February 2003
Fast forward years later, and Daisy and I were both in high school. I was in grade 12, whilst she was in grade 10. I was happy to be close to finishing school. Once I graduated, my plan was to move out of the house, and fly down to Canada. I had saved up all my money I had earned through small jobs throughout the years. I had enough for a plane ticket, and for at least one month's rent for a place in Toronto, which is where I wanted to fly to.
My plan was kept a secret from my parents because I knew they wouldn't approve. They didn't think I was capable of doing anything, especially not flying out to Canada and living in a half decent place. Mum wanted me to stay in Belgium, and go to university. She thought if I went to university, and took the good courses, I'd be able to get a half decent job, and actually make myself useful in the world. Dad didn’t seem to mind if I wanted to move out a little further, but I knew Canada was too far even for him. Surprisingly, they were willing to pay for the expenses of university. I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t going to fight with them.
Mum wasn’t so happy about me wanting to become a writer, or an editor, but despite that, she said she would still pay for it. Dad thought writing fit me perfectly and supported it. Just to keep them happy, I enrolled into a nearby university, and got accepted. I was just waiting to pay the acceptance deposit to finalize things. I didn't want to pay it too early, just in case I was able to go through with my plan. Things usually didn't work out for me, so I just wanted to be safe. It was only halfway through the school year anyways.
"Hey Kevin!" Daisy ran up to me from behind. It was our lunch break, and I was just roaming the hallway. My friend Alex was stuck in detention, so I didn't have anyone to hang around with.
"Hey, Daisy." I smiled. "What's up?"
"Not much. You excited for the water day tomorrow?"
"Oh yea." I said. The next day was water day. The school was going to be going down to the nearby aquatic center for the afternoon for a good time. "It's gonna be fun. Alex challenged me to the water course."
"Ooo! I bet you'll win!" Daisy said happily. At the aquatic center, they always put up this blow up course in one of the deep lap pools. It was loads of fun, but slippery as heck.
"Pft. Alex is sporty. I doubt I'll be winning."
"Oh well. Anywho! Did you get lunch?"
"Nope." I sighed. "Mum didn't give me any time to grab anything. She wanted the bathrooms cleaned."
"Of course." Daisy rolled her eyes. "I swear, she's gotta start treating you right. No wonder you're so thin."
"Just wait until I move out." I joked. "You won't even recognize me. I'll be 200lbs heavier!"
"Ha! Sure, Mr fast metabolism." Daisy said. "We all know you have Dad's metabolism. I've got Mum's. Obviously."
"Nothing wrong with that." I hummed.
"Anyways, I figured Mum would've kept you busy, so I brought you lunch." Daisy said as she handed me a sandwich that was in a little baggie.
"Oh, thanks!!" I smiled. It always made my day how Daisy went out of her way for me like that. “You got lunch too, right? I don’t want you giving me your lunch like you’ve done before.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Daisy smiled. “I’m all good.”
“You're my favorite sister.”
“I’m your only sister, Kevin.”
I laughed. I told her she was my favorite quite a bit and she always replied with that.
The next day was water day, and as usual, Daisy met up with me at lunch hour to give me lunch. I was a bit worried she gave me her lunch because Mum was in a pissy mood that morning, and I doubted she would’ve let Daisy make lunch for me. But, Daisy said she was all good, so I didn’t think much of it.
Later, the school headed down to the local aquatic center. Everyone was hyped to have a couple hours of swimming instead of classes. The changing room was quickly emptying out because people were determined to get in as much swim time as possible. I was chatting with my friend Alex, so I still hadn’t changed.
“Well!” Alex smiled. “We should get going, yea?”
“Sure.” I said. “I’m just gonna change real quick.”
I was already wearing my swim trunks, so I just had to yank off my shirt. I was in the process of doing so, when someone grabbed the elastic in my hair, and yanked it out. I almost always had my hair in a ponytail, and people thought it was just hilarious pulling the elastic out. I just groaned, and looked behind me to see who pulled it out. Of course it was one of the jocks. What a shocker.
“Can I please have the elastic back?” I asked politely.
“EEE! A girl got in!” Someone else faked a dramatic scream. “Get her out of here!”
Another joke people thought was funny was calling me a girl. With my personality and long hair, it was pretty obvious I was more feminine than masculine. The only reason I was that way was because of how I was being raised. Having parents that only wanted female children made me try and fit that mold. But of course, they didn’t know that.
“Get her out!! Shoo!” Someone else squealed. Before I knew it, they were shoving me around. I wasn’t exactly strong, so I didn’t have much to fight back with. They were getting really physical, and it scared me. But then someone grabbed me by the shoulders, and whipped me around so my back was facing everyone.
“Look! What a freak!!”
“Ew!!”
My heart sunk. I knew what they were talking about. I had scars on my back from being hit with a belt. Normally I didn’t mind being shirtless when they were healed, but I guess I forgot how brutal teen boys were. I went to go grab my stuff and get out of there, but noticed it wasn’t there. I looked around for my stuff and noticed Alex had it. I sighed in relief. He was on my side. Or so I thought.
“Looking for this?” He smirked.
“Yea, uh, can I please have it?” I asked. I was getting a bad feeling.
“Sure.” He smiled before tossing it into a nearby water puddle on the floor. I scuttled over to my stuff and tried to get it before it got too wet. He had thrown my whole bag of stuff in the puddle, which contained my phone, clothes, and some of Daisy’s drawings for me. Daisy spent a lot of time doodling in class and would usually give them to me. They accumulated in my bag because I kept forgetting to put them up in my room. As my luck would have it, the drawings fell out, and the boys laughed their asses off at me.
“Aw look!! He keeps his sisters doodles!”
“What are you? Twelve?!”
“Man up!”
Everyone roared with laughter as I tried to grab my stuff. I was still in shock that Alex would do such a thing! He knew how important the drawings were to me, and he also knew my parents weren’t going to buy me another phone if I ruined the one I had! He was with the group of boys, laughing and pointing at me. Quickly, I grabbed my stuff, I ran out of there as fast as I could. Turns out, running on a wet floor was a bad idea. I slipped, and fell face first against a bench. It felt like I had cracked my skull open, but nobody saw any importance in coming to help me. They just laughed more. Trying not to cry from the pain, I struggled to get up, and got out of there.
There was a bench right outside of the changing room. I practically fell onto it once I got out of there. I was shaking really badly, and was worried about how hard I had hit my head. I ran my fingers over where it had hit, and it stung horribly. Thankfully there was no blood. I figured I’d get a black eye and a pretty big bump. With a sigh, I pulled my soaked shirt out of my bag and put it on. I then checked my phone. Luckily, it had only gotten a bit of water on it, and still worked perfectly fine. Only some of Daisy’s doodles were dry. Most of them were completely soaked and ruined.
I sat on the bench for quite a bit. Nobody stopped to make sure I was ok. Nobody even noticed I was trying not to cry. I debated calling Mum and seeing if she would pick me up. I quickly decided against even trying. Of course she wouldn’t. So I just sat there and waited for the hours to pass. So much for having a fun time.
Almost an hour later, I saw Daisy come out of the girls changing room. She did not look good. She was completely pale, and looked very shaky.
“Daisy??” I got up and ran over to her. “What’s wrong??”
“Kevin?” She looked shocked to see me. “Why aren’t you swimming? And what happened to your face??”
“That’s besides the point.” I said. “What’s going on??”
“I, uh, almost passed out.” Daisy admitted. “A teacher made me call Mum, so she’s coming to pick me up.”
“Any reason why you almost passed out?”
“Well, I might’ve given you my lunch.” Daisy said quietly as she looked down at her feet. Daisy happened to have problems with her blood sugars where they dropped quite quickly. Mum had tried to get a doctor to figure out why that was, but they never found anything. I had a bit of the same issue, but it wasn’t as bad as Daisy’s.
“Daisy!!” I cried. “You shouldn’t have done that!! You need to eat too, you know!”
“I know… I just thought since you didn’t get to eat today that you needed it more than I did... “
I sighed. “Please don’t ever do that again. I don’t want to take your lunch.”
“Ugh… I just wish Mum gave you time in the morning to get a proper meal in… It’s not fair.”
“I’ll survive.”
“Anywho.” Daisy looked up at my face. “What happened to your face-”
“Daisy!!” Mum interrupted her, and came speed walking down the hallway. “Oh dear, you look awful!!”
I got out of Mum’s way, and she ignored me as she gave Daisy a hug.
“Did you get something to eat? Or to drink? Do you still feel like you’re going to pass out?”
“Mum, I’m ok.” Daisy said shakily. She was still a bit shaky. “I just need to get something to eat and drink, and I’ll be ok.”
Mum let go of Daisy and looked at her with concern. “Goodness, you’re pale! Here, I brought you something to eat.”
She pulled out a snack bar, and a bottle of Gatorade and handed them to Daisy.
“Thanks.” Daisy smiled.
“I don’t know what you were thinking!” Mum said. “Why wouldn’t you eat your lunch? What did you do with it??”
“Uh…” Daisy knew better than to answer that one.
“She gave it to me.” I spoke up. It was bound to come out sooner or later. Mum turned my way and looked at me with a great amount of disgust.
“You took her lunch.”
“No, no!!” Daisy intervened. “I gave it to him!! He wasn’t looking too good and I thought since we were going swimming he would need it!”
Mum glared at me before rolling her eyes. “Fine. So why aren’t you swimming then, hm?”
“She’s got a point.” Daisy pointed out. “Why aren’t you swimming?”
“Uh…” I really didn’t want to admit to what happened.
“And what happened to your face?” Mum demanded to know. “You look like someone beat the shit out of you.”
“It’s really nothing.” I mumbled. “It was just an accident and I slipped. It’s nothing.”
“Clutz.” Mum scoffed. She turned around and started walking. “Come on Daisy. Let’s get you home so you can rest.”
“Coming.” Daisy followed Mum. Once again, I was being left behind. Mum wasn’t in a good mood, and I wasn’t about to make it worse by asking if she could drive me home too. I just went back to sitting on the bench I was previously on, and waited for the day to be over.
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