Fighting

Fighting

by: Sophia Santaniello

I was what many people called “troubled”. My parents had disappeared when I was young, and I had been sent to live with my aunt and her family. My life had never been very normal, but one day everything changed in an instant.

I knew that I had messed up, very badly at that. I had been walking down the hall, minding my own business, when I’d stumbled across a large, rowdy group of kids. Shouts of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and “Come on, you’ve got this!” resounded throughout the hallway, and I struggled to find the source of these shouts as he approached.

Getting closer, I could see my cousin Alex stumbling to his feet holding a bloodied hand to his nose. Wiping the blood away with his shirt, he focused his gaze on a tall boy standing in front of him.

“Is that all you’ve got, Brent? Because I’m sure that you can do better,” he jeered cockily, giving “Brent” a challenging glare. “Mason, I wouldn’t be mouthing off like that if I were you,” Brent said as he looked at Alex with distaste. I strode closer, knowing that Alex had a big mouth and would rise to a challenge even though he had no chance against this Brent guy.

Alex had a habit of getting himself into precarious situations and I often found myself getting him out of them. This was one of those times.

“Excuse me, is there a problem?” I asked menacingly. The crowd grew quiet, and I felt their eyes on me. Brent backed up from Alex looking terrified. It was safe to say that I didn’t have the best reputation around the school, but I felt like bursting out laughing at the fear in his eyes.

“No, everything’s absolutely fine, right Alex? We were just...talking,” was Brent’s lame excuse. I looked at him coldly taking three swift steps forward before coming face to face with him. “If I were you, I’d keep the talking to the minimum,” I hissed, suddenly grabbing the collar of his shirt and jerking him up. “Now, do you want to say something to Alex?” I asked him, and he quickly nodded before muttering an apology. “I didn’t hear what you said,” I told him, and he took a deep breath before saying a quick “I’m sorry” to Alex.

I let go of him and walked away.

I snuck downstairs, staying right outside of my uncle’s study. I heard the phone ringing, and crept closer to the door to listen in. I could hear Brennan, my uncle, yelling on the phone, and I walked away not wanting to hear anymore of the conversation. But, only moments after I closed the door to my room, Aunt Nancy called my name harshly.

I knew that they wouldn’t understand, they never did. But I was willing to face the consequences, as long as Alex was safe.  

I’m not really sure why I cared for Alex so much. Maybe it was because although his parents were often hostile with me and he wasn’t, or because we were so close, but I had become his very own personal bodyguard.

By now I had gotten used to the punishments that Brennan and Nancy gave me. I couldn’t blame them for their dislike of me, I had given them many reasons to. They just didn’t know why I got in trouble so often, and they didn’t care enough to hear me out.

Even though Alex and I were always close, we had started to grow apart when we started high school. Never less, I protected him from all of the people who threatened him and from all from the stupid situations that he got himself into.

It has been three years that I’ve been taking care of Alex, and it seems to have changed me. I’m not very sociable, and although I know that I’m smart, and that I’m capable of being one of the top in my class, I don’t care enough to do my schoolwork.

After being scolded my aunt and uncle , they delivered my punishment and ordered me to my room.

Walking up the staircase I ran into a familiar body.

“Hey man, thanks for sticking up for me today. I’m not sure what got into me, Brent just said something that really got to me and I couldn’t hold back...”

It was Alex. I accepted his apology, as I always did, and told him it was no big deal.

“Hey man, Finn, wait up!”

I heard someone calling to me as I made my way to my next class in school the next day. Turning to see Jacob, my science partner, struggling to keep up with my quick strides, I turned back around and kept walking. He came to walk next to me and we entered science together, and sat at our assigned seats next to each other.

I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. He was a loner, like me, but, unlike me, the reason he had no friends was because no one like him. He was extremely annoying, and had a habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

“So, did you hear what happened between Brent and Alex yesterday?” Jacob asked me. Laughing, I answered yes, and he eagerly asked me if I knew what had happened.

“Well, I don’t know what caused them to fight, but I was the one who broke it up,” I say, and he nods, looking thoughtful for a moment. “I guess you always do protect Alex, don’t you? That’s pretty ironic considering half the fights are about you.”

I’m silent for a moment. I watched as our teacher walks into the classroom, telling everyone to turn to page 204 in our textbooks, but all I can do is sit still. “What do you mean, they’re about me?” I finally ask Jacob. “You don’t know?” Jacob says quietly, glancing up to see if the teacher is paying attention, which he’s not.

“Alex is always getting in trouble for protecting you. Whenever he hears someone mouthing off about how, you know, you have no friends, or if they’re making up stories about how you probably have some sort of mental problem, or whatever, he goes ballistic on them. I thought you knew.”

Mental problems? People think I have mental problems because I don’t talk to anyone? They must be the ones who are mental, I think, before understanding what Jacob just said.

Alex has been protecting me, just like I protected him. He defended me, when no one else would even talk to me.

I wasn’t sure what to think  of this. All I was certain of is that I was immensely thankful to Alex.

“Hey Alex?” I called out when I got home. All I saw was a scowling Aunt Nancy. What is her problem? I thought. She looked as though someone had peed in her flower garden. She always looked like that though, so I shouldn’t be too surprised.

Running upstairs I looked into Alex’s bedroom, seeing him doing homework at his desk. Knocking quietly, I entered his room.

“Alex,” I say.

“Finn? What’s wrong?”

“Is it true, that you’ve been protecting me all this time? Why would you do that?”

“Finn, you’re my brother. I was only doing what brothers do- I was looking out for you.”

“Thank you, Alex,” I say before embracing him.

It was then that I realized that sure, I didn’t have many friends, and my parents aren’t exactly around, but I had Alex, my brother, and that was all I needed.