Paul's Betrayal - An Excerpt from Micah's 45
Hi, this is Chapter 3 of my recently finished novel, Micah's 45. Though the novel is yet unpublished, I do have hopes that it will be someday. While this excerpt doesn't start at the beginning of the book, it is the chronological beginning of Micah's journey through friendship, betrayal, and redemption with Paul. Thanks for reading.
Chapter Three: Paul's Betrayal
I woke up late that day. Although my alarm went off at the same time it usually does, I hit the snooze button twice instead of once. I don't know why I was so tired that morning, but I heard the kids from my neighborhood laughing and talking outside my bedroom window. I snapped out of my morning stupor, practically fell out of bed, and struggled into a clean pair of jeans and a new shirt. As I grabbed my backpack and ran out the door, I caught the humor in Paul's eyes as he laughed at me slipping down the icy porch toward the bus line. Paul and I had been neighbors for many years. Although we had been best friends since early childhood, we became closer during my first year of middle school, when I moved into Paul's school district, within walking distance of his house. During summer vacations we spent a lot of time playing video games, riding bikes, and swimming at the local lake. During the school year, on the other hand, we sat together at lunch and hung out on the weekends.
Either way, we always sat together on the bus. It was a promise. I remember the day that we made that promise. I was scared because it was my first day at a new school; my family had just moved to the neighborhood. Paul was nervous because it was his first day of 6th grade, which meant he rode the bus with the high school students now. As neighbors and friends, we made a vow to protect each other from any awkward, lonely situations that might result from riding the school bus alone.
I didn't know that it was time for our vow be broken. I just sat down like I did every other day. Before I knew it I was in the middle of the aisle being laughed at by an entire busload of kids. I gave Paul a questioning glance as I stood up to find a new seat.
“You're making me a loser, Micah. Get lost.”
I must have found another suitable seat because I found myself in homeroom. As the shock started to pass, I found myself feeling more and more angry by the moment. What gave Paul the right to assume that I'm a loser? Or that I'm the person negatively affecting his precious reputation? What kind of reputation did he think he had anyway? He was just another kid known for getting into trouble. He was smart but he didn't apply himself nearly enough. He played a few sports but wasn't really a jock. His life plan was to get a job as a car mechanic and be a volunteer firefighter. He had other friends but I had never thought that they picked on him for his association with me. I guessed that maybe I was a loser because I was reputed to be a goody-two-shoes. So, just because I didn't go to every party and swear and talk about money, alcohol, and drugs, my best friend had the right to call me a loser in front of twenty other kids? The more I thought about it, the more angry I became. We had grown up together. My parents met his parents when we were both wearing diapers, before his mom became a single mom. We had been to daycare together; my parents joked about him being their 'future son-in-law' since we had learned to walk. I couldn't control my emotions. With the anger came rage and with the rage came a feeling of desolation that paled both the anger and rage. I could almost see the emotions rising and receding like the tides of a great ocean. Whenever I felt like I would drown in the rage, the tides of desolation came with a helpless peace. Someone cracked a joke, but I missed the punchline.
As I walked out of 11th grade homeroom, the teacher caught my arm.
“Are you alright, Micah. You look lost.”
As I looked into the teacher's eyes, I realized that I didn't even know her name. I made a note to look it up on my schedule. She cares, I thought. Eventually, my eyes dropped and I nodded before walking away. I'll tell her I'm OK tomorrow, I figured.
The bell ripped me from the tides passing through me. I realized that I was supposed to be in a class when I saw the hall monitor heading my way. As hard as I tried, I could not think of what class I should be in, where my locker was, or why the hall monitor was giving me an evil glare. Had the bell rang already? I slid into the accounting computer lab just as the teacher was sending his students to their stations for the latest assignment.
“Need a pass, Micah?” Mr. Walters asked.
“No,thanks, Mr. Walters. May I please just stay here for awhile?” I asked him, not for the first time. He seemed to understand that his room was a place where I felt safe, no matter what lay beyond his doors. Usually, I came to him during my study hall or lunch period, when I found that the voices of the other students were too loud, judgmental, or immature for my tastes. When the period bell rang and his class left, Mr. Walters asked if I needed anything. I told him that I was alright, I just couldn't remember what class I was supposed to be in. He pulled up a copy of my schedule and printed it out for me. He didn't seem too concerned that I had skipped my gym class, but he told me that Biology was an important subject and that I should get going or I would be late.
That's one thing I always liked about Mr. Walters. He never judges or lectures me. As an avid runner and coach of the baseball team, he could have tore me a new one for missing gym. But he didn't even give me a look of disappointment. Other times, when I told him the truth like “I visited with my friends too long and am going to be late for class,” he always gave me a late pass or free access to his classroom. I can tell him the complete truth and he never treats me any differently. I know he has a soft side for me. Maybe he relates to me in a way that he has never told me about, or maybe he respects me because I get good grades and genuinely seem to care about my own education.
I know he must have realized that something huge was on my mind, if over three-quarters into the school year, I suddenly couldn't remember where I was supposed to be or what books I needed. But he didn't pry, either.
I walked into the Biology room just as the bell rang and my teacher gave the class her usual look of disapproval.
“Get into your lab groups,” she said, “you'll be examining fetal pigs this week.”
After that I tuned her out. I sat with my two partners. I don't remember how we got to being partners, just that I wished we never had. I sit across the table from Hannah, next to Danica. Danica hits me playfully a few times to get my attention. I must have been really out of it because the next thing I knew I was on the floor for the second time that day. I picked my stool back up and pretended like nothing had happened. Unfortunately, it was too late and the teacher made her way to our station. After a lecture about the dangers of horseplay in the laboratory, she assigned the three of us an extra essay assignment and detention. As I was dissecting the pig, Hannah and Danica whispered about what could be wrong with me that week. I got a headache and realized that my ear was bleeding slightly.
“Did I hit my head when I fell?” I asked them.
“Who cares?” Danica asked.
“Yea, really Micah. You get us stuck in detention and all you care about is your ear? Hannah says.
I'm confused now because I realize the reason we got detention was that Danica hit me so hard that I fell off of my stool. I have the bruises to prove it. She does it quite frequently. I had thought about it before and even talked to her thoroughly about the source of her rage. Like me, she was an outcast. Unlike me, however, she had formalized plans to destroy the school and possibly the city if she was ever in the mood and could acquire willing partners. I guess she told me because she hoped that I could be one of the participants. I was afraid of her. But, as crazy as she was, she was also understanding. She didn't judge me based on what everyone else thought of me. And she had hopes for the future. She wanted to graduate and go to college to become a lawyer. I got the feeling that her anger and her creepy, bloody plans were only a way of seeking attention or protecting herself. If the rumor gets around that you're nuts enough to blow up the school, less of your peers are willing to mess with you. The first time we had been lab partners, I noticed some of the kids who usually bullied me shied away and left me alone. Eventually, people must have gotten the idea that we were forced to be partners though, because the reprieve didn't last forever.
I was reading the instructions to the lab assignment when I heard Hannah whispering again.
“Go die, Micah. Yea, that would be funny.”
I looked up. Bewildered, again.
“What did I do, now?” I wondered aloud.
“Nothing. But seriously, you should die anyway,” Hannah retorted, “We would all be better off that way.”
With barely a moment's hesitation, I grabbed the bathroom pass and walked out. Mr. Walters looks surprised to see me again, but I assume the lost and horrified look on my face convinced him not to send me back. After I handed him the biology bathroom pass, he ducked his head out the door and presumably returned the pass to my boorish teacher. I sat down at an empty computer and searched to see if Hannah was quoting lyrics, a poem, a really horrible joke. Nothing. It was all her.
I spent the next three periods looking for a song to play my family on Thursday. I got stuck between Kick in the Teeth by Papa Roach or Thank You by Simple Plan. I go over the lyrics to Kick in the Teeth with Mr. Walters standing beside me. Although Mr. Walters wants to say something, I could see him struggling to find the right words.
“You got in a fight with your lab partner?” He tries.
“A fight usually means that there are two sides to the story.” I muttered.
“And there wasn't two sides?” He asked.
I shake my head. He seems to understand, somehow. Maybe some of the faculty at our school were more in tuned to the bullying that walked our halls. Regardless, the ocean storm brewing and smashing about the beaches of my mind stayed strong, like the winds of a hurricane that never passes over land.
“Do you need lunch money, Micah?” At first, I thought the question came from one of the students in Mr. Walters' class. I guess Mr. Walters heard my stomach growling.
“No, thanks,” I said. I felt around for the coins jingling in my pocket, but I hadn't really felt hungry. Even with my stomach growling, the thought of eating made me want to vomit. He wrote me a pass, so I felt obligated to go. He was only trying to help.
I walked to the cafeteria with my head hung low, a look of rejection apparent in my eyes. I tried to remind myself that kids my age are immature idiots. As much as I wanted to believe it, I could not help feeling mistreated and unappreciated. For crying out loud, I had been doing the lab assignments by myself while Hannah and Danica watched and gossiped. They got A's on every lab assignment because I did all of the work. Not to mention the ridiculousness of this morning's bus charade with Paul.
I plugged my headphones into my ears as I got closer to the cafeteria. I thought that if I couldn't hear what the other teenagers were saying, maybe I could ignore them easier.
As I got closer to the lunch line, I realized that I was stuck with quite the predicament. I could go and stand in line behind Paul and his friends, or I could turn around and face the wrath of the hall monitor. Since I already had detention, I could face in-school suspension if I turned around. I managed to hang my head low enough to only glimpse Paul and his crew in my peripheral vision. He looked my way and turned back to his friends as if I was just another student he had never met. As if he had never collapsed in my doorway crying when his Mother threatened to send him to an orphanage. As if I had never wrapped my arms around him and told him that everything would be OK, that he could live with my family, that he could be my best friend and my brother.
But I guess his actions were pretty much as I expected. I cannot really say that I was disappointed. If he had apologized, I might have cried in front of all of his friends and embarrassed us both. But I also figured that if he had tried to pretend it never happened and was friendly, then I would probably blow a fuse, based on the raging tides I had been fighting throughout the day. So, my best guess was that nothing would occur between us and that that would be the best option. Except, there is a reason for that semi-vulgar phrase about what assumptions make us.
As I was wallowing in my own misery, Paul's friends came over to me one by one, with Landon in the lead. I didn't notice Landon coming toward me at first. As he slapped my mp3 player out of my hands, he raised his foot as if to crush it in one blow. Luckily for me, my reflexes were fast enough that I swiped the mp3 player out from under his raised foot. Before I got the chance to come to my full height, however, Landon had descended upon me like flies gravitate towards the smelly corners of my little brother's bedroom. He slammed my body into the concrete wall with force disproportional to the weight of my body hanging limply from the collar in his fist.
As I struggled to gain freedom, Paul's friends and another few boys I hadn't met surrounded me with a look I have never seen humans take. It was the look of ravenous monsters from myths and urban legends older than time. The look of hungry wolves in nature documentaries. Or of Dracula, in the old black and white movies, just as he is about to bite the neck of a stunning woman. Landon made a swift upper-cut punch to my lower stomach. It hurt enough to knock the wind out of me. Another boy gave me a sharp fist to the nose to shut me up quickly while Landon groped me.
“Feel's nice, Micah. But you wouldn't know would you. We don't need your kind around here, and we certainly don't want your kind around here.”
“What kind is that, Landon?” I wheezed while shoving his hands away from places they don't belong.
“Dikes. Butches.” He sneered. “Paul told me all about you. He told me how you wear men's clothes to bed.” “How you didn't want to be his girlfriend.” Landon whispered in my ear.
I was going to say that Paul had never said anything. That we had never talked about it. Sure, we had joked about it as little kids, but I hadn't really thought about it lately. I mean, I had briefly wondered about it a few years back but didn't want to freak Paul out. We had been best friends our entire lives and to lose that over a middle school crush would be devastating. As I opened my mouth to tell Paul this, a boy named Steven put his hand over my mouth. I bit him and called for Paul.
“No,” Landon yelled over me, “You're done talking to him. We don't hang out with ugly dikes!”
I knew in my mind that his logic made absolutely no sense, I was wearing a dress and makeup with my hair down, maybe not beautiful but definitely not butchy. I liked to think I was at least cute or kind of pretty. But something snapped inside of me. Quick judgments, physical violation, and harsh words all culminated into one solitary moment in my life. A moment where I didn't know what to do. I looked to Paul, my best friend, a person I trusted. The boy that had once promised never to leave me in an awkward social situation was now standing by the wayside as his friends humiliated and judged me over a lie that he had told them. Paul never asked me out, nor had I ever given him the impression that I would have turned him down if he had.
And in that solitary moment, I made my own snap decision. I punched Landon so hard, with a legal kickboxing punch, that I knocked him backwards off of me. He finally dropped my collar and I took a few tentative steps away from the crowd of boys surrounding me. All of the things that I wanted to say were forgotten in the anger that overcame me. I scowled at Paul and shook my head. A look of shock and maybe guilt passed over his face. And as the eye of the storm finally passed and the winds and waters picked back up, I knew there was no way I could tread water any longer. My entire body shook with rage. Rage at my own powerlessness in the situation. Rage at my frustration over the events of the day. Time seemed to expand and contract at its own will. Before I knew what had happened my body spun in a swift circle, and the full force of that circle ended at my wrist. My fist hit the concrete wall so hard that the sickening crack of bone echoed down the corridor. Although I had stumbled quite the distance from the boys, I could hear their thin gasps of disgust as they realized what I had done.
Although I had previously been fearful of the hall monitor's retribution, I no longer cared. As my entire body continued to shake with the effort of holding back tears for my lost friendship, I fumbled along to the nurses office. When I got there, the nurse practically shoved me onto a plastic bed to examine my hand. The nurses assistant tried to ask me my name and grade but I wasn't exactly in a helpful mood. You really can't talk if you can't breath. I didn't contemplate if my lack of breathing resulted from shock at what I had done, the pain radiating through my wrist, or the obnoxious amounts of emotion wracking my body. Eventually, the nurse and her assistant gave up. Apparently, the arrival of a whiny boy with a broken nose disrupted their attention. I took the only chance I saw and slipped out of the nurse's office.
The nurse had said something about x-rays. I figured I could walk the three blocks to the hospital rather than bothering my parents to come and pick me up. The school wasn't overly security conscious and I didn't really want to hear any lectures at the moment. Plus, I figured I would have until dinner before the worried text messages would start arriving. It was Thursday after all, kickboxing in the afternoon and family time in the evening. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the first thing hospitals do for an injured minor is call their parent or guardian.
“How convenient,” I grumbled at the attending nurse. I think it was at that exact moment that I decided on Thank You, instead of Kick in the Teeth for that evening's song.
I really hoped that those lyrics could be the entire extent of my explanations and excuses. If they could just take away that someone I trusted had hurt me, then nothing else would have to be said. Right?
“Please don't make me lie to them,” I prayed.
But there was no lying to be done. Although I didn't know it, Landon had already told the school nurse that I had hit him. He didn't tell her that he attacked me or that he called me names and felt me up, but he did manage to tell her that I had hit him.
