Chapter 1: Xavier
There’s no such thing as a normal day in my life. I swear to all God there isn’t, maybe a day where it’s relatively normal, but never the real deal. But is normal really the type of life that a person wants, because, in my eyes, it gets boring. For me, though I smile, things hurt, my heart hurts and feels heavy in my chest where it used to beat erratically with the thought of one girl, Amaya Santana Wolff.
She’s with Shawn now, and I pushed them together, me and me alone.
I’m happy for them, I truly am, because they make up each other’s home and I can’t imagine life without my nephew, Aaron, who makes me smile and laugh in ways I never thought I could. He’s a sweet boy that I swear has to be sent from heaven even though he has his moments where he’s mean, but he’s only four and hasn’t really developed control over it.
Aaron also happens to be one of the only people I feel like I can show how messed up I feel around because my problems seem so minor compared to half of my friends.
“What do you want to say, Shawn?” I ask when I start to look up to my brother, his hand moving through his hair like it always does when he’s either nervous or thinking too hard about something.
I figure he’d have something to say when I started to pay closer attention to the conversation going on at the lunch table today: the problems in our lives that partially tear us apart. Ace, the newest kid to the school that I can recall, told us his last words to his father before he was taken and killed, he thinks it has something to do with Derrick which I wouldn’t put past him.
Derrick is Jonah and Amaya’s step-dad that beats on them like there’s no tomorrow and forced them into being Panthers, his gang that has placed them in some difficult positions. Also one of the reasons I feel like I can’t exactly talk about my problems.
“What do you mean?” Shawn pulls that damn line, trying to make his voice seem like he’s all confused, but he knows exactly what I’m talking about.
“Don’t pull that bull on me, I’ve known you since I was born. You’re my brother, there’s something you’re hiding and want to admit. It’s written on your face and the way you’re running your hand through your hair. What’s going through your head?” Shawn sighs but doesn’t make eye-contact with me.
“The day Dad fully left us, it just keeps running through my head. Especially now that you guys are admitting to well, why our lives are complex, partially anyway, but that day runs through my head. The last thing I said to him. The last words we talked to each other in general. It’s all in my head,” Shawn admits before I find myself freezing.
Shawn never speaks about Dad, and he hasn’t said anything about thinking about him either, at least not to me.
I don’t talk about Dad either, but I think it’s because he’s still breaking my heart. Every single time I think about him, I can’t help thinking he’s the second one that abandoned me, that eventually everyone else is going to realize how much I’ve fucked up their lives too.
Shawn and I have different mothers because of our dad cheating on the woman I now call Mom. My birth-mother was nineteen and he was twenty-one, she gave me up on my third day in this world. Mom raises me as her own, she told me when I found out about being given up that she was happy to have me in her life, that no matter what I’m her son and nothing could possibly change that.
“What were your last words to him, hope it wasn’t like mine,” Ace mumbles the last part.
“I found out he was leaving before anyone else, he was trying to get out of the house and just leave a damn note. All of his bags were packed and while Xavier and Mom were out I went over to Amaya’s and ended up coming home early, just in time to catch him taking all his shit.
“I started yelling at him and asked where the hell he was going and what made him think it was alright to break Mom’s heart. He said he felt trapped with us and wasn’t going to be here anymore. When I tried stopping him he shoved me out the way and left us.” Shawn blows out a breath with his nose slightly flared.
The anger and hurt are clear on his face, leaving him vulnerable.
“I told him to never fucking come back or I’d hurt him. I was kinda big back then and could’ve done damage if I wanted to but he didn’t really care, instead, he forced me away. That’s the last time I talked to him face to face in the past five years but he was calling and stopped doing that three years back.” I bite down on my lip before nodding.
I’m glad I wasn’t there when he walked out, I would’ve broken down and begged him not to, even though he was gone long before then.
“My last words to Dad were you don’t know anything about my life so stop trying to pry into shit you don’t understand,” Ace says, his voice is emotionless.
All the eyes at the table fall on him.
Well damn, never thought Ace could say something like that.
“What happened to make you say that?” Dylan asks the question we all must be wondering.
“The kids in my old school, they jumped me in front of the building because they didn’t like my shoes. They beat me until I was spitting up blood and could barely stand, blood was in my hair too. Not only did they end up beating me up but they broke the guitar my mom had brought me for my birthday.” Jesus, where was he going to school? That’s an awful lot.
“I took it to school to play with the music teacher because he said that I was good and wanted to see just how good. They even used it to beat me. The school ended up calling Dad and he picked me up with the broken guitar. He kept asking me what happened but I refused to say anything because I never told him about the bullying, when he wouldn’t quit asking I yelled what I yelled to him.” His voice gives away how guilty he feels on the inside for the words.
“That same night he went out to buy me a new guitar and placed it down in my room while I was asleep, and that same night he just so happened to have gone out and was taken…” That’s when Ace just stops talking while looking down at his hands once again before he balls them into fists. “I was so damn stupid, I shouldn’t have snapped at him. I never was able to apologize either.” Another tear streams down his cheek before Amaya pulls him into a side-hug, allowing him to cry on her shoulder.
“I know how you feel. The guitar I have belonged to my dad, he left it behind for me to have for when I was older. He wrote for Amaya on it since I used to beg him to play all the time and whenever he did I would sit there silently and just watch. I never got to say anything to him.” Amaya sniffles before wiping at her now watering eyes which makes all of this worse.
She barely ever allows herself to cry.
“I wonder if he forgives me,” Ace says to each of us.
Amaya lets go of him, taking a look at the rest of us at the table.
“Of course he forgives you, you had just gotten your ass kicked by some bullies at school and he’s your dad. He’ll forgive you no matter what you do. And now he’s looking down at you and probably saying it now,” Dylan says while staring down at his cross.
He hasn’t stopped wearing it since his mother passed away when he was seven, even when he realized that he was gay. I’m glad he ignores the comments people make about gay people not being loved by God, he’s still got his relationship with the big guy upstairs.
He’s still in the closet though, and I’m the only one that knows about that and the fact that he’s in love with Cody Asher, another guy in the friend group. That’s a secret that might get out sooner than he realizes since he’s not that good at hiding it, neither is Cody, I think they’ll be together eventually if they open their eyes, but that’s a personal opinion.
Dylan places the cross down to instead lift up the chain with his name engraved in medium-sized gold letters, possibly thinking about how it used to hang around his mother’s neck too.
“Thanks,” Ace whispers.
“What’d we tell you, you’re cool with us,” Jonah says to him with a sad smile.
Amaya looks to Shawn who has a sad smile spread across his face before he nods to the previously said statement. Ace is cool with us. Then they make eye-contact and he nods to her, causing her to bite down on her lip and look at him in the ways that I am still coming to terms with. I know she’ll never look at me in the same way, the sooner I accept that, the better.
“It feels good to have good friends,” Ace says looking to us; we don’t say anything to him but instead offer up soft smiles.
“It really does,” each of us says in unison.
The cafeteria door being thrown open grabs my attention along with everyone else at the table when we notice Mrs. Douglas coming directly over to our table with a crease in her forehead from her furrowed brows. What did we do now? We haven’t done anything all day, I mean, I fell asleep in class for like ten minutes, but nothing else.
“Ms. Wolff”-at least it’s not us- “there was a-” Mrs. Douglas starts.
“M-Maya!” I do a double-take at the voice. Aaron.
Amaya’s eyes widen as she quickly stands from her seat, lifting Aaron up and into her arms when he runs over to her. All of us stare at the scene with our jaws dropped and eyes that bug out of sockets.
“What happened?” Amaya asks in a small voice while Aaron rests his head on her shoulder, and his arms wrap around her neck.
“Your step-dad said there was a family emergency and he couldn’t bring him with so he dropped him off here. He also said you guys couldn’t go around the house for now so you guys are stuck here.” Yeah, that doesn’t sound conspicuous at all. “And I also remember telling you to stay in the office,” Mrs. Douglas says before Aaron innocently smiles up at her.
“I didn’t want to stay,” he tells her with that impenetrable smile still on his face that looks identical to my brother’s.
“I know,” Mrs. Douglas says to him. “Anyways, we gotta know if you’re staying or leaving because in the situation you’re in right now, you’ve got a decision.” By this time, Aaron has managed to catch the eyes of half of the people in this cafeteria.
“If I miss gym one more time I get detention and I’ve got two more lectures after this so I guess I’m staying here but how am I supposed to take him to class with me?” Mrs. Douglas just shrugs it off.
“I’ll handle all your classes,” she says before walking away.
Amaya sighs before taking her seat, this time with Aaron with her arms. Almost immediately he reaches across the table to Shawn who takes him into his arms; the two of them exchange a look as they watch their son who the people of the school still don’t know about.
Aaron’s believed to be Jonah and Amaya’s little brother since it’s a big secret that Derrick raped her, that’s why he believes he’s the father though we each know Shawn is. We haven’t known for all that long though.
We get through the rest of lunch with a small conversation before heading to the gym where it’s decided that Aaron’s going to be with Amaya so people don’t suspect anything or ask questions about why he’s with us.
Shawn rushes with changing so he can go out there and help Amaya if she needs it, but Coach Collins pulls him aside.
“Ave, can you go out so I can speak to Coach Collins?”
I nod to his request, throwing on my shirt to come out of the locker room. When I do, my eyes fall on Amaya standing next to a girl with flowing light brown hair that’s pulled up into a ponytail, that smiles down at Aaron before I feel it. The fluttering feeling in my chest that I would get towards Amaya, but that can’t be.
I’ve never even seen this girl before, I can’t take a single look and just want her. How is that even possible?
I approach them, keeping myself hidden from view.
“Ooh, who’s the new girl and can I get your number?” Dammit, Xavier, that’s really the first thing you say?
“Yeah um, I’m gonna say no on that one,” the mysterious girl replies. “What’s your name anyway?”
“Xavier Harper, but you can call me your future boyfriend.” Where the hell am I pulling this from and can it please stop?
She laughs and I swear to God it sounds like music to my ears. I want to hear it again.
“Why’re you laughing, I’m being dead serious.” She nods before rubbing the back of her neck, blushing with a small smile. I MADE HER BLUSH!
“You see, I know you’re being serious and I am single… but you aren’t really my type.” Well, that kind of hurt.
“Why not, am I not charming?” I ask before she bites down on her lip, shaking her head.
“It’s not that you aren’t charming, because you’re very... but I’m not interested in you. You just aren’t the type of person I’m into like that. I just barely know you, that’s all.” At least that’s something I can change.
“Well soon enough you’ll know me better and maybe you’ll change your mind then.” My heart starts to beat out of my chest as I await an answer. However, I don’t receive one because a fight breaks out between Cody and Dylan, making it so Amaya and I have to go play peacekeeper.
