LIGHT

Chapter 3

"You're kidding me, right?"

My best friend Vincent had a special way of consoling someone on the verge of a meltdown. But with little to no other options, I was forced to confide in the only person crazy enough to listen. I couldn't explain what happened earlier. I mean, I could. Just not to Vince. His idea of comfort would've been to make every sci-fi joke imaginable until he made the situation light enough for us both to laugh off, like a bad dream. So, I decided to just tell him about the dream itself. Not the story behind it all. As confused as I was, it wasn't from pure ignorance. That wasn't the issue.

The problem was, I had been through this before.

The more I tried to forget those times, the weaker my grasp on reality became. Flashbacks of the late nights, cold sweats, cradle of lies and tantrums flooded me. The dreadful feeling that came from those times still possessed a suffocating hold. But I hadn't had an episode like that since I was six, right before I was adopted and met Vince.

I had to keep him in the dark on that portion of my life. Although we told each other everything, there were just some things he couldn't know.

"No, Vince," I confirmed. "I'm not joking. That's what happened."

"So, you're telling me that your little PG-13 erotica—consisting of a little boy, a street lamp, a shower, and a creepy shadow man who swam behind you in a sea of sultry darkness while putting you in a tightly wrapped choke hold so that he could whisper 'you're mine' softly into your ear—involved no women whatsoever? You've got to get out more, man."

He snickered and snarled like our overweight principal, Mr. Wells, who for some reason nicknamed us the "Twin Towers". Vince's pencil tip build, gathered with my lanky stature, could explain the correlation; however, we felt everything but tall when walking the halls of our school. You would think that high school would have changed a bit over the years. Sadly, the bullies of today were simply equipped with greater mediums to descend their reign of terror through.

Unfortunately, I was about to start my birthday off with a bang from the Big one himself.

"Hey, losers. What's got you two in such a good mood this morning," said Lance Biggerton, carried with laughter by his group of Neanderthals. Everyone just called him BIG—for obvious reason.

"Just heading to class, Lance."

"What'd you call me, kid? You know my name; It's Big to you, nerd. You better address me properly, before I make you my property."

"It's funny you mention that, Mr. Biggerton—sir," countered Vince, preparing to go on one of his historical rants to intellectualize the situation.

"Vince, no. Don't," I warned. But I was too late. I could feel the dates and facts bubbling in his brain, the wild mess of black hair mocking mini synapse connections.

"You see, slavery was abolished in the mid to late eighteen-hundreds—eighteen sixty-five to be exact. This alone makes it humanly impossible for you to pursue such a claim in the court of law. However, how one would go about appealing this long served law is unknown. But I gather that you haven't the slightest...".

"Shut up, freak!" Lance's declaration independently connected with the swing of his fist to Vince's chest, emancipating him from completing the rest of his sentence.

"What's going on here?" Mr. Wells, ironically, waddled himself into the altercation just in time, before things escalated beyond our control.

"Oh, nothing, Principal Wells. We were just having a little fun with our peers. Team bonding, you know?"

"Last time I checked, boxing wasn't a part of our curriculum here at Woodson High. So tell me, Lance, how about you and your posy of bandits team build your asses somewhere else, or you three won't see the whites of an end zone for the rest of the season!"