The Last Survivor

Chapter 2

The next day, I walked into the corridor of my high school, looking at the ground, with sunglasses covering my eyes and my cap hiding most part of my face. Why was I hiding myself from other people's gazes, you might ask? Well, the night before, my dad got mad and hit me...he used to do that a lot.

I walked to my locker and immediately opened it, not bothering to say hi or even look at my friend Joe who was already leaning on his locker - that was next to mine - waiting for me.

"Um, hellooo?!" I heard him say.

"Hi." I replied, my head still in my locker.

He put his hand on my chest, pushing me away from my locker and slamming it. He looked at me and his eyebrows knitted as he noticed my busted lip. He took my chin in between his fingers and turned my head slightly to the side. I took off my glasses so he could see the state of my eye. My right cheekbone was swollen and purple, my eye had a dark purple ring around it and was red, my eyebrow was cut open.

"Oh my god." He mumbled under his breath as he examined my face, "Did your dad get drunk again?"

"He's always drunk." I muttered as I placed the sunglasses back on my nose.

"I hate seeing you like this. It's not the first time he's done that to you."

"Can we just stop talking about it?" I asked, not wanting to talk about that asshole again.

Joe ignored me and added, "Knowing him, he'll probably try to hit you again tonight. Come sleep at my house, okay?" He suggested.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Yeah, if you want."

We started walking away from the lockers and past the infirmary. Joe stopped me. "Don't you want to get your eyebrow checked? It looks pretty bad."

My eyes widened. "Are you serious? What if they ask me question about it? My dad's gonna kill me if I tell them it's his fault!"

He put his hands on my shoulders. "Dude, calm down! It'll be okay. If they ask, I'll just make up a story."

I nodded my head in agreement. "Okay."

We entered the infirmary and a nurse took care of me.

I was perched on a stool, the nurse sitting on one in front of me. She looked at my wound and frowned. "That'll definitely leave a little scar."

"Really?" I asked as she turned around to take what she needed to fix it.

"Yeah," She replied, turning back to me, "I don't have the material to stitch it up, but I have these." She showed me little bandages, which she then applied to my wound. "It's not like real stitches but it'll do the same job. Okay? Just need to change it at least twice a day."

I nodded and she started looking at my lip. "Can I ask you how you got that?"

I immediately felt really nervous, my eyes widening a little bit.

"Well..." Joe spoke up, "...some guy started insulting us outside of the school. It escalated real fast and they started hitting us."

I swallowed the lump in my throat; it looked like she believed him.

"Next time, try to not get into fights, okay?"

I nodded again and after a few minutes, she was done and we were ready to go to class. We arrived late but the teacher understood why and didn't make a scene.

Joe's POV

I sat at my desk, Patrick behind me. I stared into space for a few minutes, thinking about Patrick. This poor guy didn't deserve all the shit that happened to him. And his dad, he was such an asshole. I've known Patrick for a long time, and he'd always been like that, aggressive toward his ex wife and children. It always made me feel bad to see him like that. But then I thought about tonight, and how he was coming to my house. My parents couldn't see him like that. They'd ask questions and lying wasn't gonna work on them. I looked around the classroom and spotted Elisa, a friend of ours - as well as Patrick's crush - sitting just in front of me. I tapped her shoulder. "Hey, Elisa?" I whispered.

She made sure that the teacher wasn't looking toward our direction and turned around, "Yeah?"

"Do you want to eat lunch with us today?" I asked and pointed at Patrick over my shoulder.

She looked at him, smiled and nodded, "Yeah, that'd be great."

Back to Patrick's POV

At lunch, we ate with Elisa, a good friend of mine...and a really pretty girl. I felt really embarrassed to eat with her since I kinda had, and still have a crush on her. I didn't understand why Joe asked her to eat with us but then he told me. She was a girl, she had makeup, and Joe's parents might ask questions if they saw me with all of those bruises on my face.

With the way we were sitting, Elisa was next to me and almost completely leaning on me to fix my bruised face. I winced in pain as Elisa kind of harshly brushed the foundation against my skin, "Sorry." She apologized and smiled nervously.

"It's okay." I replied before glancing over at Joe. "Oh, I've got something to tell you."

"What is it?" Joe asked, with a mouthful of mashed potatoes. It looked really gross.

"Well, last night, after work, a guy stopped me and gave me this handout about a new tv show. It looked pretty legit, it even had a website, so I sent them my candidacy." I explained.

"What is there to win?" He inquired, picking at the food with his fork.

"A million dollars."

Elisa stopped what she was doing and Joe spat his food in the plate, "A million dollars?" He exclaimed.

"That's crazy." Elisa commented, looking down at me.

"I know." I chuckled.

"Dude, you have to win." Joe said, pointing at me with his fork.

"I don't even know if I'm accepted yet." I shrugged my shoulders.

"Well, you have to be. Just, imagine what could you do with a million dollars. That's insane."

Yeah, it was insane. Though, I still didn't know what I'd do with all that money.

*****

I spent the night at Joe's, and his parents didn't see a thing. Maybe because we directly went in his room. He had a computer in it and I decided to check my emails. That's when I saw it, the email that...changed my life. I was happy, and Joe was even happier than me. He was jumping around in his room like I already won the game. I would have cancelled my candidacy if I knew, but I didn't, and that was the biggest mistake I'd ever made.