F This and F that

He wasn’t home and I had an awkward introduction to his aunt. She was a large woman with a turnt up nose. Her stringy gray hair was pulled back into a bun and she bluntly told me he was not home, he was at work. She didn’t look like Theo was related to her. She didn’t sound like Theo was related to her. I decided I did not like her and I doubted that Theo did. As soon as I could I left for Higgin’s diner.

Higgin’s wasn’t housing a genius either. He was not bussing from table to table in his apron and dishrack. A girl told me I could seat myself, but I ran out before she could grab me a menu.

Out of breath by the time I reached the power lines, I looked around, bent over my knees. In the crisp sunlight and stinging air that burned my lungs I could not see any movement. No sign of life.

“Theo!” I called. It echoed in the empty air desperately. “Theo!”

No sign of life.

The lake. I didn’t know how or why it came to me, only that it did. Only that the lake is the only place that made sense now. There he was.

He was chucking whatever he could get his hands on into the water. The fit of rage was still going strong and he swore to the high heavens. F**k this and f**k that, f**k everything and everyone. There was so much anger coursing through him it burned bright red on his skin. He didn't even notice I was there.

“F**k this stupid town! F**k this f*****g lake!” He whipped a rock from the shore into the waves. “It’s not f*****g cold enough!”

“Theo?” I dared to disturb him.

We met eyes. His shoulders heaved with every breath.

“Dana, don’t you dare say it,” he growled.

“What?” I moved cautiously towards him.

“Don’t tell me to calm down.”

“I wasn’t.”

That made him pause. I bent down picking up a rock from the shore. I toyed with it in my hand before glancing up to him.

“F**k everyone right Theodore?” With that I launched it into the water. The satisfying splash answered me.

Theo cracked a smile. With renewed fervor he began gathering more sand smoothed stones handing some to me.

“F**k this lake for not being cold enough,” he said and tossed one.

“F**k those kids at school for being douchebags,” I added.

“Yeah f**k Mark, because I can kick his a*s hands down.”

We spent twenty minutes telling the rest of the world to f**k off.

“F**k that guy for stabbing my mom,” he said exhausted by now.

“F**k my alcoholic father and junkie mom,” I said and traced swirling patterns in the sand. We sat down when we ran out of stones.

"F**k my big a*s aunt. She's a f*****g b***h." He laughed

"I don't even know what else there is to curse out. I think that's it. That's the most I've ever sworn in my life."

He smiled half-heartedly. “You have to feel something sometime. Anger works as well as anything.”

I nodded. “It seems so.”

“God we’re fucked.” He sighed. “I’ve ruined everything. F*****g Mark.”

“What?”

“Everything I’ve ever worked for is gone as soon as I hit him. I can hit him, but I can’t touch the guy who came into my house. I’ll never get into college. F**k.” He buried his face in his hands.

"Theo, I don't get what you're saying."

"All those AP classes, that job at Higgins, my piano, everything I've ever done to be better than what I am, and I get in a fight. I won't get a scholarship. I won't go to college. My mom will be a stripper for the rest of her life. God damn it. F**k!" He began to search for another rock.

"Theo no. That's not true. It's one fight and it could be excused. He provoked you. The school will understand." I tried to placate his rising anxiety.

"The school will understand? The school's gonna understand I'm an at-risk kid who blew his top because some guy called his stripper of a  mom a w***e. They don't understand s**t Dana. They'll tell me violence isn't the answer. A teacher would have helped you. Just go to the teachers, don't fix a problem when it happens, don't try to deal with your own s**t. Just go to the teachers who couldn’t give less of a f**k. I beat the living crap out of that kid. That's what they're gonna understand. I need a full ride if I wanna get out of this f*****g town Dana and I fucked it up. I had one chance to repay my mom." He faced away from me. His breathing was starting to come in shorter and shorter gasps.

"Repay her?"

"Don't you get it? I ruined her life. You know, she tells me she's so proud of me all the time. She loves me so much, but I'm the reason we lived in an alley. College, getting a good job, that's how I could've fixed it. I could buy her big a house to live in. Get maids so she wouldn't have to do anything. I'd get her everything she couldn't have because of me. I want to make such a fuss they put her in the stars," he said exasperated. "What can I give her now? A school full of kids who are gonna look at her like she's a piece of meat? This ratty house with her blood on the carpet and that guys fingerprints all over the wall? That's what I got. Its all I got."

"None of those guys are brave enough to ever say that to her."

"They said it to me," he said, not missing a beat. "God, I can see it on their face Dana! They're all thinking it."

"Derek doesn't. I don't."

"Derek does. He would have been right there with those guys if you and me weren't together."

"He would never say those things. I know him Theo," I insisted.

"I think you think too much of people. At least more than I do." He looked about, squinting from the evening light coming off the lake. "I got to go. My aunt will kill me if I'm any later."

"Are you coming tonight?" I asked as we stood.

"Don't think I am," he said. "Wouldn't want to bludgeon anyone else."

"Are you all right?"

"Not lately. See you tomorrow Dana."