It took quite a while for my wounds to heal. It took me almost a week and a half just to be able to start getting out and being more active. School was a bit difficult as well. I wasn’t able to go to school during that time, so I had to have Daisy grab all my homework. My English teacher also came over every second night to help me out with my English work. That was my most important course and I needed it for university, so I was happy she was willing to do that. She was concerned when she saw how much pain I was in, but thankfully she didn’t ask too many questions about it.
My parents were also shockingly nice to me all week. Mum even took the first couple days of the week off work to help me out. There were a couple times I got on her nerves, but she was managing to keep herself calm. Not once did she yell at me. I could tell she wanted to, but she didn’t.
My biggest issue was school. When I started going back to school again, I was still in a bit of pain, which led to me being more of a target when it came to bullying. The other guys were constantly yanking out the elastic in my hair and would occasionally give me a slap on the back and tell me to man up. As one could imagine, the slap hurt like a bitch. If Daisy was near, she would go off at them. She couldn’t stand how they treated me.
By the time I was completely healed, it was time for graduation. There was always a big ceremony for grads. I knew Daisy wanted to come, but I wasn’t too sure if Mum and Dad were. I didn’t really expect them to, but part of me secretly hoped they would. But seeing as they weren’t even talking about it, I figured they wouldn’t. I didn’t bother asking either. I didn’t need to cause another argument.
JUNE 2003
Graduation came up really fast. Before I knew it, all the grads were behind the stage waiting to be called up on stage to get their diploma. Everyone was super nervous about the whole thing. They wanted to look perfect for the photo their parents would be taking once they got on stage. Most of their parents were coming. For them, it was a proud moment in their lives to see their child graduate. And even if their parents couldn’t or wouldn’t come, they always had someone else who would gladly come in their place. Except me. I didn’t even know if Daisy would be there. She had no way of getting there unless Mum or Dad drove her. So unless Mum or Dad decided to come, then nobody would be out there waiting for me. So what would I have to be anxious about?
“Kevin Hutcherson!” I heard my name called and ran up onto the stage. I met the principal in the middle who gave me my diploma. We then turned towards the audience of parents and smiled long enough for a photo if there would be one. I gave the audience a very pathetic half smile. Then suddenly there was a camera flash in the crowd. I looked to see where it came from and almost gasped when I saw Grammy, Grampy and Daisy in the back of the crowd. I was shocked. The minute the graduation ceremony was done, I ran out to the crowd to find them. I found them waiting for me in the back.
“I didn’t know you guys were coming!” I exclaimed when I met up with them.
“We noticed!” Grammy laughed. She showed me the photo she took of me on stage. I looked tired and my half smile was barely even showing. “The look on your face says it all!”
“You really didn’t think I wouldn’t find my way here?” Daisy smiled. “I’m not missing out on my big brother's graduation!”
“Aw, you guys!” I was so happy I was tearing up. We had a big group hug before heading home. When we got home, I saw that Daisy had decorated my room a little bit. She put up a little handmade banner saying ‘happy graduation’, and also put up some balloons. Grammy had even got a cake for the occasion.
“I know it’s not much, but I figured we could celebrate a bit.” Daisy smiled.
“Not much??” I said, ready to tear up again. “My god, you have no idea how much this means to me!”
Yet again, we had another group hug, and went on to celebrate a bit. Mum wasn’t too happy about the whole thing, but she didn’t stop us. Dad didn’t mind. He got to chat with Grampy so he was happy. He even joined us for a bit. Meanwhile, Grammy, Daisy and I fooled around playing board games in my room whilst eating the cake Grammy got. For a graduation that I thought wouldn’t go well at all, it went way better than I expected.
--
JULY 2003
Summer was in full swing. It didn’t get too hot in Belgium, but it was hot enough for the family to head to the beach quite often. I loved the beach, but I usually didn’t get to go. Mum always had so much work for me to do that I could never make it. And if I did manage to go, I had to be careful about my back. I hated swimming with my shirt on, so I had this rule of always having to cover up once I got out of the water. Mum wanted to protect herself and if I had my wounds out for the world to see, she knew she would be getting told off for child abuse. Obviously she didn’t want that, so I had to keep my back covered. Especially with such new wounds.
One lucky day, I did manage to get out to the beach. Daisy was super hyped I got to tag along for once. She loved the beach. She wasn’t much of a swimmer. She preferred sitting on the beach and just chilling out.
Once we got to the beach, Daisy and I both ran straight into the water. We also both squealed when we felt how cold the water was.
“Jeez this is cold!!” Daisy said with a laugh.
“No joke.”
“On the count of three we go completely in.” Daisy grinned. We were almost waist deep. We were both being wimps and didn’t want to submerge all the way.
“Alright.” I prepared myself for the ice cold water. Daisy counted down, and when she got to three, we both went underwater for a couple seconds. The water was freaking cold!! We popped our heads out of the water and laughed at each other's new hair styles. I looked like I had a bowl cut and Daisy had straight hair for once. Normally her hair was very curly and it wasn’t often I saw it straighten out.
“The water isn’t so bad once you're in it.” Daisy laughed as she floated around.
“Lies.” I was freezing. “It’s cold!”
“Really? It’s actually not too bad for me.”
“Lucky.”
I was only able to stay in the water for 20 minutes before I had to get out. My hands and feet were going numb from the cold and I wasn’t up for spending more time freezing my butt off. I got out of the water, and headed over to the area we set everything up. Mum and Dad were there sitting in beach chairs relaxing in the sun.
“Cover up.” Mum threw my towel at me. Quickly, I pulled it over my back and sat down on the sand.
Daisy came out of the water a little while after. She grabbed her towel, grabbed some snacks from the cooler, and then sat down next to me.
“Want one?” Daisy offered some crackers. I happily took one.
“Well, whatcha wanna do?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Chill out.”
“I’m down.” I laughed. I laid back in the sand and relaxed a bit.
“So, uh, whatcha doing about the whole Toronto thing?” Daisy asked in English. If we ever needed to talk about something private with Mum and Dad around, we spoke in English. They didn’t know a word of English but Daisy and I could speak English very fluently. Daisy could also speak French fluently, and I could understand it a bit. We had learned the extra languages in school which turned out to work in our favor. Most people in Belgium could speak German and English, except the select few who only knew German. Mum and Dad were one of those few. So of course it was perfect for talking in secret.
“Well obviously I’m not going.” I said. “Mum would actually kill me.”
“I suppose you’re right. So you’re going to the nearby university?”
“Guess so. Maybe it won’t be too bad. I’m hoping university will keep me busy enough Mum won’t be able to bug me.”
“We can only hope.”
“I mean, I would hope after university, they would let me move.” I sighed. “They can’t keep me there forever. I guess 4 more years isn’t that bad.”
“That’s what you think-”
“What are you two talking about over there?” Mum butted in. She had been trying to understand what we were talking about, but she couldn’t and it was bugging her.
“Nothing.” Daisy replied.
“If it’s nothing then speak in German.” Mum rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid. You two always talk in English when you’re hiding something.”
“Alright, alright.” Daisy rolled her eyes. “You caught us. We were telling each other fun facts. Did you know geckos lick their eyeballs to keep them clean? Oh!! Kevin was also telling me about how ducks have really big whooha’s-”
“Alright!! Geez!! I heard enough!”
Daisy and I burst out laughing. Even Dad chuckled a bit. It was always funny when she pulled an attitude with Mum and was able to get away with it.
“Wanna go for a walk?” Daisy asked. “Just down the beach?”
“Sure.”
We got up and took a small stroll down the beach. Both of us were on the lookout for sea glass while we walked. Daisy had a small jar of the stuff in her room that she collected over the years, and she was always happy to add to her collection. Her favourite was the huge chunks of blue glass. It was one of the rare colors she would find. She had a lot of green and brown glass, but not much blue.
We headed quite a ways down the beach before turning around. We didn’t find any glass, which Daisy was saddened by. I wanted her to go home with at least one new shard for her collection so I kept an extra special eye out as we walked back to where we had our stuff. We were close to our parents when I spotted a medium sized blue shard of glass.
“Daisy!” I said happily as I bent down to pick it up. “Look what I found!”
Daisy’s eyes lit up almost immediately. “Oh!! It’s blue too!!”
The smile on her face was huge. But only for a moment. Suddenly she frowned.
“Oh no.” She said quietly.
“Hm?” I didn’t know what was up.
“Cover up your back, Kevin.” Daisy said with a hint of urgency. I looked at her in confusion before realizing what she meant. When I had bent down to pick up the glass, the towel slipped off my back just enough that the nearby family could see the wounds on my back very clearly. And they didn’t make it any secret that they were staring. Quickly, I pulled my towel up to cover my back again.
“They look like the type to confront Mum and Dad about this.” I said. “What do we do?”
“Let’s take another walk down the beach.” Daisy suggested. “And hopefully by the time we come back they’ll forget about this. The last thing we need is for them to go up to Mum and Dad and mention it.”
“No kidding.” I mumbled.
We took a second walk down the beach, and by the time we returned back, we thought the family had forgotten about everything. We brushed it off, and sat down with our parents.
“Good walk?” Mum asked.
“Must’ve been.” Dad chuckled. “You two went twice!”
“Yea, it’s nice.” Daisy laughed nervously. “Gotta get some exercise you know.”
“Exercise is good.” Dad laughed. “That’s fair.”
“Obviously I could use a bit more of it-” Daisy joked. I gave her a nudge and she giggled. She joked about her weight a lot, and I bugged her a lot about that habit.
“Excuse me?” A lady came up to Mum. Daisy and I almost screamed. It was the mother from the family that had seen my wounds earlier. Shit.
“Yes?” Mum looked up and put on a smile. “Can I help you?”
The lady looked over at me before looking back at Mum to continue speaking.
“Is that your son over there?” She pointed at me.
“Sadly, yes.” Mum grumbled before laughing and playing it off as a joke. “Why?”
“See, I just happened to notice there were some major wounds on his back and I was wondering if you knew about them?”
Mum looked completely taken aback.
“I, uh, w-what??” Mum spluttered. “Are you suggesting I abuse him??”
“Well, yes and no.” The lady said. She didn’t look afraid to tell Mum off at all. “Odd you would jump to that conclusion.”
“That’s what you were implying!” Mum defended herself. “Do I look like I would abuse my children??”
“So could you please explain the wounds?”
“It was an accident that happened!”
“Please do go on.”
“I-”
“Him and I were fooling around near a barb wire fence and he accidentally got caught in it, and it tore his back up.” Daisy butted in. “That’s what happened. He’s just been covering up just in case someone would think it’s abuse. Especially since it’s a fairly recent accident.”
The lady looked suspicious still. She looked over at Mum who was looking at Daisy with surprise.
“Yes, that.” Mum said. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we are leaving. I’m not hanging around to have some women tell me I’m abusing my children!”
Mum got up and signalled us to grab our stuff. We quickly grabbed all our stuff and left the beach. The woman stood there dumbfounded the entire time we packed our stuff and headed to the car.
It was a very quiet ride home. Mum was fuming, and nobody wanted to set her off. The minute we got home, Mum immediately snapped. She stormed out of the car, slamming the door behind her. I thought she was heading inside, but instead she headed right to me. She grabbed me by my hair and yanked me out of the car.
“You just couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you boy?!” She dragged me out of the car and into the house by my hair.
“Mum! You’re gonna hurt him!” Daisy cried. “Leave him alone! It wasn’t his fault!”
“Then who’s was it?!” Mum yelled back.
“Nobody’s!!” Daisy yelled. “It was an accident!! He bent down to look at something and-”
“I don’t want to hear it! It doesn’t matter what happened! Either way it almost got me in some serious trouble!!”
“AND YOU KNOW WHAT?! YOU DESERVE IT!!” Daisy screamed angrily. Mum stopped in her tracks. She let go of my hair, let me fall to the floor and slowly turned around to face Daisy. The look on her face said it all. She was clearly stunned. But she also looked hurt. Very hurt. Daisy kept glared at her.
“I… I…” Mum couldn’t even manage a sentence. She eventually gave up and just quietly went to her room. Dad scuttled by not too soon after to go check on her. I remained on the floor, and Daisy stood in the same spot for a little while.
“Shit…” She mumbled. “I really just said that didn’t I?”
“Yea… you did…” I mumbled. “And you really upset her…”
“I see that… I probably shouldn’t have said that…”
“Probably not.” I sighed. “I’m, uh, going to go to bed I think.”
“Yea, I’d lay low for a bit.” Daisy muttered. “There might be a shit storm later.”
I nodded and headed to bed. If there was going to be an argument later, I didn’t want to be a part of it.
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