One-Shots

Be My Escape

Be My Escape


Pretending.

It's what he always chose to do when times got rough. He had relied on it for the past seventeen years and knew he would be forced to rely on it for many more to come. Pretending was good for him, he could lose all his worries in a session of pretending. He would pretend he didn't care about the bruises, the fighting, the accusing, the denying, the yelling, or even the misery. He would pretend he was someone else, anyone else, for as long as he could. Yet it could never last forever, he always went to bed knowing very well that he was, and forever would be, Chase Klein.

         Yet, when the school bell rang and he raced outside, books in hand, to see his headlights busted on his car and two flat tires, he couldn't even muster up the strength to pretend it was going to be okay. He knew it wasn't.

            “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered as he stood in front of his old car, that up until then, was always reliable. Both of his front car lights were broken and it appeared to him that someone had flattened both tires on the right side of his car, resulting in it slanting a bit to the side. He didn't have any idea as to who it could be, he didn't really have a lot of enemies.  People didn't like him, he knew that, but he had never really done anything to anyone to make them go to this extent. At the most a few guys would push him around a bit in the locker rooms, making pathetic jokes about how he was checking them out. He eventually got used to it, it almost didn't bother him anymore.  Yet, to break his car's headlights and slash his tires? That bothered him a lot. He hadn't thought they'd do anything like that, but maybe he just had too much faith in the world these days. 

            He couldn't find anyone at school to give him a lift home and after twenty minutes of searching for someone, he gave up searching and resorted to calling for a ride. He got out his phone to call someone for a ride, but then realized he didn't have anyone to call. None of his friends had a car of their own except for Jason and Kyle. But Kyle didn't have a phone and Chase's father hated Jason and wouldn't allow Chase to ride in an African-American kid's car (he was afraid Jason might corrupt his son further). Chase was screwed and he knew it. Putting his hood on (for the afternoon sky didn't look very promising)he settled on walking the few miles home, he'd figure out what to do with his car later.

            It began to rain about halfway there and he tried to protect his school books the best he could from the rain, but to no avail. Eventually he made it to his street and gave a sigh of relief that he would finally be able to sit down. Though, he knew his father, Tom, would be home and he that he would be mad. The clock on his phone said it was 5:23 PM, which that was eight minutes after dinner started at his house. 

            He walked inside, knowing he was in for a yelling match with his father because he was late for dinner for the second day in a row. He couldn't figure out why anyone would want to screw up his car.  He hadn't done anything to anybody, not really. Sure he bagged on people with his friends on a few occasions, but that was just your normal teenage stuff, talking about things that weren't fair and that would never be fair. 'Cause for one thing, if things were fair whoever it was wouldn't have flattened his tires. Now, he has have to listen to another scolding from his father and figure out where to get the money for two new tires and headlights.

            Sure enough the first words his father said were, “You're late, Chase. Again.”

            Chase was quiet for a moment, choosing his words carefully and making sure not to raise his voice, not wanting to irritate his father any more than he already had. “Sorry Dad, some kids cut my tires and I couldn't find a ride home so I had to walk the entire way,” he started to explain, but stopped when he noticed the look on his father's face was one of disapproval as usual. This made Chase decide there wasn't any point in carrying on, his father didn't usually accept excuses anyway.

            “Why would anyone do something as undignified as that?”