dame amor ↝ steve murphy [✔]

fifty. outcast

Mateo kicked rocks that were in his way as he walked towards the direction of his school. He lived in a nice, quiet neighborhood, but to get to his school, he had to pass by the houses that reminded him of his mom's home in Cali. The school was close to a troublesome neighborhood where it was always on the news for a crime daily.

That was one of the major reasons why Eviana preferred her children to drive or take the bus to school. Mateo knew if Steve or his mom knew that he walked, he would be in trouble.

As he arrived at a stop sign, Mateo patiently waited for cars to pass by sp he could cross the street. As he waited, a group of men standing by a parked car stared at him. He saw their tattoos, beer bottles and cigarettes. He even saw one of them reach for his pack pocket where he knew was a gun waiting to be used.

Mateo looked away from the group of men. He was eager to get out of that area, but cars kept passing by, ignoring the frightened boy that fear for his life at the moment.

It was like Steve knew Mateo was scared. Seconds later, the blonde man appeared next to Mateo in his truck. "Get in." Steve glared at the men as Mateo walked to the passenger side and got in.

Steve drove off, still not taking his eyes off of the men. Finally, Steve had gotten the teenager out of the neighborhood and they were on their way to school.

"I won't tell if you don't." Mateo spoke, breaking the silence between them.

"You do know you're not supposed to walk to school. Not my rule, but your mom's. I thought it was a stupid rule, now I see it was necessary. There's always going to be bad people on the streets, some of them still hurt by dumb decisions in the past."  Steve said. His hand made its way to the radio, turning up the music a bit.

Alone again by Gilbert O'Sullivan played throughout the car. Mateo stared out the window, he tried his hest to ignore the music, but he couldn't. The song was one of his favorites. He slowly tapped his fingers on his knee to the beat of the song.

Soon, the teen made it to school. He didn't like it, but he liked being away from home. Steve drove up to the front of the school to drop off Mateo. Just as the teenage boy opened the car door, Mateo turned to face Steve.

"I guess his mistakes are coming back to haunt me. Times like these where I wish he wasn't my dad."

"Mateo, he cares about you-" Mateo closed the door and walked away from the truck. "Fuck. . " he whispered and angrily drove off, getting numerous warnings and yells from school staff.

Mateo pushed past giant group of people that were too busy talking in the hallways instead of going to class. It was a pain trying to walk during a passing period, everyone was slow walkers. He understood that most people wanted to talk to their friend or they simply didn't want to go to class, but he just wanted to sit down and get class over with.

"Hey Mateo," the boy heard a girl call him. The girl was in the same English and Biology class as him. Mateo didn't really talk to her, but she always wanted to start a conversation with him.

Mateo stopped walking. A couple pushed him due to the crowded hallways, but the girl, Sylvia, pushed the people to get to him. "Hey." He simply said, not in the mood to talk at all.

"I saw your sister. She actually remembered my name, well kind of. She called me Sylvie, but I think it's a cute nickname." Sylvia said, walking with Mateo to their shared homeroom which was Biology.

"Really nice, yeah." Mateo nodded, entering the classroom at the same time as Sylvia. He apologized then let he go in first. They didn't sit close, which Mateo was thankful for so when they entered, Sylvia waved goodbye and walked to her seat near the front of the classroom. Mateo always sat in the back every single one of his classes.

Ten minutes passed by and the late bell rang. His teacher was already counting students tardy. "We're picking up right where we left off, chapter fifteen section two. I hope everyone has their worksheets because I am all out of copies. If you need one, partner up with someone and put your answers on a separate sheet of paper and turn it in before class is over. If you don't, zero."

Mateo took out his Biology and started working on his word problems. Everything was going smoothly until the kid beside him starting calling out for him. He didn't talk to anyone in any of his classes, but here he was.

"Hey, your dad's in jail, right?" The kid asked, whispering to Mateo.

"Who's asking?" Mateo kept his eyes on his paper.

"Me? Did he kill someone? Why's he locked up? Like I know he's in there because he's a narco and shit, but what else did he do?"

Mateo sighed and put down his pencil, turning his attention to the kid beside him. "The guy you're talking about is not my dad. It's just my mom and me."

"Bullshit. Your dad is a fucking criminal. I saw him on TV the other day. Are you rich?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, right?" Mateo got up from his seat. He walked to the teacher's desk and turned in his worksheet. All he needed was one problem since he nearly finished the day before.  "I'm done."

"Change of seat?" The teacher suggested.

"I'm okay, back of the class is a comfort zone sometimes." Mateo replied then walked back to his seat. He just layed his head on the desk trying to block out the noise of the students around him.