Swing

Chapter One

            “Mom, Dad, I’m home!” I yelled across the house. Of course I got no response because the two of them couldn’t stop bickering at each other for more than two minutes.

“You never did anything and all you ever did was complain!” I heard my mom scream.

“At least I was trying to keep money in the house and food on the table!” my dad responded. “You never did anything! Every time I had extra money for us to go on vacation and you found out, you always went and spent it on a new pair of shoes that you only wore once!” He was on a rampage now. “You are so worthless that if you were to be homeless, people would be taking change from you! I am so glad you filed for this divorce! I couldn’t take another twenty years of this hell! I can’t even take another five minutes!” That was the last thing he said before storming out of the house and driving away.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that honey,” my mom said as she walked past me.

“Of course you are,” I mumbled under my breath.

“What was that?” I heard her ask.

“I said it was no big deal,” I lied bearing my teeth.

I ran upstairs to my room where I threw my backpack down and opened my laptop. Naturally the first thing I opened was Facebook. Then it was off to Youtube. I started jamming to some Nickleback and then it was back to Facebook. As usual there was nothing but mindless gossip and drama. I ignored most of it until I noticed that the girl that I had recently started liking was upset about something. I was in a tough decision. Should I ask her what’s wrong, or just act like I never saw the post? If I ask her I’m going to seem like a creep because she doesn’t even know I exist. I decided against my better judgment to post a comment asking what was wrong. No longer then thirty seconds later, she messaged me through Facebook asking why I even cared.

Fuck. I knew that was going to backfire.

“Sometimes I help people when they're down because nobody was there for me,” I sent her.

A few minutes came and there was no response so I went back to Youtube and switched from Nickleback to Your Favorite Martian. Then I heard the beep of Facebook telling me that someone had sent me a message. It was from Fiona, my crush. She opened up and told me everything.

She told me about how she didn’t know her father and how her mother was an abusive alcoholic. She told me that everyone she trusted betrayed her and how she thought trusting me was a mistake, but something felt different. She told me that she had a self harm addiction and that she couldn’t help herself sometimes. Once she was done typing to me about her problems, I told her that if she wanted I could help her with them because she could trust me. She said that she couldn’t talk long because her mom was coming home and that she wanted to be in her room before she got there, but we exchanged numbers and started texting.

I started texting her and she told me thanks for listening to what she had to say, but she was going to bed because she had a rough day. I sent her goodnight and went off to the park since it was only about seven o’clock.

As I was arriving at the park with my glove and bat, I found Jake, Mike, Tom, and some of their friends. They were looking for a final player to start a pickup game, so I jumped in and told them I would play. Just as we hit the field a group of seniors walked onto the field and claimed it as their field and told us to get lost. Being the kids we were with our stubbornness, we challenged them to a scrimmage game to see who gets the field. As far as the game went, it was pretty even. I was the pitcher and only gave up four hits and two runs. We ended up tying the game and calling it even in the twelfth frame because most of the seniors started leaving and most of my friends had to head home.

As I was on my way home, my phone lit up and started buzzing. Before I could say hello I heard all anyone needed to hear. I heard the sobs of a girl in trouble.