He had to leave dinner again.
Banished to the back steps of the little house in the city, his tiny body contorted over and coughing, COUGHING. Horrible coughs, terrible coughs, agonizing coughs, coughs that rip up through his windpipe like a punch thrown straight from his diaphragm.
When he can breathe again he takes a dark hand away from his mouth-- there are tears at his eyes. He feels them there and can't tell where they came from, from the cough or something else. From what had happened.
He remembers, now, the look on his newest friend's face, the one he had invited over for dinner that night, as his very own father had pushed him out the back door so he wouldn't disrupt the meal with his ceaseless noise. He remembers what his friend had said to him before he left:
"Sorry, Benny."
"Sorry," The Coughing Boy mutters now, flopping down against the railing and scrubbing a hand through his deranged black hair. The steps, damp from the slush of early March, are chilly under his bare toes; he wriggles them pensively and coughs again.
Sorry.
What does that even mean?
He gets a lot of time to think about these sorts of things-- the kids at school don't play with him at recess-- and even now, banished to the back steps, alone with his thoughts, he can't come up with an answer.
Sorry.
Well...
Sorry is a lot of things, he guesses now. Sorry is the look on his mother's face when she sees the little kitten sprawled like a ragdoll on the curb. "Oh, you poor thing!" She drops her shopping bags in a puddle and runs to it, scooping the scrawny orange form in her arms. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry-- here, let's get you home now, safe and sound."
And sorry...
Sorry is his older sister when he falls ill yet again on a Friday night, the night that he can take his allowance and spend it on the chocolate milkshakes he loves so much down at the corner store.
"Sorry, Ben-Ben," She sympathizes, her hands planted on her curvy hips, as if flaunting her older age, her betterness. "Feel better soon." She tips her chin to look down on him-- her face is all kindness, but he can see something else there in her eyes.
'I'm so glad I'm not in your shoes.'
And, worse yet... sorry... sorry is the taunts from the bullies at the playground-- the faked coughs behind his back, the ganging up to throw the punches after the school day is over. Sorry is lying in a heap on the tarmac by the slides, waiting out the pain-filled hours until he can move again.
Sorry is you're not one of us.
The Coughing Boy leans himself against his back door. The slush is now soaking through his jeans and his throat is starting to burn from the chill-- he knows he'll need to go inside soon and face his father. It's much too cold out here for him, here in the back alleys, out with the trash and the puddles and the--
He starts to cough again.
The coughs come slowly at first, like they always do-- softly, easily, like gentle crying--
Then, suddenly, they burst out with a horrible intensity that splits his chest in two. He's doubled over now, knees up to his chest, hacking, heaving, sobbing almost--
And then he thinks of sorry.
His arms shoot out and then he's hauling his frail body up to its feet. His lungs shudder, but valiantly, courageously, he fights their rebellion, their mutiny.
Once he's standing, wobbly on his feet, he buries his face in the warmth of his shirt sleeve. His lungs suddenly break free from their restraints and then they are writhing, writhing, writhing like a snake with knives to its head, tossing, turning, clawing at the walls of his chest--
And all of a sudden, he hates it.
Gasping for air, he stumbles down the stairs onto the back alley concrete, cold and barefooted and stranded in the slush.
"Sorry," He murmers breathlessly, bitterly, to the murky evening, to the dumpsters and the moon and the litter fluttering past.
He's not quite sure what he means.
Nothing and nobody replies, so he gives a hoarse sigh, then a consequential hack into his arm. All of a sudden, everything feels terribly cold-- distantly he realizes that his body has started to shake like mad, his toes have gone numb--
"I'm sorry!" He snaps, then wheels around and storms inside, kicking up the slush with his bare feet on his way.
He's going to go apologize to his father for dinner.
