Crippled - Jarco

Ch. 2

Marco groaned as his alarm went off, pressing a button to turn it off. He slowly slid out of bed, lazily walking to his mother’s room to wake her up as well so she could help him.

“Mum..” he groaned, nudging her with his hand, trying to wake her up. She let out a small, hm?, and slowly opened her eyes, smiling.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” She said, slowly sitting up.

“Could you help me get a lunch together while I get dressed?” He asked her yawning. She nodded.

“Course. Now go get ready, you don’t want to be late” She smiled at him. He nodded and walked to his room, tossing his done schoolwork in his bag. Even though he was absent for the first four months of school, his mother helped him with schoolwork and he had a tutor come over once a week to help him with the work he was missing.

He started going through his clothes and picked out a t-shirt and a customized sweatshirt his mum had made for him, the right sleeve cut and hemmed so the nub of his arm just barely stuck out. He got some jeans on and got his shoes on as well. This all took about a half an hour. Getting clothes on without an arm was immensely difficult and he had just recently learned the skill of getting dressed on his own.

As soon as he finished, he slung his bag over his shoulder, walking to his dining room where his mum was happily humming and making him a bagged lunch.

‘Lucky you can be so happy,’ he thought, glancing at her once more before sitting down where a bowl of cereal was placed at the table. He was nervous. No, scratch that, he was terrified. He didn’t want to back to the school. He wasn’t popular before and now that he was crippled, it wasn’t going to help. Especially since he had to have a special ed helper in all of his classes with him. He wasn’t special ed. He was missing an arm, he could get along just fine, but his mother thought otherwise.

“You’ll need help!” She insisted. “You can’t take notes, she could take them for you,” His mother had insisted. In the end, she overruled him by a lot.

***

Marco was a shaky, nervous mess by the time his mum drove up to the school.

“Remember go to guidance to meet your helper before class,” She said leaning over and kissing his cheek. He nodded a bit and slowly reached for the handle.

“Love you,” She said smiling. He smiled back looking at her.

“L-Love you too mum..” he stuttered.

“Have fun!” She smiled at him. “Or at least try to enjoy it a bit,” She offered, giving him a half smile.

“Doubtful..” He murmured, getting out and walking to the doors. He could already feel the stares at him. At his arm, his eyepatch.

He looked down, making his way to the guidance office, remembering from when he was here the year before. He tried not to make any eye contact and scurried into the room. As soon as he walked in he was hit with a smell of febreeze and paper. He scrunched up his nose and walked to the secretary at the desk, the main lady. As soon as she noticed him she smiled up at him a friendly look on her face.

“Hello, are you Marco?” She asked him politely. Her voice was soft and gentle, a nice calming noise. He nodded silently, and shuffled his feet. He looked at the name tag on her desk as she typed something into her computer. Ms. Ral it read. He chewed the inside of his lip out of anxiety.