Martyr

Chapter 3

Parker

"Parker, my boy, how'd it go?" my dad asks as I wheel over to him.

"Great, I think. I shared something today, mom said to. Besides, this girl forced me to, can't disrespect the ladies," I smugly reply, grinning. I respected my dad, always have. He never wanted me to be disrespectful, especially to him. I don't believe I've ever seen him sad, and I can't make him sad by telling him how group really went.

If I told him that I practically rage every single session, he'd kill me. He'd slap my brunette head right off my neck, then where would I be? So I don't tell him the truth, because of this.

He helps me into the car as I see that girl staring at me again, the one who forced me into sharing something. She's standing there, smoking a cigarette, blowing thin wisps of smoke out of her mouth.

She's psychotic or something, at least, she says she has psychotic depression. Her name's Alice, and she's pretty damn creepy. She's got these piercing, soul-capturing blue eyes, and messed up, dark brown hair. Freckles-She has freckles, right above her tiny nose. And she always looks exhausted.

I've never seen her around school despite the fact she's my age and lives somewhere around here. I've probably seen her at a party or something, because I've seen her face somewhere. I know her, but I don't know how.

Alice stops watching me, throws her cigarette down, and gets into her mom's car. At least, I'd assume it's her mom. Alice doesn't seem like one to really have friends pick her up, or have friends at all. She's kind of a wreck.

"Dad, did that girl look familiar to you?" I inquire as he starts to drive.

"Alice? She's Jeff's daughter. You know, Jeff, he owns the delicatessen downtown." Wow. Never realized that.

"She doesn't go to Westlands, does she?"

"Private school. St. René's Preparatory School." Knew she didn't go to Westlands.

We pull up in my driveway and my eldest brother, Dean, helps me out of the car. Dean's a big guy, muscular, tall, everything I should be. He's about two years older than me. I never really talked about my family, so I might as well.

My brother Dean is a tough guy, spends a lot of his time working out. He's got a chiseled face, brown eyes, and spiky brown hair. And he wears tank tops to show off. He's a strong guy. Not too smart, though. Dean's the type of guy to scare the shit out of our sisters' boyfriends, just to warn them. He wrestles, which is pretty cool. He's not too special, but he wants to go to Chico State, doesn't surprise me. He just got out of a long relationship, so he's been acting a bit more aggressive.

Jenna's my sister, she's a real role model, she's generous and kind. Really pure at heart, and I love her to death. It's fun teasing her, since she's just a little freshman. She's a good freshman, though. Jenna gets amazing grades and she's athletic, she's the perfect representation of how we all should be. She's got long blonde hair, dark brown eyes, Jesus... she's got everyone all over her. If I were a girl, I'd like to be her. Sure, she can, like everyone else, be a complete bitch at times, but she's really a sweetheart.

My youngest brother's name is Slater, Slater Jackson Nordhoff. It's unfair, he got the cool name. He's a mini Justin Bieber, Dean's taught him well. If I ever wanted to kill my self esteem, I'd check his messages. The kid texts more girls in a week than I do in a month. Maybe that's because he's smart enough not to walk in the middle of the road. Girls like guys who aren't complete idiots, at least the eighth grader girls he happens to be surrounded by. Slater the skater, Slater the lacrosse player (everyone plays it now), Slater the overachiever. Eh, well, he's nice.

Last in the dysfunctional Nordhoff family to come out of Mama Nordhoff was Olivia. Olivia's... how do I begin to explain her? She's an exact copy of Jenna, it's like my parents said, "Hey, what would happen if we put Jenna in our printer and hit copy?" Then they did, and Jenna II came out, but this one had brown hair. Aaaand an obsession with Four Minutes of Winter, or whatever, and "One-Dee," and YouTubers. And inappropriate British TV shows (which are funny, but I don't want my twelve year old sister watching these).

[PARKER'S USELESS UPDATE #1]: Apparently, it's Five Seconds of Summer, or "'Five Sauce'" and One Direction.

My parents, I forgot about 'em for a second. Totally not like I popped right out of one of them sixteen years ago. Anyway, my dad's got this PhD, Master's Degree, I don't even know what he has. All I know is he makes a lot of money, and if he didn't, I'd be dead. Although, death's a whole lot better than this wheelchair. He's tough, I imagine Dean becoming him. Every man on my dad's side of the family played football, I know, typical, but it's true and I played it. It's a Nordhoff thing, you wouldn't understand.

But, oh God, wait 'til you hear about my mom. She. Is. Psychotic. Not in the bad way, but not that there is really a good version of that. She's all, "P-Parker, oh, oh, honey, don't you dare scare me like that again! You need to share your whole story to a bunch of messed up people who you probably don't know! Wait, can you still get a scholarship?" As if I could control a car, as if I could still get a scholarship into a school after getting hit by a fucking car. Yes, mother, I promise I will try becoming Superman next time I get hit by a car.

Ah, my mom's crazy and absolutely unrealistic, but so is everyone else in my family. I feel like I'm the least insane out of all of us, though. Everyone else has something special about 'em: Dean's a total jock, MVP, Jenna's... well, she's Jenna, no explanation needed, then Slater's actually social, and Olivia's really interested in things... I'm basically none of those.

I play(ed) sports, but not as well as Dean does. Comparing a pawn to the king, that's it. I can't beat Jenna at being Jenna/perfect, so that's obviously not me. I go out and I have a lot of friends, but if you get right down to it, I'm nothing! Unlike Olivia, I'm so disinterested in things. Basically, I'm the first-slice-of-bread of the family.

I only played football because my dad made me. What I'm really interested in is photography. I'm rereading that now and realizing how absolutely girly that sounds, but I don't care. The day after my fifteenth birthday, I went and got myself a nice, professional camera. That was the best day of my life, probably.

In fact, that camera lasted pretty long. Not long enough, since it was fucking wrecked by the car. I'll get a new one though, it's alright. Don't worry about my feelings or emotional attachment to it, it was just my only real investment, the only thing I owned that I really cared about, no big deal (total lie. The first thing I thought about when I got hit was not the pain, but that my camera was broken).

Kind of pissed about that still. My parents tell me I'll just get a new one, which I really will, but that day was a really great day for my photos. Then I got hit, and it got ruined, and now I'm here.

Still can't get over that.