New Love

Valley Springs

"What's up stick," said Billy Gruber, my bully since the first day of 6th grade, as he grabbed my lunch bag.
"I don't know what you're eating to stay skinny. Must be nothing right," he said and I heard a roar of laughter. More so coming from his gang fat tall kids who picked on kids the size of their pinky. He ate my peanut butter sandwich.
Then he wondered why I was so skinny.
"Aww is Anty Anthony going to cry. Don't worry Daddy will come for you. Oh wait how can he," said Jake, Billy's twin. No one found this funny because they all knew that my dad had died so he pushed me then you hear someone scream, "Fight fight fight!" Then I felt the other guys hold me down while big body Jake punched me continuously. Then Nick Underwood (yes the Nick Underwood who never spoke to anyone because of the taunting they did to him last year supposedly) came and told them to stop.
"Ohhh so black mute boy actually speaks. Came to save your little boyfriend," Billy asked trying to get on his never but I studied Nick before (and everyone else in our class) he's way beyond that, he's very calm. When he spoke it was obvious that puberty got to him before all of his and he was very tall. He looked like an 8th grader. He was dark-skin so I guess he was an easy target when it came to the Gruber twins roastings.
"Black like the night knight have thou come to save thou's significant other," asked Jake. He ignored him and grabbed me by the neck, hurting me in the process, and left. No one tried to stop him because they were either scared of him because he was black or tallor didn't want to touch him. Yes they were that racist.
We started walking home together because he lived next door it was like a silent agreement I guess of some sort. If the other wasn't outside yet, you'd wait for him. I didn't know if it was because he was gay, wanted to be friends or was protecting me. I preferred the idea of protection. Usually the gang bothered me after school but now I was untouchable. One I asked if he was gay and he busted out laughing. I felt embarrassed and turned bright red like a tomato. He saw this as looked below at me and said no calmly. Thus began a long game of questions and laughing and stupidly that led to our brother-ship we called it. We called it that because we were too close to be just friends and he didn't believe in having best friends.
*FLASHBACK OVER*

"You either leave him alone or get off this bus," I growled while looking at the bully in the mirror. He let Bowie and sat down in the far back.

I dropped off all the kids and before Bowie left he said ,"Thank you, our usual bus driver usually lets him hit me until he's tired. I hope you come back and visit me because I know you don't want to be a bus driver when you're this young."

He got me thinking about what I would like to be when I grow up. I used to want to be soccer player because I really like the sport. Plus my dad used to play with me all the time and made it fun. I used to be on the school's team too and I was going to be captain but things changed. A lot changed when she came into my life. Everyone around me said she was a bad influence on me. But you when you're in love and you don't care what your lover does because you them so much? Yeah, that was me all the way.

As I was walking home, I saw my mom talking to someone who looked very familiar and they seemed very connected by something. Or whatever they were talking about must have been really deep because they kept nodding their heads. When I reached them, my mom smiled at me. "We have a new neighbor and I don't now what took her so long to come. I love her already," my mom said radiantly, smiling ear to ear.

Aww she looked so happy but then I looked at the lady and realized she was the one who told me to turn down my music the other day. I just nodded at her and went into house because I was not in the mood for an awkward moment. I entered the house and looked at the big picture of my dad that they had in the living room laughing his brains out as usual.

He met my mom in Brooklyn. He was taking the train one night and heard her singing at train station. She sang and kept singing until like 1 am. Then she stopped and asked why he was still there. He said he loved her singing and could stand there for hours listening to her. He came by every night for a week until she finally let him take her out. I thought it was stalker-ish but my mom said he made her feel like she was a star which I still found cheesy but she always said there was more to it.