ツChapter Three - Bullied and Afraidツ

A Chapter by Miren Kaisen

Who said being rich was great? It only brings her pain.

ツChapter Three - Bullied and Afraidツ

A/N - I am not a poet, so if this sucks...I apologize
Once there was a little girl, who wore her hair in a fine curl.
One day, she let someone come and play.
They brought a friend, though it was not kind in the end.
One and two and three, more came to play by the sea.
More and more, down by the shore.
The friends continued to play, going about it their own way.
They ignored her instead, giving the girl nothing but dread.
Finally with friends around, she heard nothing but a fading sound.
You can call it betrayal, using her to their avail.
Only for her money, in jokes behind her back that were oh so funny.
Living a life of many faces, she covers the cuts without leaving any traces.
Hidden behind a window shade, she is bullied and afraid.
***

She hadn’t expected such a call from her, and through her drowsy eyes she really thought it must be a joke. Still, she rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed. It was finally the weekend, a day she could sleep in, and instead she was called out for one reason or another. Upon the explanation, Sophia’s eyes grew with surprise. “What? What are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry” Mia replied quietly. She found an old payphone by a gas station, probably the only one around in town. Her voice was soft and quiet to keep the secret a secret. “I just need money for a checkup at the doctor”

“Do you know how expensive doctor fee’s are these days? Actually, where are your parents?”

Mia looked up, keeping the tears from falling. “They went away”

“Can’t you just ask them for money?”

She sighed irritably, there was no time for questions. “Please, Sophia. Stop asking questions. I’ll pay you back, I swear”

“Mia, what’s going on?”

“It hurts” Nikki pulled on her skirt from the floor. He couldn’t even walk it hurt him that bad. “Where can we go?”

“I don’t know...” She rested her forehead on the phone and sighed, covering her eyes. What could she do? Where could they go?

“Mia?”

At the sudden name she slammed the phone shut on the payphone. She whirled around quickly to get a look at the person behind them, recognizing it as a males voice, and praying to god it wasn’t John. “I’m sorry!”

“For what?”

She opened her eyes to the boy in black. Her brother, still in a lot of pain, hid behind her blouse. “Kalen? Kalen! What are you doing here?”

He frowned at her, weakly gesturing down the street. “I live over there. Why are you at a payphone?”

“None of your concern!”

Nikki winced as a new streak of pain went through him, he clenched her blouse in his tiny hands. “Mia...it’s getting worse”

Kalen observed the little boy, finding it curious. “What’s wrong with him?”

The redhead turned away from the mysterious boy in black, opened her arms, and picked Nikki up. “It’s nothing” Afraid that the boy might leak information, though she knew that no one at school would believe him, the authorities might. “Just go”

“Wait” Not even he could understand it. Concern for another. Maybe it was because Nikki was the about same age, his expressions were the same, they both felt pain. Maybe it was the idea that he could save someone that got him wondering. Perhaps, he could repent. “He’s in pain”

“Kalen please, just go home and do whatever”

“I know a clinic...well, it isn’t really a clinic. The woman used to be a nurse and will help, free of charge. Promise”

Mia looked at him with a curious eye. Why did he want to help? She couldn’t figure it out. Usually he sat in the corner of class and insulted anyone and everyone if they got too close to him. Yet he offered some hope. It was like he knew what their problem was and somehow had a solution.

She looked at her brother one last time, his face squished with the reaction of pain. There was no other choice. If she didn’t accept help now she wouldn’t get it at all. “Fine. But don’t think that I owe you”

A small grin went to his face, but it quickly disappeared leaving behind a ghostly remanence. She knew that she saw it, but the fact that it was gone so soon made her think she might have mistaken it. But, in reality, he had smiled a bit. Not even he understood why he felt joy in helping another when he promised himself it was a bad idea. Nothing good ever came of it. The only solution was to cut himself off. If he could do that, he wouldn’t have to feel that kind of pain again.

They walked down the alleys and sidewalks of the neighborhood. Mia had never been to this side of town. It was a calm neighborhood, with old couples walking about and children playing in the street. Definitely not the kind of neighborhood she was used to. Hers was always busy.

"Over here" He pointed to a bakery with a home attached at the back.

She looked at it curiously. "Its a bakery"

"Yeah. But the woman who owns it used to be a nurse so she can look at his leg"

They walked through. She noticed it was just an ordinary bakery. Bread was laid out on tables with all sorts of desserts. The only unusual thing was the lights. It was completely dark in there.

"Is it even open?" Mia asked, Nikki stood beside her, balancing on his good leg.

"Doesn't matter. She'll be fine with it" He moved over to the door that lead to the house. "Wonder if she's home"

"Who is this person. And how do you, of all people, know her?"

He turned back to her. "It was a long time ago. I haven't been here since that day"

Mia watched the sorrow in his eyes. It was strange to see it after so long. She remembered when they used to be friends, when he was kind and generous. "The day you disappeared?"

He nodded, which caught her off guard. "What happened?"

"Again with that question!" He turned around to face the door of the main house and knocked on it with a pound. "Tristan! I know your home!"

"Mia, who is that?" Nikki asked with another tug of her blouse.

"He's..." Dare she say friend? "A classmate of mine"

"Kalen?" A short girl stood in the doorway of the bakery. She wore a plaid skirt with a solid red shirt. "It's been a while"

"I'm not staying" he told her. "Where's Sage?"

"She went out. Business was slow. If she knew you would be stopping by I'm sure she would have stayed" She walked further into the bakery, turning on the lights and looking at the two strangers in the room. "Friends of yours?"

"You know I don't have any"

"Right, that policy of yours" The girl extended her hand out to the redhead and her brother. "My names Jane. So why are you hanging around such a debby downer like Kalen?"

"Uh, well..." Mia averted her eyes, refusing to take her hand, much like she did with Sophia the first time they met. "Its...my brother"

"Huh? What about him?" Jane looked at the smaller redhead, noticing his expressions of pain. "Are you okay?"

"Its his leg...I think he's seriously hurt" Mia explained.

Jane furrowed her brows and glanced back over at Kalen. "They should really go to a doctor or something"

"We...can't" Nikki replied for his sister.

"That's why we need Sage. She's a nurse so she can look at it" Kalen was making his way over to the door, but was stopped by Jane.

"Don't you want to say hi to Miranda?"

Kalen froze. His skin went pale at the mention of the name as all blood drained from his face. "S-shes here?"

"She is"

He didn't say anything or look up at her. After a moment of silence, receiving confusion from Mia and her brother, he walked out of the house without a glance back.

"Figures” Jane looked back at the two redheads, placing a smile to replace her disappointed face. “Sage will be here soon. You both should come inside and wait”

They nodded, following Jane through the doors to the main house. It was dark inside, clean, but disorganized. The two looked around the house. Family pictures decorated the walls all along hallways and into the livingroom. What Mia found the most odd was one person in those photos. While everyone was happy and smiling, none of it seemed faked by a photographer. It was only until one person disappeared from those pictures that the families eyes mirrored the silent sorrow.

Shortly after a few extra pictures without the person, she reappeared again, but different. Her hairstyle was different, her clothing style and her mannerisms in the photos. The family still had sorrow in their eyes, as did the girl who seemed to be missing from the pictures for only about a year or so.

“You can wait here. Are you hungry or thirsty for anything?” Jane asked, walking into the kitchen.

Mia pulled out of her observations and turned to Nikki instead. He gave her a quick nod. “Yeah, we didn’t eat at all this morning”

“I have some left overs from the bakery yesterday. Are you alright with nuts?”

“Yes, that’s okay”

“Hmm? How about some milk too?”

Milk? It seemed forever since the last time they tasted it. Quickly they agreed. Jane arrived back with the food and drinks, watching the two devour them as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks. And, that assumption was closer to the truth than she knew. Those two redheads were truly unfortunate.

“So tell me, how do you know Kalen?”

Mia put her head down. “We were friends...a long time ago”

“8th grade? Right near the end?” Jane guessed.

The redhead furrowed her brows, nodding slowly. “Yeah, but...how did you know that?”

“A lucky guess. How’s he been these last two years?”

“Good” But that was a lie. “He doesn’t really talk to anyone so I don’t really know”

Jane sat back in the chair. “Doesn’t talk, huh? Things really do change”

“Jane...” The answer was right there. This girl, this house, it seemed to know the answer everyone longed so much to know. Maybe the drive to find it had faded the last two years, but it certainly never vanished. The boy in black was mysterious to say the least, but his once friends wanted to know the truth. Even if it was an unfortunate one, they needed to know what happened. “You know Kalen...I was just wonder...two years ago, when he disappeared-”

“No” Jane looked deeply with serious eyes into Mia’s. “I didn’t mean to make you question that and to be perfectly honest it isn’t my place to tell others. There’s a reason the school doesn’t know. Kalen wanted it that way. And if he wants to suffer alone, then that’s what he’ll get”

“I just wish he wasn’t that stupid” A woman said, walking through with her keys in hand. “He isn’t the only one suffering”

The woman rested her eyes on the pair of redheads sitting on her couch. “Who are you?”

“These two are here for a little check up” Jane replied.

Sage, the woman, looked at them with curious eyes. “Where are your parents?”

“We don’t have that much money” Mia began honestly, “and we can’t afford to go to the doctor for a check up. Kalen said that you would look at it, free of charge”

“Kalen said that?” Sage laughed in disbelief.

But Jane nodded, confirming the story. “You should have been home, he was here earlier”

“Really? The boy avoids this place like the plague and all of a sudden someone gets hurt, something that he doesn’t care about anyway, mind you, and drops you off here saying stuff like that?” She waited, but received no reply. “Why?”

“We...we were at a payphone and he was passing by. That’s when he told us we could come here” Mia explained.

Before Sage could retort anything else, Nikki winced in pain, grabbing his leg. “Alright, fine. Lets take a look at it then”

She sat Nikki up on the kitchen table, rolling up his pants leg to get a better look. A large bruise, the size of a hand print, snaked around his calf and ankle. Sage’s eyes grew wide with the sight. “How did this happen?” Her voice soft in a whisper, but full of anger.

Mia’s eyes began to well up, she couldn’t even believe that John would actually leave a mark on them. Granted, he was drunk, so be probably didn’t know what he was doing. “Oh God” She covered her mouth. “But, that wasn’t there when I checked”

“Bruises take a while to manifest after they are inflicted. Meaning this happened sometime yesterday or late last week. Now tell me,” Sage turned to face the redhead, gritting her teeth with a new set of rage. “how. did. this. happen?”

The redhead couldn’t even respond, she was too sickened by the appearance of his leg to speak. All she could say were the muffled sounds of disbelief as she widened her eyes, covering her mouth. “My God” She knew the situation was getting a lot more serious.

Sage didn’t wait for her to respond, she quickly wrapped the boys leg with ice and sat him up. “It’s not a bad wound. The bone isn’t broken and only a few blood vessels have burst, but those will heal. As long as you keep ice on it the bruise and rub a little tincture of arnica or arnica gel onto it he’ll be fine” She shuffled around the medicine cabinet a while before she pulled out two bottles. “This is arnica, make sure to rub it on the bruise. This,” She held up the other, “is vitamin C. Usually you take it only if you bruise easily or other reasons...just take these and you’ll be fine. Now if you don’t mind me asking how this occurred”

The two said nothing, their lips were sealed. “If you don’t say anything I’ll just assume I have to call the police” Sage got up, walked to the other room for the landline phone. “Now, what are your names and where do you live-” She walked back into the kitchen, holding the phone to her side. First she shook her head and looked down at the phone. “Those sneaky b******s”

The two redheads were gone, the door to the kitchen wide open.

School came again just as it had gone. The weekend was over and students carraled back into the school like live stock. It was just another day in the prison block, yet the atmosphere felt different. Like something bad was to happen.

Sophia couldn’t quite figure it out as she got out of a very expensive car driven by the family driver, Mal Adams. Some students looked at her as she stepped on campus, but ignored all the stares. Usually she would have walked or taken her bike, but the weather was not looking good for that so her parents sent her in the car. As embarrassed as she was, she was used to it already. She just prayed that the same kind of harassment she got before didn’t follow her here.

Back at her old school she was played with an easy trick. Being rich was okay, if you were spoiled and wanted everything in the world. But for the poor girl with chestnut brown hair it was more of hell than it was grand. She could have a lot of things, sure, but the people around her only took advantage of that. They hurt her with their lies and acts of kindness. In reality, they only wanted a nice place to hang out.

After a while of play, she was left out and alone as she was before. They left her out of everything, only inviting her places if it meant they could hang out at her house on the water. Words spoken behind her back were not kind in the least. They only told of trickery and mockery. And thus, the wounds she made on herself seemed to make everything better.

Through the burning tears she took a short blade to her skin. One cut, two cut, three. Each time another one tricked her with kind words. Those were lies. And for each lie she believed in, she would punish herself for it. Each healing wound, deep and bloody, all represented a nasty lie.

“You’ve been really distant all day” Mia mentioned as they sat around eating lunch.

Sophia looked over at her, shaking from her thoughts of Kalen. “Sorry. It’s just...it’s raining out so I was wondering where he went off to”

“Geez. Are you in love with him or something?”

She didn’t reply. Was she? It took her only a few days to realize that all of her thoughts were consumed with nothing but him and his mystery. Still, she convinced herself it was only the strange disappearing act she was interested in. Nothing else. “I’m not in love with him”

“You sure seem like it. All you ever talk about is ‘Kalen. Kalen. Kalen’. Seriously, you're going to get hurt if you stick your nose in his business”

“It was just an innocent wonder, that’s all”

“A huh. Trust me, he’s definitely not someone you can get close to easily”

“That’s just stupid” Sophia folded her hands. “Don’t you want to know what happened to make him disappear?”

“Of course. Everyone may say they don’t care, but he was all our friend before whatever happened happened. Sophia, a lot of things happen in two years, but if you lost your best friend and you didn’t know why wouldn’t you still be curious?”

“Yes. Which is exactly why we should figure it out”

Mia sighed. “I understand what you mean. I think everyone understands that. But no one cares anymore, not like we used to. For freshman year, sure there were a few that were really close to him that tried to figure it out, but no one could and he beat them up because of it”

“He...beat them up?”

“Yea” The girls jumped at the sound of Yuu’s voice behind them. “Yo”

“W-what do you w-want?” Mia asked, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

“Just answering the question. I was one of the guys he beat up. Got into a lot of trouble for it when I got home. Gramps thought I started the fight, or at least provoked it. Thing was, he just attacked us” Yuu took the liberty to sit beside them. “It was me, a friend of his, and a best friend. We teamed up to go and ask him about it, it was near the beginning or so when it all happened so we weren’t really expecting him to do that. See, we tried to provoke the answer from him, thinking that maybe he was just having a bad day and acting like idiots to make it better. He was no laughing. We kept with the jokes, then he pushed us to the ground and beat us up. All four of us were pretty banged up. Good thing it was three against one, otherwise I don’t think he would have stopped”

“He really did something like that?”

“Yup” Mia answered, keeping away from Yuu. “Students in the classroom pulled him away, but he was really set on beating them that he took on the entire class. A few of the boys managed to pin him down until a teacher came”

“You people live in the past” All three of them nearly jumped as he was standing right behind them.

Yuu stared at him, confused. “Okay, how do you keep sneaking up on us?”

“I already told you to stop telling her that kind of stuff”

Sophia watched, biting her lip and daring to say what was on her mind. The boy in black sat at their table, surprising everyone, even those around them in the cafeteria. He folded his arms and rested his head down. “Where were you those five months?” She blurted out.

Two pairs of horrified eyes watched her. “Have a filter, will ya?”

Kalen looked up at her. First, he took a deep breath, then rolled his shoulders back. “You tell me your secret I’ll tell you mine”

The other two spectators looked back and forth between them. The girl with chestnut hair opened her mouth, then closed it again. It was a secret she hadn’t meant anyone to find out. All of it was behind her. Or so she thought. “I don’t know what you're talking about”

“You do. I won't give you something without another thing in return” He stood up. “Well, I have to go to the art room to turn in a late project. See ya three around”

They watched him walk away, pondering the thought of him actually turning something in. “What the hell?” Mia yelped. “What was that about?”

But Sophia wasn’t listening, she was thinking. It was a lead. Maybe, just maybe, she could have the answer. She stood up quickly, running after him. Behind her were the calls of her name from the other two, but that she also ignored. The mysterious boy in black walked down the hallway, hands in his pockets and humming an unfamiliar toon. She reached out to him, grabbing his shoulder and panting a ‘wait’. “If I tell you, you tell me what happened to you”

He quickly smirked, but left it there. Sophia observed it. “Why are you so interested in me? It’s not like the others reasons. I betrayed them. Ignored them and beat them up for just a simple question. We met about a week ago and you want to know something so useless”

She shook her head. “It isn’t useless”

“You say that. Until you find out what it is”

She rolled up her sleeves to show him each and every cut along her arm. “I was bullied. So like an idiot I cut myself so I could feel better”

“Did it work?”

“Temporarily” She replied. “Each one represents a lie they told me. They took advantage of my house and the money in it. All they wanted was to spend time on a private beach. They would talk behind my back, calling me a stupid spoiled girl. I hated it so much that I took my anger out on myself. So I cut each one of their lies into my arm as a reminder” Her eyes burned with the deep hate, something she hadn’t felt since she was at her old school. All those memories came back to her, consuming her.

Kalen watched her as she stared at her arm with hate. He understood that kind of pain, though he was far from the person who would understand the situation. It was his choice to close off from all others. He used to have friends who would hang out with him for just being him. No one wanted to be with him because he was rich or lived on a beach. They were with him because he was fun. So to him, she had all the right in the world to hate his choice of life.

“You never had a real friend, have you?” Kalen asked.

The girl with chestnut brown hair looked up at him, her eyes welled with tears. “No. I havn’t”

“Then why don’t you hate me?”

“Huh?”

“I’m nothing like you. You heard all those stories about me, right? I had friends. This entire school, it didn’t matter if they were older or younger than me, I could talk to whoever I wanted and no one would think twice about it. I was friends with all kinds of people, popularity, freaks, misfits, anyone. You haven’t had a single friend. They all take advantage of you because you have a large house. Shouldn’t you hate me because all of what you wanted I had, but I threw it away?”

“Maybe that’s why I’m so curious. I want to know why you would give up so much. So tell me, where were you for five months? I told you my secret. Now tell me yours”

He sighed, seeing as he had no choice. “You have to promise not to tell the others. Since you have a reason to know, I’ll tell you”

“I won’t tell”

With another sigh, he leaned over, putting on hand on her shoulder and whispering the place he was for five months. But that answer only arose more needed questions and a deeper mystery. It didn’t answer anything.

“Cowenberg Mental Hospital”

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