Illegal Love

Chapter 1

He always sat in the corner of the room. He was always writing something.

He never spoke or looked up from his book. He just sat there. The same spot at lunch everyday. Scribbling onto the pages. And no one seemed to care.

He was an outsider to them. Unimportant. Undesired. But to me, his very existence made me... curious.

"Curiosity killed the cat." My Grandma used to say. She also said, "Do as I say, not as I do." But I never listened.

Of course there were stories. There were tons of them. Some said he got transferred here from some school up north due to his bad behavior. Although, based on rumors, calling it "bad behavior" was underselling it.

Well apparently, he had almost killed a girl. Beat the shit out of her. On school grounds no less. Put her in a coma they said. And the reason? Because she looked at him wrong. But who's gonna believe rumors?

All of these stories were totally insane. Most said juvy. Others said it's a social experiment to see how we'd react. An alarming amount blamed aliens.

What do I think? Well it doesn't matter what I think really. Because whatever the reason, it's not my story to tell.

"It's gotta be some sort of reforment project." Kevin said. "I mean look at him. He got to be one fucked up guy.

"You can tell just by looking at him?" I asked?

"I mean it makes sense. They bring him here, they work out the kinks, and bam! You got yourself a high functioning nigger right there."

"Don't call him that! He's got a name." I snapped back.

Kevin was racist. He believed in white supremacy and used racial slurs like vowels. I still hung out with him though. We've been friends since we were kids, and despite what you might think, he's not a horrible person. You just got to get to know him to see it.

"Oh really? So what's his name then huh?" Kevin asked with a mouth-full of sandwich.

I looked at the kid across the cafeteria, still scribbling in his notebook. I had no idea who he was.

"Exactly!" Kevin said, gesturing to the whole cafeteria. "Nobody fucking knows. And you know what? Nobody cares. He won't speak. He doesn't participate. All he does is draw little doodles in that stupid notebook. He's literally a retard."

"Stop calling him names." I say. "You don't know anything about him."

"And you do?"

"I know he doesn't deserve any of your shit okay?"

"Alright, alright." Kevin put his hands up in surrender. "I'm just saying-"

"Just forget it okay?" I said.

He sat back in his chair, sighing and rolling his eyes, and took another bite of his sandwich.

Kevin's a dick. I know. But he's a good friend I promise. He knows me better than anyone else. We've been friends since the beginning. We're basically family.

His dad and mine were best friends when they were young. They met in the infirmary during Vietnam. By chance, they both got injured in the same fight and got cots in the same room. They hit it off immediately. My dad joked that the only thing that had separated them two, from that point on, was James, a fellow soldier, who died on the cot between them.

"His death is what brought me and your Uncle David even closer." He said. "Literally. They moved his cot out and put me and Dave right next to each other."

My dad had an interesting sense of humor.

Although, my Uncle David said that if it weren't for my dad's humor during those two weeks in the infirmary, that cot would have been his death bed. He swore that he never would have made it through to the end if he didn't have his best friend to make him smile everyday.