"Yes, ma'am"

#1 - Strange behaviors

Carter's POV

8 years ago

"Stop crying!"

I couldn't stop. The tears just continued to fall, a waterfall of tears pouring down my face.

"Stop," He continued shouting, "boys shouldn't be crying like this."

I was trying to stop, I really was. It just hurt. Everything hurt. My head was throbbing and my butt hurt from the beating.

I couldn't remember what I did this time to make him start yelling. I started crying because he was yelling. I was scared.

Then he slapped me again, right across my face.

I screamed and started crying even more...

"Shut up! Stop cryi...."

.

.

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Present time

"Are you even listening to me?" Vivian asked, yanking in a strand of my hair.

"What? Oh. No, sorry. What were you saying?" I looked back at her. I must have zoned out again.

"Are you ok, Carter?" She squinted her eyes at me and looked me up and down. "You've been out of it all week."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Let's just start this project."

"Alright, if you say so."

I wouldn't say Vivian and I are friends, but it's not like we're strangers either. We have always been, at the very least, acquaintances.

We were assigned as partners for our semester project in science. I wasn't really sure what the assignment was considering I was sleeping the entire class period, so I'm hoping Vivian was paying enough attention to explain the project to me.

"As I was saying," She continued, "all we have to do is research a living organism and give a full report on the species. We need to pick an organism and we can go from there."

"What organism do you want to do?"

"Why don't you pick?"

I thought about it for a couple of seconds as I watched kids run across the playground. I decided I either wanted to do mushrooms or tortoises. "Ask me tomorrow and I'll give you a definite answer."

She nodded and wrote something down in her notebook. "I have to go," she stated, standing up, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay."

And now here I was, alone with my thoughts. It was a scary place to be. My thoughts were often stranded in places I really didn't want them to be: dark thoughts. Dark thoughts were thoughts that left me sitting in my room crying all night. Dark thoughts were the thoughts that made trusting difficult.

I watched as kids ran around the playground, imagining myself in their place. I imagined myself as a kid with a group of friends running around the playground, and my only worry was who was "it".

_____________

When I woke up the next morning, I decided I wanted to do the project on mushrooms.

Vivian was waiting for me by my locker when I got to school.

"Hey," she greeted me, smiling.

I smiled back. "Hi, what's up?"

"Did you decide what organism you wanted to do yet? It's fine if you haven't by the way, don't feel rushed to; we have the whole semester to do it."

"Oh yeah. Can we do mushrooms?"

"Sounds good," she started walking towards her first class. "See you later, Carter," she waved.

"Yeah."

And now I am left to seven hours of hell all alone because my only friends were out with the stomach bug. Miraculously, I didn't catch the bug myself.

The day dragged on. In most classes, we did mid-year exam reviews, and it was heavily raining the whole day. It was a Thursday and everyone was ready for the week to be over. Overall, students and teachers alike were wasting the day as much as they could.

At the end of the day, as I was walking out to the buses Vivian came up to me and stopped me.

"Hey, Carter," she smiled again. "I figured we could work on the project at your house tonight. Does that work?" She suggested.

I thought about it. I didn't think she knew much about my home life, so I didn't really want her to ask questions about it. But I'd rather work in a familiar environment.

"Yeah, I guess so," I replied, scratching my head. Looking around, I notice almost everyone was on the bus. "Do you want to get on the bus with me? Or do you have a ride and you can meet me at my place? Or how would you like to do this?" 

Vivian glanced at the parking lot. "I can drive," she mentioned, pointing to her car. "I can drive to your house."

"Alright, I'll meet you there then." I started to walk toward the bus again, but before I could go Vivian grabbed my jacket sleeve. I took a few deep breaths.

"Where are you going?"

"I was going to get the bus." Did she not want me to get on the bus? I'm confused.

"I figured I would just drive us both to your house, Carter."

Oh.

"Oh, sorry. That makes sense."

"Let's go then, silly."

Chapter completed: 04/14/2022
Chapter edited: 09/03/2022
Chapter edited: 10/31/2022