The Real Bully

Waiting to Kill

If Brandon had heart disease, then his entire body was ruined, contaminated. Xander couldn't use his organs or immune system for anything. Killing him wouldn't help in the least.

Except Xander didn't even need to kill him. His body would attack itself and do the job for him.

After the incident at the gym, everyone left, returning home in melancholy spirits. Xander took a shower and fell asleep, so exhausted he forgot to inject himself.

The next few days he merely went to work and ignored Brandon's calls. The calls came less and less often and after 3 weeks of ignoring his calls it was as if they were never friends. Brandon relaxed back into his cycle of attending work and analyzing trends, even experimented a little with Solidworks out of boredom. He had not discovered his next victim yet, nor did his body feel the need for another person's organs.

Sometimes he thought about Brandon. He wondered how his kids were doing, if he took his wife on any nice dates lately, if he was still going to the gym with Sam and Jake. He thought about Brandon's patients in the hospital, how Brandon treated them, if he ever received letters of gratitude from the people he cured for free in Ethiopia. As he ate dinner alone in his expensive apartment with the TV blaring to fill the silence, he wondered what Brandon was eating. Maybe his wife cooked a nice turkey dinner. Maybe he had a few friends over and they were grilling hamburgers and laughing. Or maybe his wife was out with the kids and Brandon sat home alone with chicken nuggets, French fries, and chocolate ice cream in front of the TV just like Xander. Mostly, Xander wondered if Brandon still thought about him.

He contemplated their brief friendship and realized that despite how he spent most of it deciding when to murder Brandon, Brandon had been his first real friend. They shared laughs and did normal things together, like watched movies, ate, and worked out. Brandon introduced him to new people. He gave Xander the life he wished he had all those years ago, the friendship he yearned for when Brandon used to glare at him.

And then—he realized—maybe he never wanted to kill Brandon. Perhaps he pushed off his murder because he never wanted to go through with it, because he genuinely enjoyed his time spent with Brandon.

No. Xander remembered his childhood once more, the punches, the bruises, people hating him all because of Brandon. Brandon willed the bullying to happen, he authorized it, he pressed the button that unleashed his friends onto Xander, released the lions to tear him apart until there was nothing left.

A cockroach, that's what they saw him as. Pathetic. Step on him and he would be gone, squashed, his guts and dignity strewn across the dirt. Their school consisted of all the species in the world, but none of them wanted the fat, lazy cockroach, and Brandon had made sure of that.

So instead Xander thought of revenge, delicious revenge. How he fooled around with and killed Sam's wife. How Daniel died. How Brandon was going to die. How he was going to cheer among his money and success as his bullies fell apart, one by one and he, once the victim, came out on top.

Xander grinned and returned to his dinner and TV. He would design robots on Solidworks later.

He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. Who could be calling him at this hour? A customer complaint already? He recognized the Caller ID as Brandon's home number and let it go to voicemail. When the voicemail ended he immediately listened to it, wondering why Brandon hadn't given up yet.

"Xander, hello?" his wife's voice called nervously, attempting to hold back tears. "This is Brandon's wife. I just wanted to let you know that Brandon— "she sniffed "—is in the hospital now and we don't know what's going on. I don't know if he will make it but I do know that he would want you to be there if he, you know..." The voicemail ended.

Excited to watch Brandon take his last breaths, Xander dumped the rest of his dinner in the trash, turned off the TV, and threw on his coat. Maybe he could be the one to pull the plug.