Suffer The Little Children 2.0
Chapter One: Beautiful Liar
Whenever I wake up, I try not to notice the hunger pangs. It's hard not to notice them because they hurt so much but then again, I don't eat at all most of them. I force myself to get dressed, throwing on a blue tee and then a black hoodie over it; I can hear my mother calling for me already. She looks at me smiling when I walk out dressed for school. "Your hands sweetie." She says to me referring to the blood on them. She has a wipe in her hands, I let her wash away the blood, and it feels better not to have it sticking to my skin.
She hands me a single bagel, that's my meal for the day. A bagel, nothing more nothing less. "Have a good day baby." She kisses me on the forehead, and I promptly want to die again. I head out and wait for the bus, taking very small pieces off of it, not enough to be considered even filling but the slower you eat the more it helps you in being less hungry.
The bus comes and I get on it sitting somewhat near the back putting my feet up on the seat, I have about an hour bus ride, not that I complain. I lay my head against the window trying not to think about anything at all, clear my mind forget about my aching body and my stomach. I breathe in and out slowly just trying to ease myself into a peace.
It's shattered when someone asks me to move over. No one asks me to move over. No one ever asks me to move, it's usually my seat and mine alone. People usually stay away from me. They don't go near me. They think I'm an emo kid or something. "Can you move over?" It's a guy; he's about my age it looks. He's a bit skinny and has short brunette hair, and glasses, his eyes are a hazel color.
I don't give him an answer but I move over pulling my knees up to me and face towards the window. I don't know how to speak to people. I stopped talking a while ago, I used to know these kids when I was younger but then I lost what I had when mother started hitting me, and she said they weren't good people. I can feel myself shaking and my fingernails dig into my arms. Iero calm down. Stop fucking shaking. Someone will notice then you'll get beat more. My thoughts are a warning to myself, I stop shaking, but hunger gnaws at my stomach like a knife.
"Are you alright?" The boy asks me.
I can't find my answer; it's lodged in my throat. Mommy doesn't want me to talk to people. She doesn't want me to talk. Be quiet. Be a good boy. His fingers touch my skin and I jerk away from him as if bitten. Don't touch me. Leave me alone. Can't you see boy that I don't want to talk. Another kid starts talking to him, I hear my name, but barely even focus on what they're saying, and I don't even realize it when I pass out.
~
It's later when I'm in the nurse's office is when the exhaustion hits me like a bus. "You passed out on the bus Frank. You seem to be exhausted; your teachers gave you some work to do in here. You don't seem well enough to go to class." The nurse says softly to me and my stomach growls, she's been dealing with me for two years she knows me better than anyone in this school. "Has everything been alright at home?" She asks me and I nod. "Just checking Frank."
She hands me something to eat. "You're not eating enough, that's all I'm going to say." She says to me before turning and helping other students, but before she leaves she says "Thank, Mikey Way he got you your work you missed." Then she goes to help the students.
Way. Mikey Way. Why did that sound familiar? I tried to think of why that name I seemed to know. I hadn't talked to anyone after I had been fourteen that was only two almost three years. Comic books. Comics. That was the connection; I had known Mikey before my mother had started beating him. I had known him, but we grew apart and I didn't remember him, that was the kid I had heard talk to me this morning. He was trying to get me to talk to him again; he wanted me to talk to him. I… I had forgotten he had saw one- no he didn't see me get beaten someone else did. Someone else did that I couldn't remember but I knew them. They knew, they saw me screaming for her to stop and they watched wide eyed and helpless.
I felt like I was going to be sick, I bolted over to the bathroom and threw up into the toilet, dry heaving bile and whatever the nurse had given me to eat. I threw up until I physically couldn't and it hurt. I pulled away from the china wiping my mouth with a paper towel and flushed the toilet. I stood back up and went back over to the cot grabbing a pencil starting on my work, just doing what the teachers had assigned me.
It was midday when I saw that boy again. Mikey. He walked over to me, not saying anything. "So you can write, but you won't speak? Will you write to me? Frank? I do remember you. Why don't you talk anymore? Why aren't you happy anymore?" He whispered, I didn't have an answer, I ripped a piece of paper from my notebook, and writing was always easier than talking for me now anyway.
I'm sorry. I changed. I'm sorry. I can't change who I am. I don't like talking anymore. I wrote on the piece of paper, he read it giving me an odd look.
"You used to talk. You used to say how you were going to play guitar, how you would get tattoos. That you would do whatever the hell you wanted to do." Mikey says to me, sitting beside the cot.
Don't you have class? I wrote.
"I'm skipping." That was that it seemed, he wasn't going to lose me again it seemed.
I can't give you answer to why I'm the way I am Mikey. I don't think anyone will ever know. One person knows, and I can't even remember them. I shouldn't even be talking to you right now. I'm not supposed to talk to people anymore…
Mikey gives me a concerned look. "Frank, what is wrong? What happened to you two years ago? What happened?" Mikey is truly concerned, and I choke. I don't know what to even say or write, I didn't think anyone would remember the fact I missed a month of school. A month of it because of that bitch, because she raped me and beat me until I couldn't get up and starved me for that time- so I got used to it.
"I can't…I can't…. I can't… tell." My voice is a broken whisper, it doesn't even sound human anymore. Mikey's eyes go wide in shock at me even speaking, and before I even know what is happening, I'm pulled into a tight hug, and I feel water fall from my eyes and my body is shaking like hell. I'm so thin, so unfed, and so antisocial, so bruised and no one has done anything like this for me. No one.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Frank." Mikey seems to understand, he seems to understand and yet I haven't said one word to him about the abuse. Does he know something? The bell rings, for dismissal and I want to get sick. I don't want to go home. I don't want to see that bitch. I don't want to. It gets harder each time, leaving.
I write again. I have to go, mom's waiting for me.
Mikey pulls me out of the hug, he doesn't answer as I grab my bag and walk out the door, and I try my best when I get home not to break down, but I end up screaming and crying when my mother beats me to the point I can't even move on the ground and I close my eyes on the ground and I look almost as if I'm a lifeless corpse because I'm so thin and I pass out into a dreamless sleep only to be awaken by the nightmare that only my mother can create.
Oh how she loves her "games."