InBetween the Rivers

One

*Warning- no images, videos or music belongs to me! Credit to the original creator(s)!*

"What have I said about showing your face again."

The harsh hiss of his step-mother was followed by a stinging slap across his face, and behind her, his own Father watched with his head shaking in disappointment. It wasn't a surprise since he had remarried that vile woman, his own son had meant nothing. Only the daughter, growing equally as revolting as her parents, mattered to them both.

"I just came by to collect some stuff, and then I'll be gone till the day you die."

His blunt words where unlike the character the two adults had been so used to, they only knew the boy who was so quiet many thought he was a mute. They'd never seen him so much and speak to anyone, even an animal was impossible to get a single word from him unless he wanted to speak. Huffing without anything to refute the boy's words, the cruel women stepped aside, as did his Father. Letting the limping youth pass and continue up the stairs and into what was once his bedroom, now shredded and littered with the few belongings he had mistakenly left out in the open. Clearly torn apart by his dear sister, based on the shoe prints covering many of the papers undisturbed on the floorboards.

"I was just making sure you hadn't stolen anything from us, brother."

The title 'brother' was spat with enough venomous hatred to kill a cobra, but the sting hardly connected with the defeated looking youth who struggled to get down on a knee to gather up what could be salvaged. Only prying out a portion of the floor after the girl, a couple of years younger than himself, had returned to whatever it was she had been doing beforehand. From the black, dirtied floor patch he lifted an aged cardboard box and a black school bag. Stuffed with spare clothes, thousands of saved up dollars, the basic essentials and only the most emotionally valuable assets he had left in his name alone.

"Hurry up and get your ass off our property! If you steal anything  I will have the security strangle you!"

From downstairs the women threw threat after threat, threats the boy knew she would follow through with if given the smallest wiggle room to bite. Gritting his teeth, the boy tangled his fingers in the silver chain, stuffed the ancient box into the bag and shouldered it as he descended the stairs again. His dirtied hair shielding him from looking at the two, but he still paused in front of the man he had once seen as his Father. Even if they were still connected through the very same blood and DNA.

"I don't know why you've resorted to such a lifestyle or character, I don't even know if the man we loved had ever existed-"

With weak, shaking fingers he lifted the silver chain around his fingers, the other hand turned his Father's palm upwards as he dropped the necklace into the larger, waiting hand.

"-I remember a story she told me. About two troublemaking teens who met unexpectedly at a college party they weren't supposed to be at. I remember the smile that blessed her face on the nights she told me this story for the hundredth time and more, she said if you were to ever forget the you that she loved. Then I should give you the locket she wore since you two first dated."

His words were unsure as the last link left his fingers and he rushed out the door before either could retaliate, missing how the stunned man clenched his hand around the metal. His eyes glazed over and unfocused but still as hard as steel with his resolve. It wasn't till that night when the step-mother was sound asleep, that he sat up and stared almost brokenly at the age-old relic.