Survival of the Toughest

Part I- Fall Time

Dustin and I were in disbelief when we walked in from the bus lane. This was out final year at Harrisburg Middle School.

"Holy fuck, man." Dustin said as he fixed the knot in his bandana. "We're eighth graders, Ricky. I can't believe it."

"Hell yea, man." I said as we did our handshake. "Let's find Josh."

Josh found us when we were by the stage.

"My bois!" Josh did some weird pose where he threw out his hand like a rich lady from the 1930s. Then we realized, he had three new Rolex watches on his wrist.

"Okay," I crossed my arms. "We don't discriminate against you for being rich but there's no need to have that many Rolexes on your wrist."

"No, no." Josh said. "Both of you can take one!"

"What?" Dustin's eyebrows raised. "You spent God-knows-how-much money for us?"

"Anything for my brothas! Plus my dad doesn't really pay attention to my spendings."

So before we carry on, let me tell you about the three of us.

You have Josh. He's a complete nerd. He's all about video games, role-playing, and Lord of the Rings. His family is basically swimming in cash. He lives with his brother, Bif and their parents in the Shawnee Hills Country Club, Harrisburg's wealthy subdivision.

There's Dustin, the tough guy out of all of us. He's got a dysfunctional family and lives in a broken home beside my house on West Homer Avenue. The only thing separating our lots is an alley. Dustin's father left the state after losing the custody battle during a bitter divorce. He seemed to never be bothered by his father's absence. I guess he just got used to it since Dustin was all of four years old when it happened. His family was horrid. His mother, abusive and could lie her way out of anything. His sister, abusive and being bisexual, would always try and steal any girls he had romantic interest in. His brother older by a year, always out partying and hardly ever home. He had a younger half-brother, who needed a way better environment, only being eight years old at the time. Through all this, Dustin seemed to be making it. The only thing that really annoyed me is that he'd take his shirt off if we weren't in school when the weather was nice. One trait he had that I was jealous of was that he kept a smile on his face through the worst of things.

Then you had me. I was in between Josh and Dustin. I was poor but had it better than Dustin but worse than Josh. I only lived with my father, my mother was far away for reasons that were unknown to me. My father was a deadbeat. We were living off of welfare payments and food stamps in the slums.

Us three were basically brothers.

We were sitting at a table when an all too familiar girl showed up. We knew her but she looked like a whole other person.

"Holy shit." Dustin's sunglasses dropped. "Angel Myers got hot."

Angel Myers was the weird female in our friend group. I still don't understand how she's bi at fourteen. But we appreciated her since she was useful and caring and all that jazz. She used to look like a complete purity ring wearing, nerdy white girl with the long brown hair, the semi-formal clothes, and the weird laugh. But when she walked in that day, her hair was cut short, she had more casual-like clothes on, and her laugh had certainly changed.

Now, Dustin may have called Angel hot, but his romantic interest was Jen, another one of the rich people. In fact, Jen was Josh's neighbor from across the street. If you ask me, I had no clue what the rich kids were doing in a place like this but Jen seemed to be content with it.

The last first day of middle school seemed to go fast. Classes were boring. It was time to go home before I knew it. I got on the bus with Dustin and we both sat together bonding over what we were going to do when the weekend came. Then out of nowhere, something with the weight of a person falls onto my lap, knocking the wind out of me. I finally catch up to reality as Dustin has completely pushed himself up against the window and Angel is in my lap, arms around my neck.

"Uh, hey Angel." I said, awkwardly. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Uh-huh." She then started laughing. "You're such a dork."

"Uh, yeaaaaaaah."

We then sat in awkward silence until it was time for Dustin and I to get off of the bus and Angel had to get off of my lap.

The first month flew by in the blink of an eye. I had already gotten into a fight and an argument with a teacher. Angel was still being weird and the boys were at it. On Friday on the bus home, Dustin and I were shouting out of the window and flipping off West Side Elementary School, which had just become a tradition for us two since we used to go to East Side Intermediate. Then Dustin pointed something out.

"Angel isn't on the bus." He said.

A seventh grader named Riley poked her head over the seat.

"She just texted me that she left early." She said.

Dustin and I hopped off the bus. We high-fived each other and went to our designated houses. I went inside to the usual. My dad asleep and hungover on the couch. Completely deadbeat and never cares about me. He goes out at the first sight of the moon and isn't home until the sun starts coming up.

"Dad, I'm home." I said. I don't know why. I never get an answer from him. He's been this way since mom went away to wherever in 2009 and now it's 2016.

"Hey Ricky! How was your day?" I said, mockingly. "How's Dustin and Josh? How have you guys been for the past seven fucking years?"

I payed the bills with whatever money I could come up with since I helped run sort of a black market at school. Dad wasn't drunk only on two occasions. Taxes and check day. Dustin and his little brother, Mike, stayed over a lot so they'd go over to Walmart and get groceries with me.

I went down to my room in the basement and flopped down on my bed.

Then I got a text from Dustin's brother, Kerry.

"Hey, is it okay if Mike, Dustin, and I stay the night with you? Mom and Katy being extra horrible 2nite." His text said.

"Sure. We're gonna get groceries so be ready to go to walmart." I texted back.