Ford is the youngest out of his five siblings and he hates it. His parents and sisters are rarely home which means that he falls victim to his two older brothers who hate him for no reason.
I got home from the dealership with mom and dad. We walked into the house and I went up to my room. After twenty minutes, Zack came into my room and said "Mom and dad want you downstairs." He picked me up and hung me upside down. He walked downstairs and dad said "Put your little brother down, Zachariah." Zack put me down on John-Ryan who moved me off of him.
"So kids, it is 5:30 and we will be back around 1:00." Dad told us. "Don't burn the house down. There's money on the counter for dinner. Be nice to each other. Ford, be good. Don't hurt each other." Mom said and kissed all of her heads. Mom and dad left and Elaine said to Zack "Ready to pierce your ear?" "Wait, seriously?" Zack smiled. "Yeah. Now come on before I change my mind." Elaine said. We got up and walked to the bathroom.
Zack sat down on the closet toilet seat and Lydia put ice cubes on his ear. "Do you have the stud you want?" Elaine asked. "Yeah." Zack said and quickly went to his room to get it. He came back and gave them to me. "Hold onto these." He told me while giving me the box. "Ford, I'm gonna need you to take one of the studs out. And have it ready." Elaine told me. "I don't want to watch you put the needle in his ear." I said. "Okay. Close your eyes and just hold your hand out with the stud." She replied. I closed my eyes and held my hand out. "3,2,1." Elaine counted down and Zack said "Fuck." Somebody took the stud out of my hand and Elaine said "You can open your eyes now, Ford." I opened my eyes and Zack had a stud in his left ear.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Woah. That's cool." I said looking at it. "You want one?" Zack asked. "Yeah." I answered. "Wait. What would mom and dad say?" John-Ryan asked. "Who cares?" Elaine answered. I sat down on the closed toilet seat and Lydia put ice cubes on my ear lobe to numb it. After a while, my ear lobe was numb and Lydia told me "Close your eyes." I closed my eyes and felt her put the needle through my ear. I winced and she put the stud in.
"Dude. That looks sick." Zack said. I nodded and looked at it in the mirror. "Mom's gonna kill you." John-Ryan said. "Don't care." I replied. "Yeah right. I can't wait for mom to flip her shit." John-Ryan said. "JR, I'll drag you down with us if you don't shut up." Elaine threatened. John-Ryan put his hands up in surrender and said "Fine. I'll just be an accessory. I didn't actually do anything." "Mom's gonna make you take it out, ya know." John-Ryan told us as we sat down on couch downstairs. "That's okay. I'll just put it back in once she leaves for work." Zack said.
"I'll just tell her that it hurts to take it out and she'll believe me. She won't want me to go through pain. I can win if I play the baby game." I told them. "Of course you will. She won't kill you. She'll kill the rest of us." Lydia said. "She technically can't kill me since I'm an adult." Elaine added. "I'm having the band over." John-Ryan told us. "No way. I don't want them around Ford." Elaine argued. "He's met them before. He'll be fine." John-Ryan said.
"As long as you play not too loud, I'll be fine." I told him. John-Ryan nodded and I went to my room. I was reading and after half an hour, I heard music playing. I went downstairs to the basement and John-Ryan was playing with his band. He stopped playing when he saw me and asked me "What's up?" "You're really loud." I answered. He nodded and said "I know. That's the point, loser." He laughed along with his friends and I sighed. "Can you play quieter before Elaine comes and yells at you?" I asked. "Loser, it's our problem if she yells at us. Not yours. Now go upstairs." He answered. "But you're too loud and I'm trying to read." I replied. "What do you care? You're deaf anyway." His friend Brady smirked. Everybody but John-Ryan laughed and my eyes filled up with tears. I ran upstairs and to my room. I slammed my door and sat on my bed. I started crying and after half an hour, John-Ryan came up to my room.
"Hey, buddy." He said sitting in my bed. "Leave me alone." I sniffled. "Ford, I'm sorry Brady said that. I ripped him a new one after you went upstairs." John-Ryan said. "It doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that you didn't even defend me while I was there. You weren't even nice to me which made your friends be mean to me. All your friends are douchebags." I told him. "I know and I'm sorry. I thought you were used to being called loser since Zack and I call you it all the time." John-Ryan said. "Well I know that you don't mean it when you and Zack say it. But when you're with your friends it's like you actually do mean it. And it hurts. Every. Single. Time." I replied. He sighed and pulled me onto his lap.
"I rarely tell you this, but I love you. You're not a loser. You're very funny and can always put a smile on anybody's face. You're insanely kind. You're the kindest person I've ever met by far. So what if you can't hear out of one ear? It's nothing bad. You can't do anything about it. But I'll tell you what you can do. Anything you set your mind too. The doctors said that you'd never be able to talk fluently and work in a normal classroom. But you proved them wrong. By the time you were seven, you were talking non-stop. You were put into normal classes in grade three and have gotten the highest mark in every class ever since." John-Ryan told me.
I smiled and said "You're pretty great, too. You are awesome at sports and can scare the hell out of Zack in a matter of seconds." He laughed and replied "You also have the best laugh." He poked my side and I started laughing. "Do you forgive me? I won't stop until you forgive me." John-Ryan said. "I forgive you." I laughed. He stopped and I caught my breath. He put me down on my bed and told me "It's almost ten o'clock. That's way past your bedtime. You should go to bed." I nodded and he said "But first, do you wanna see how bad I punched Brady?" "Wait, you punched him?" I smirked. "Hell yeah. Nobody says that stuff to my brother." He smiled and took out his phone. "I punched him in the face and now he has a black eye." John-Ryan said showing me a picture. "Woah. You got him good." I laughed. "I know. He cried like a baby." John-Ryan laughed putting his phone back into his pocket. "Goodnight JR." I said and hugged him. He was a little taken back since I never hug him or he never lets me hug him. He patted my back and pulled away. "Goodnight loser." He replied ruffling my hair. He left my room and shut the door.
