The Weight of Our Expectation

7th Grade Hero

(edited 2024-10-19)

The buzzer for seventh period screeched like a banshee throughout the school, unleashing a torrent of chattering students into its hallways in early October. The air was accented by restless energy, along with a mix of locker slams, shouted greetings, and the lingering scent of today's mystery meat from the cafeteria. It was a Friday afternoon, 'Thank you, Jesus!' and the typical sensory assault that Marco usually navigated with his headphones blasting Linkin Park, a shield against the mundane. More than a year had passed since he'd replaced gymnastics with the rhythm of the weights, and his body... well, it had definitely declared its independence.

But there were his parents, bless their well-meaning hearts. It seemed every morning at breakfast one of them would ask that question. They were constantly hounding him to expand his friendship circle wasn't an optional upgrade in the teenage software package. It was a requirement.

There was that weekly breakfast reminder from his mother: "It's not healthy to be so alone all the time, Marco." During these sessions, her voice included that I-know-everything-about-the-human-body tone that both impressed and annoyed him. 'But not enough about me,' he would think to himself.

Maddie and the guys seemed to be too busy to spend much time with him. He would say it was easier for them to come to his house after school, so he could do his lifting while they did whatever. They would argue that the group should rotate houses sometimes, not just go to his. He didn't get it. Suddenly it was like they were always too busy to include him. So he did stuff on his own. Alone.

Alone. That word frequently echoed in the emptiness of his thoughts. It pointed out the camaraderie he'd left behind in the world of vaults and pommel horses. The friendships were growing weaker. Maddie. Jericho. Oscar. Still friends, but not as close. He wondered if one day they'd ignore him.

Eighth-grade girls, though, definitely hadn't. Their whispers trailed him everywhere now, just like their sweet, floral perfume chasing after them as they went down the hallways. Their eyes and smiles would widen whenever he walked past, their fingers mindlessly brushing his chest and arms "accidentally" or on purpose in the crowded hallways. Girls would latch onto his arm and finger his biceps while talking about the most boring things.

Like last week, when that eighth-grade girl... 'Kristen? Kirsty? Whatever. Who cares?' The memory flashed: at his locker, a cloying cloud of cherry lip gloss and something vaguely resembling cotton candy crept up and suffocated him as she'd boxed him in with her new boobs, her eyes wide and eager.

'Damn, Patria,' she'd breathed, her voice a soprano whisper. 'You're, like, sculpted. Need a girlfriend?'

He'd frozen, trapped between the unexpected thrill of her attention and the awkward knowledge that she probably didn't know anything real about him.

And the guys? They either worshipped him from afar or sidled past with wary glances, like they were afraid he might accidentally crush them with a handshake. In gym class, it was a predictable ritual when they picked teams. "Get Marco! Pick Marco!" He was a one-man wrecking crew for football and soccer, a human battering ram capable of flattening almost any opponent on the field.

Their praise, though, felt... empty, tinged something that curdled in his stomach like a bad protein shake.

He was just Crazy Biceps Kid to them, a walking, talking experiment in teenage testosterone, a prize to be obtained—not a friend. Not a real friend. He didn't have time for those any more. He had his goals.

All in all, he moved through life assuming that he was now a wolf, that the other boys at school feared him—or at least feared not having him on their side.

Then came the day he accidentally discovered what it meant to use that fear.

The bell rang. He was headed to his locker, which was upstairs. That's when he spotted the problem. A scrawny sixth-grader, pale as a ghost, was being squished against the lockers by two bigger boys he remembered from back in elementary school. They were a year ahead of him and at least three inches taller. One was shoving a ballpoint pen into the scared kid's ribs, like a shank. It was a classic predator-prey scenario straight out of a National Geographic documentary. It fit the middle school food chain Marco knew all too well.

But today, the script needed to change. The gazelle needed to escape. The jackals needed a lesson. A primal urge—as potent addition to whatever else puberty was pushing through his veins—seized him. He crossed the hallway in three strides, his presence falling over group like a promise of thunderstorms.

"What the hell you think your'e doing?" He tried to make his voice a low growl, but didn't really succeed. It had the right effect, nonetheless.

Caught, the bullies flinched, their bravado melting like ice cream under the summer sun.

"H-he owes me money," stammered the taller one. *'Derek? Is that his name? Doesn't matter.'* The kid's voice crackled like a dry twig. His sweaty hand clutched the pen.

"You stole my lunch money first!" The smaller kid's voice, at least an octave higher, quivered with a defiance that struck a chord of truth in Marco's ears.

The bullies reeked of fear—a scent almost as bad as that cherry lipgloss had been. He moved closer, the bullies' certainty dissolving as his form pressed in on them. His hands—calloused from more than a year of lifting, sculpted into weapons he never intended to use—reached up to settle upon their bony shoulders. The gesture was casual, almost friendly, until he gripped hard into their clavicles, the raw power thrumming beneath his fingertips making them wince.

"Get this straight," he said, his voice confident and hard. "See this guy?" He nodded towards the younger kid, whose fear-fogged eyes now held a spark of hope. "He's under my protection." He leaned in close, their shallow breaths reeking of today's cafeteria menu. "You even think about touching him again..." He paused, channeling his inner Schwarzenegger, relishing their terror that was in direct proportion to the power he was feeling. "You touch him, I'll be back."

Their eyes widened with an almost-comical confusion.

"Your parents will never find you. The cadaver dogs will be confused because your scent will be spread for miles."

The bullies exchanged a look, then stared anywhere but at Marco.

"Understood?"

Silence.

"Is. That. Under. Stood?"

Their age being no match for his brawn, the two scrambled away, Marco felt a new sensation flood his system—a potent cocktail of adrenaline and something else... a thrill of control. He'd taught them a lesson. They would remember him. They would fear him.

Of course, this being middle school, it set off rumors and whispers. "Hercules," the "Defender Of Nerds," and his personal favorite, "The Terminator Kid." He even overheard a group of eighth-grade girls murmur, "OMG. I swear, it was so hot..." as they discussed the incident the following Monday. And now every scrawny kid and nerd wanted to join him and his group at whichever lunch table he sat at.

His reputation began to solidify as he stepped into the new role—one bicep curl, one cheesy threat, one terrified bully at a time. And he basked in the glorious warmth of the attention. He was born to play this part, and his new-found swagger showed it.

He was a known force now, a mini legend throughout the hallways. But as he stepped higher in the middle school hierarchy, he still couldn't salve his parents' concern. He didn't have time to make new friends, and really, he didn't want more than Maddie, Jericho, and Oliver.

Yet his gut told him he needed something more, something all the fawning glances and vocal admiration weren't providing. It sometimes seemed to be nearby, but just out of reach.

Marco had carved a spot for himself in this microcosm—a spot more like a solitary throne than a seat at the bigger table. As he looked out over his domain every day, he realized that power wasn't the solution to his isolation. It might even be the cause of it.