondered mentally if he should be insulted, but he didn't see why.
"Whatever. Look, me and Margie have been talking…and well, you've graduated, so we think it would be a good idea if you went out and got yourself your own apartment. You're a big girl now, and you can take care of yourself." Kevin sounded vaguely guilty, and the boy heard Ashley gasp once, as though taken aback.
"But what am I going to do about the baby?" She asked, and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. So that's why… oh. He had a pretty good idea exactly what that child would turn out, at least if it was female. Another Ashley…what a cycle.
"…That's your problem. I'll pay for an abortion, if that's what you want." Kevin said, his voice angry to hide the edge of guilt beneath it. He shoved the door opened, and the boy stepped back to avoid being struck full in the face. He heard the crying begin again, only this time it had an edge of hopelessness in it. He considered going in there again, but what could he say? For the first time since he was eight, he was helpless to do anything. Except get out.
The next morning he joined the army. And he signed his name as Jinx.