Jason

Cool gray eyes skim the text message again. This one is more aggressive than the prior ones. Filled with audacity and selfishness. It takes a second to delete it. Blocking the numbers would probably stop this whole thing. However, there’s a bit of satisfaction in knowing they despise him blatantly ignoring them.

“Jason’s being weird again!”

He glances across the living room at his green-eyed friend. Typical of him to turn everything into a joke. Something about the taller male leaves him with nothing but more and more questions. Everyone is aware that he has quite the temper and yet only one person is always on the opposite end of it. Maybe shouldn’t continue to test the limits. This isn’t what makes him curious though. Rather, it’s the man’s ability to bounce back from a temper as if it never happened. He’s not like you. People actually care if something happens to him.

“Aaron, stop picking fights with Jason. Mitchie isn’t here to pull you off of anyone. Or to pull Jason off of you.”

“First of all, I don’t pick fights. They’re brought to me. Second, I could never pick a fight with Jason, because he doesn’t do anything worth being aggravated about.”

The person in question silently watches his friends go back and forth. Aaron’s six-three frame stretches along the sofa, while on the floor is the other— a mess of bright red hair spilling over the cream carpet. The two are back to watching a movie playing on the television. He’s not been paying attention to it since coming to sit with them. This is just an excuse to ignore the incessant vibrations coming from his cell phone. He can still feel copper eyes scrutinizing his face every so often. If it’s a reaction they’re looking for, they won’t get one. There’s very little that stirs the quietest member in the house.

“One of these days you’re going to piss him off.”

“And Alex will finally stop asking to get beat up by me. Shut up, Eijinn.”

Both spare Jason a quick glance. Expecting an answer or some kind of acknowledgment. When none is received, they resume watching the movie. Back to being the group’s biggest anomaly. Only a matter of time before they’re sick of me. His phone buzzes in his pocket. The vibration not as muffled by the brown armchair as well as he would like. Once again the two friends look over. Only one changes position to be fully sitting up.

“That Mitchie?”

“No, Aaron.”

“They’re still trying?”

It’s a small motion, his nod, but Eijinn gets the message anyway. The vocalist scrambles to mute the television in case the normally quiet man decides to answer. Two sets of eyes curiously watch him ignore the call three times

“Can I help you?”

Whoever is on the other end takes a moment to answer. The woman’s voice cracks as she begins screaming into the receiver at him. She’s out of breath by the sound of it. Not that he ever pays much attention to what she’s saying. In the background, her husband can be heard backing her up.

“Have you no respect?! I’m your mother! You’re only alive because of me! This is exactly why we wanted to keep—”

Not this shit again. Half a minute goes by when the device starts up again. On the screen is the name Jennifer. Some mother. If he’s honest this happens at least once a year. They call and text playing victim in his phone and then blow up when he ignores them. Making it seem like the choice they made when he was but an infant was his fault. With him ignoring her calls again he’s returned to texts, angry ones. Her husband is backing her up by calling from his phone.

“What do you want?”

“You’ve some nerve to hang up on your mother! You’re to apologize to her this very second.”

“If that’s why you called then I’m hanging up.”

“Just how long do you intend to be upset over a little mistake? It’s been—”

This time he blocks both numbers. They did say sorry. They also thought they left me for dead. His conscience goes quiet. Both things happen to be true. The apology is only because they were found out as far as he’s concerned. As a result, he’s beginning to repeat the process of recalling how he found out. Remembering how six-year-old him couldn’t sleep and went looking for his parents. Finding them in a discussion with a doctor friend of theirs. A man who knew to some extent about him, but not about the extent of their cruelty. It had been raining that night too. And none knew he was awake until his feeble body forced him to cough. Maybe he did. Maybe he wanted me to think he didn’t know.

He shakes the memory. Going that route will only make him more depressed. Therefore, he gets up and heads to the adjacent kitchen. With Mitchell, the group’s most responsible member, not being home the others may not attempt to look for food. Or if they do they’ll ruin it. Plus it’s his night to cook dinner. Rummaging through the cabinets and the pantry turns up nothing. Did they forget to buy groceries?

“Hey, we—”

“Don’t have food. We know. Mitchie’s buying groceries.”

Eijinn’s matter-of-fact tone spills out hastily. The way water does when a dam breaks. Suggesting that bringing it up is pointless. It takes quite an amount of energy to not attribute the unspoken agitation to himself. Tells himself it’s just the lack of alcohol causing the man to lash out the way he is. That’s typically the cause whenever it happens. At least he has a coping mechanism. Having one wouldn’t do me any good. Then you could at least kill yourself. Ya know, the way it was supposed to be from the beginning. For a second he freezes and then shudders. He can argue with himself as much as he wants. At the end of the day, he finds himself agreeing with those voices. That there will never be a space where he’ll belong or even be welcomed. That’s enough to shatter the glass behind his ribcage. The thing that should have shut down when he was still an infant per the ideation of the people who raised him. You’re not the child they wanted and you never will be.