Rugged To The Core

Chapter 52

Song for chapter: Empire By Ella Henderson

Special thanks to Finest_Wine for the song. ♥♥♥

Lucky

"I really don't like this topic." Abel suddenly voiced.

"Why?" I enquired.

"Well, It just feels too deep for me." He shrugged, throwing his left hand up. "Doing a debate about violent parents isn't going to tackle the problem."

"True, but things like this raise awareness." I replied, then advanced closer to the table to pick up my notebook. "Listen to this," I cleared my throat and took a minute to myself. "My partner and I oppose all forms of violence in parenting except the ones that are initiated for the purpose of discipline in children and adolescents; thus, I must oppose the motion which says that Violence Is Imperative In Parenting because in spite of being an effective means of discipline - violence is not the most effective and only means, It should be the last alternative, and here's why."

I shrugged, closing my book. "You see, this way we wouldn't sound too biased."

Abel was silent for a few seconds. "Your intelligence is quite enthralling." He continued. "Beauty with brains..."

I smiled sheepishly, walking back over to the edge of the railing, turning my back to him as I stared at the rooftops of the neighbouring houses. "You're also intelligent, Ugo."

Fortunately, the sun had gone into hiding, it was now windy. Abel remained silent and I stayed there for a little while, until someone snatched my attention away.

"Hey, psst! Down here, you shrimp!" I cast my gaze below and laid eyes on Victor with his guitar draped over his shoulder.

Oh how I would love to take that guitar and drive it into his bloody cranium.

"What do you want, you rodent?" I growled out and he laughed.

"Tell Ugo I'm going to see a friend, not like he cares." He then turned to leave but halted. "You're free to fůck now that I'd be gone..."

"Victor, shut up and leave already!" Abel yelled from behind me.

"You're a buffoon." I spat out.

"You're a wretched frump." Smirking, he then gave me the two finger salute before turning on his heels, approaching the gate.

Foolish pikin!

~*~*~*~

"Our topic isn't like the others, It's different and sensitive. Do you think working on the body of the speech is going to be difficult...?" I enquired, taking a swig from the bottle of water Abel had brought for me.

"More or less..." He replied, he paused from stroking his bottom lip and swung his arm back and forth to gesticulate with his thumb and last finger like a rapper would. "Asides from having statistics, we need reasons, consequences, proposed solutions. You can't just go up there and say six out of ten children suffer physical abuse, two out of four suffer sexual abuse; so therefore violence is not imperative in parenting. No, we've got to dig deeper to the core of the issue. Besides, we were told to talk about violence in parenting, not abuse per se, but violence. So if we were to talk about abuse at all it shouldn't be just about statistics, it should be about how excessive violence graduates to abuse."