His True Colors - 3. Chapter 3:Chains of Misery

His True Colors

Chapter 3: Chains of Misery

The first day of school was ruined as you would expect. My excitement was utterly killed by the earlier incident by Ritchie and his goons, but I felt a tingly feeling in my stomach as I noticed Ritchie was in every one of my classes. It gave me excitement and at the same time it scared the hell out of me. I did not say anything to Ritchie, and I tried my best not to look at him, but I just couldn’t help it. He was beautiful, and I basked in his beauty. I felt shameful, as I always do when I check out guys, especially when they stretch or lift their upper body so their shirt rises and reveals their stomach. I got a kick out of noticing various boxer short color variations from the many that sagged out of the guys pants; it was like a wonderful tease! Ritchie didn’t say anything to me, so I assumed there would be no more incidents, but it turned out when I went to the bathroom, all of a sudden I found myself on the floor. It was so quick and unexpected that I actually cried out, making the perpetrator laugh. I couldn’t tell who it was because when I turned around, no one was there. So it could have been any of Ritchie or his four goons. I wasn’t going to tell anyone though. I was going to win this war of attrition.

Though, a creeping part of my conscience told me that I deserved this punishment, and then I realized that a part of me enjoyed the pain and the humiliation. Because someone was finally paying attention to me.

The next two weeks consisted of various incidents like this. I found Photoshopped pictures of myself doing some pretty fucking nasty stuff in my locker, I noticed my belongings and books began to disappear, and mysteriously come back when I started to tell teachers. My determination was winning through. I would make small comments after an incident occurred, to show them I wasn’t going to lie down and take it and that they hadn’t broke me. Their incidents really were more irritating than hurtful. I was much more hurt by the name calling. “Fag” “Faggot” “Queer” “Queen” they all just slowly ate away at me. I felt ashamed of who I was, and even they started noticing that the verbal abuse was much more successful so they kept it up. For once I could say that even the joy in their negative attention was being sucked dry.

Then one day it was time to do a project for my Freshman Focus class. A class about Health and high school and coping with life. We had to make a board documenting our life. I was horrified because my name was drawn first to go. My stomach was twisting in knots, and I felt sick. “Well. This Is my life from when I was born to the present day. In this picture I am getting baptized, as you can see I am extremely cute.” I said in a nervous voice, though I was pleased to see chuckles and smiles at this comment. I went through the various pictures and their significance to me. In the end, I concluded to the class that the baptism picture was the most precious to me, as opposed to me being with family or blowing birthday candles or being hugged. I explained some mumbo jumbo about beginnings, faith and life, blah blah blah. I pulled it all out of my ass. I am no Christian, at least not a practicing one. I am half atheist, half Christian, cause I guess I am not ready to believe there is no afterlife at this stage in my life, but I do question God, because well…I am a bitter and cynical person, if you haven’t noticed! But that picture is precious to me, because I am so fucking cute! My Baptist album really is me at my prime, seeing those pictures make me smile and even tear up in regret on how I turned out.

Of course when I carried it into to my seminar class to store it until the end of the day, Ritchie appeared. “That’s faggy little board you got there. Bright colors throughout! You really couldn’t be advertising it any better that you’re a gay little bitch. You should be grateful that we don’t go all the way with you. Violence ain’t my thing, but in other school, especially down south you would get your ass killed!” Then he suddenly grabbed my board and took my baptism picture off of it. He held it in his hand like a prize, before he swiftly tore it into pieces. My eyes widened in shock and horror, I couldn’t say anything, I just looked at him. His gleeful smirk had disappeared into a solemn face when he looked into my eyes, but it was still a cruel one. He simply turned around and left with his gang. That was the first time he had truly defeated me and my strength slowly chipped away.

The next day during my gym period we were playing dodge ball, and I of course sucked. The first two games I was taken out in the first round but in the third and final game something extraordinary happened. Ritchie and I knocked into each other, and he landed straight onto me. It wasn’t exactly pleasant at first, because he was twice my weight and the force of him falling onto me took the wind out of me and knocked my glasses off of my face. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised that he was still there. It seemed like an eternity, but we just looked into each others eyes. I saw something in there that was different…special. Ritchie on the other hand looked dumbfounded. I don’t think he really noticed my two different colored eyes until now. I felt a connection in that brief moment. I don’t know what he saw in me, but I saw something beautiful in him, but there was sorrow mixed into it.

Unfortunately, this moment was cut short when my raging boner betrayed me, and Ritchie snapped out of the trance. “Get the fuck away from me you FAG!!!!!” he shouted while roughly shoving me away, leaving me winded a second time…

That moment actually lasted ten seconds. Those ten seconds changed everything for me. I fell in love with Ritchie Jamison just by looking into his eyes. Perhaps his soul. Unfortunately, this also meant that I was going to lose.

My strong and bitter determination had been eroded. When we went back into the locker rooms to change, I was lost in thought when suddenly I heard someone shout “Hey look fag im naked!” In my shock I quickly looked in the direction of the voice, and saw that it was none other than Jack Belzer, one of Ritchies goons. Worse was that I was the only person who looked, and the entire locker-room boomed with laughter at my expense. I just didn’t look at anyone and continued changing. My gym period was also my final hour in school, so I could just leave afterwards. But when I finished changing noticed feet right next to my backpack. It connected with my chest and I was thrown backward, gasping in pain. It was Jack and the rest of the gang, minus Ritchie. Jack was somewhat attractive. He had dark black hair but pale skin, though not nearly as pale as Ritchie. His dark brown eyes seemed to be turning black with malice. He was a plain looking person, who didn’t look like he was from a family with money, but his voice said everything. He was one of those lower achievers who wasn’t smart and did drugs. He suddenly laughed. “Look at this fag, I think we finally did him in!" I was lying there curled up in a ball, frightened yet accepting. I knew what was coming though I was curious to where Ritchie was. Yep, that quickly faded away as their fists and feet collided into my body.

I don’t know when they stopped, because I think my mind froze during the beating. My whole body ached and screamed in pain, but I knew nothing was broken, and it was mostly directed towards the chest, back, arms and legs. It wouldn’t be visible unless someone stripped me, which was unlikely to happen.

In the afterglow of the pain, I felt grim satisfaction and reflected over the past weeks. “They are only doing this to me because I deserve it. It must be because I deserve it.” I started to feel repulsed by myself because I had feelings for someone who was a bully, but I shrugged it off. “ I am repulsive, I deserve to be punished, I am a failure, Ritchie is doing me a favor.”

I walked home with a bit of a limp due to the pain, but my parents usually just assumed I was at the library because the previous year I spent lots of time there diving into Star Wars books. The walk from my school to the house was 30 minutes, which was why I was dropped off in the mornings. When I got home, I said nothing to my parents and immediately took a shower, though the hot water cause the bruises and cuts to sting.

After an hour or two I went to the living room and ate dinner while watching some random procedural. I was devastated after Lost, Scrubs and 24 ended, because they were my favorite shows, so now I just watched random stuff.

My dad suddenly sat next to me, making me irritated. “So Kayden, how was school?” “School was fine Dad.” “How did you do on the math test? You need to keep doing good consistently or you will have a bad grade, which of course will lower your GPA.” “Okay.” “I checked your grades, and I noticed you now have a C in English.” “Yep.” “Well, you better raise it, because I won’t be shamed because your being a freeloader while all my colleagues children are getting straight A’s and doing volunteer work.” “Good for them.” I said in a bored voice. All my Dad ever talked about were grades. It really didn’t give me a strong relationship with him. We never connected on a personal level, he mostly did the talking, and I pretended to listen. There was never a heart to heart. Before my Dad could reply to my retort, I got up and told him I would raise it and went upstairs. On my way up there I noticed my Mom dancing in front of the front window with the light on next to her. See this is where some of her bipolar craziness comes in. She hates the neighbors next door intensely because they are Asian. Really its not due to ethnicity but because their kids listen to their parents, and are little mice who slave away and have no friends. She once told them to lick their moms vagina, causing the police to come over and talk to her, though she vehemently denied it to the bitter end, causing the officer to leave because “he was getting nowhere.” My mom never believes she is wrong, so if you cross her, you will be in true hell till her mood shifts. My mom and dad also are not intimate, I don’t think they love each other, but now they are like roommates. They won't divorce because of embarrassment they would get from their families. They fight constantly and degrade each other, so now I just kinda feel every parent is like that. I can’t imagine two parents being loving towards each other, I really can’t.

But when my mom is nice, she is like a puppy. So soft and cuddly, which is why I was ecstatic when she told me that she had doubles of pretty much every baby picture of me, because she originally planned on sending them to her family through the mail. It’s times like this when I think I loved my mom, but I really can’t tell you what love is supposed to be when it involves children and parents.

But still, I had my precious picture, and I held it in my arms through the tears, clutching my former adorable self close to my heart, hoping I could fade away and be rid of this misery.