High School Reunion Part 1

[Otaru_grower]

Part 1: Memory's Sting



A man, disheveled and homeless, sits on the sidewalk collecting change in a hat. I walk past him, not doing that much better myself. I can?t help anyone. Look at me. I?m a wreck. Pudgy and out of shape, a bald spot working its way outward. I haven?t shaven, any my clothes stink of mold. No one bothers to look twice at me, except in disgust.

I go home, at least my temporary home, and I sit down on the couch I got for free at the dump. I don?t have a car so I had to drag it home, and that nearly killed me. I make some mac n cheese from the free food bag I got from the food bank. I eat it on my cardboard box table. I watch my TV, which frizzes out a lot, until it feels a little less painful. I?m going to be homeless soon. I just got my eviction notice. This cramped little trailer never really suited me anyway. Oh God, who am I kidding? Sometimes I just want to end it all, but I know that I can?t, that I?m too much of a coward.

I notice the stack of mail that has been collecting. Bills I can?t pay, medical debts, gas and electric, which will be shut off tomorrow probably. The lights go out. Well, I guess tonight. I curl up on my couch-bed in a blanket I got from Salvation Army. My life really hasn?t gone according to plan.

When I wake up it?s late morning. I often require more sleep since my sickness. I don?t have a job to go to anymore, ever since I was fired a few months ago. It was a warehouse job but I wasn?t very good at the job physically. I wasn?t very fast or strong and I lied about my medical history to get the job. When someone found out, I got sacked. Bunch of goons worked there, anyway. Not one of them ever really accepted me. They always laughed behind my back. I was the freak, the cripple, the one they could look down on. It?s been going on as long as I can remember, it seems. I just wish things had been different. I wish I could have gone to college. I wish I hadn?t been so alone.

I look at the stack of mail and notice something that isn?t a bill. No one ever writes letters to me. Who would? I?m not that good at making friends, never really have been. I see that it?s from my hometown. My hometown is maybe fifty miles away but it may has well be a lifetime. It?s from my high school.

The reunion is coming up.

I think about going briefly, and then I dismiss the idea. Who would want to see me? I look in the mirror, the little circular one in the mini kitchenette and hate my reflection. I just look like such a loser.

I get up and make some coffee and head over to another trailer on the other side of the park. I know this guy, Ed, and he and I sometimes hang out. He doesn?t have a job, either. He lives off of disability checks, the same as I do. Only a while ago the checks stopped coming for me. I was told I didn?t need a walker or a cane anymore, so I was on my own. I appealed, saying my condition was rare, but no one bought it. I mean it?s true, but according to them, there?s no reason I can?t work. I suppose a lifetime without self esteem and falling behind everyone else doesn?t really count for anything.

Ed thinks I should go to the reunion. Says he?d be willing to give me a lift that week; he has to go to visit his sister anyway. Ed has got a huge beard and looks 50-something but he?s younger. He just doesn?t fit into society much, and he?s had a bad knee and some other problems that he won?t talk to me about.

He convinces me to go.

Honestly, I was scared to death at first. How can I face these people? After all that happened?

But then I think, well, there are some people I want to see. Sure, I?m embarrassed about my life, but they don?t have to know that. I have a few business shirts left, and that one pair of nice pants that I wore at my brother?s funeral.

I sit on my couch-bed eating snack foods, anything out of the food bank bag, and I slowly wonder why things got this way, and how it all started?this road to my horrible, crappy life?

TWELVE YEARS AGO

Hiding in the bathroom, just hoping they don?t find him. He peers out the crack. He is sitting on top of the toilet, barely breathing.

?Come out, come out, wherever you are!? a cruel voice taunts.

The younger, skinny as bones boy barely breathes. He is scared and alone. He doesn?t have anyone to watch his back. He thinks about screaming for help. Who would help him? Everyone hates me, he thinks.

The doors rattle and are opened one by one. The lock keeps on the door but then his bully?s head is above the stall.

?Bingo! How?s it goin?, Kyle? You fucking pipsqueak?? Ryan climbs over the stall, an unthinkable maneuver to Kyle. Ryan is much bigger than him, a foot taller and a LOT stronger. He had sandy blond hair and muscles to spare, the perfect image of health. His sneer is horrible to look at, as handsome as he is.

?Just leave me alone, Ryan!? Kyle?s voice squeaks. Ryan?s buddies laugh from outside the stall. Ryan undoes the lock and the door opens. Jim and Jordan look at him and start cracking up.

?Oh my god, are you shitting yourself? Because you?re so scared??

?Gimme some money,? Ryan says.

?I don?t have anything! Please! Just leave me alone!?

His head is in the toilet and they are all laughing. He tastes the stale and chemically bitter mixture of cleaning fluid and piss. He winces. His head goes back in the toilet. The bullies can?t stop cracking up.

?Shit, we better go, someone?s coming!?

In the halls, they do any number of humiliating things. They flick condoms and condom packets at him at him while he gets his books. Ryan says ?I know you?ll never need one but I have so many that I go through?you know what on second thought I?ll just take that back.? He smiles in front of the popular girls, who all laugh.

They follow him and tell him they want to be friends with him, taunting him.

?I just want to be your friend, Kyle. Why won?t you let me be your friend??

?No you don?t.?

?Yes, I do,? Ryan says, disingenuously as his buddies laugh. ?Where ya goin? I want to hang out with you. I want to be your friend.?

?Just leave me alone.?

They wait for him after school behind the wall bordering the football field. They step out at him and he walks right into Ryan. Ryan accuses him of starting a fight. Ryan pushes him onto the ground. He gets up to run but someone is kicking his ass, literally, and he stumbles and falls. His glasses snap in half. He will have to fix them with duct tape and be laughed at the rest of the year. His aunt can?t afford a new pair. She barely feeds him, let alone anything else. Spending money on him would be a waste of time since she?ll just throw him out as soon as she can. She only took him on so she could get an inheritance, which is now already gone. His parents are gone. No one can stop this. No one wants to.

They beat him again after they win their next football game. Ryan is high on adrenaline and has been drinking. They are all sixteen but tower over Kyle. They follow him to the library and wait for it to close. Then they pounce on him. The chase is like a pack of animals hunting their prey. Kyle runs through tennis courts lit by bright white lights. It is night, but no one is around. The bullies have no fear. Kyle sprints across the park. He loses his backpack. He is panting. He is truly afraid. He hates being alive but he has enough self preservation to know what pain is and that he wants to avoid it. He runs through a copse of trees and he trips. The bullies are laughing. They didn?t have to trip him this time, a tree trunk has done that. They shove him around. They taunt him. They tell him he can leave anytime. But they don?t let him leave their circle.

They carry him across the park. He squeals in terror. Ryan carries him like a prize. He puts him head first into a garbage can that has some foul odors in it but not much garbage. Still, someone?s lunch, a hamburger or sandwich sticky with sauce or dressing, crams into his hair.

They all laugh. He waits for them to leave and then gets out of the trash. He is humiliated.

A week later, they are in the locker room, taunting him. Ryan sits on the bench, just looking at Kyle. He undoes his shoes slowly, hoping Ryan will leave before he undresses. But Ryan just stays there, standing and smirking, looking amused. Kyle undresses and dressed as quickly as he can. But he?s too late, and Jim and Jordan are there, shoving him in a locker and shutting it. He whimpers and cries and they threaten him with a beating afterwards if he makes any noise, so he agrees not to raise the alarm. They don?t want to get in trouble so they promise to come back for him.

Hours pass and Kyle begins to scream for help but there is no one there. Ryan and his buddies are off celebrating how great their game was at the local pizza joint. No one is any the wiser. Kyle cries and cries. Finally, around 8 or 9PM a janitor finds him and starts yelling for a supervisor to come help.

But the final and horrible humiliation comes at a party. Kyle always avoids people. Everyone. Everyone is dangerous and scares him. No one wants to help. They just want to laugh at him. But then one day he finds an invitation. Jenny Masterson was having a party and he got an invitation. It was a really nice card with sparkles and fancy handwriting for Friday. She is in his sixth period class, the last of the day, and he helped her sometimes with the lab work. When he walks into chemistry, she waves to him. She has a sunny smile. That?s the only way to describe it. She was kind and radiated a kind of inner light. He really liked Jenny.

?Can you make it on Friday??

?Um?you sure? I?m invited??

?Yes! I don?t care what those assholes think. Kyle, you have been so cool, I really am grateful for your help. Mr. Furlong is just so old he doesn?t care about teaching and I always get lost. I totally thought I was going to fail but thanks to you I?m a shoe in for an A. So please say you?ll come.?

?Yeah. Sure.?

?And don?t worry. Ryan won?t be there. He?s NOT invited. I don?t like those guys.?

?Neither do I,? says Nadia, her friend. They always sat together. ?I don?t see why everyone likes those jerks.?

?They?re the football heroes. Whatever. I don?t like them. They?re just assholes.?

The bell rings and Kyle is going home with a smile on his face.

Before he knows it, it?s Friday and he is putting on a jacket that he hopes looks nice enough. It?s the jacket he wore to his parents funeral. But it?s the only nice one he as.

He is so nervous. He walks alone and is paranoid as always. He is always suspicious because he has to be. You can never let down your guard. There is always someone out to hurt you.

Kyle is at the door. Someone opens the door. Beautiful people are inside. They are smiling and having a good time. Jenny is a good girl and her parents trust her not to have beer, but there are lots of cute little cupcakes that she has made, and mix tapes of her favorite female artists. She is a very good girl, Jenny is. But not all of her friends are good people. A lot of them make Kyle uncomfortable. Some of them are people that laugh at Ryan?s jokes. Ryan the golden boy.

But people are actually nice to him and try to make conversation. Mostly he just listens to them talk but some of them engage him. What does he think of this group and that band? No one has ever bothered to ask him anything before.

There are some kids, Stacy and Jessie, they are friends of Jordan and Jim, he knows. But so far there?s no sign of those guys. Stacy and Jessie decide that everyone should play a board game in the living room. Stacy, who is very pretty, asks Kyle if he wants to go talk in private.

?W-what do you mean??

?I mean that I have a secret to tell you,? she says, very seriously.

?A secret? Why?? Kyle is confused. Why would anyone confide in him? It thrills him as much as it confuses him.

?You?ll know soon enough.? She smiles, seductively. Just as she?s luring Kyle away from the party, someone tells Jenny that she should go outside and bring in her poodle. It?s going to rain that night. Jenny goes outside. She is a good girl.

Someone locks the door.

Before he knows it, he is in the closet. Stacy has pulled him in and is whispering things to him at first. She tells him all about her crush, a boy that she likes.

?Only he doesn?t like me,? she finishes. Kyle is uncomfortable. It is cramped in the closet and he doesn?t know why he?s here.

?I?m sorry,? he says meekly.

?Yeah. But Scott is gay.?

Scott was a really nice guy that Kyle had very little to do with. He wasn?t at the party even. He couldn?t be on some kind of joke, could he? Was this some joke?

?He doesn?t want anyone to know. I promised that I wouldn?t tell anyone. But.? She leans in closer. ?I think he likes you.?

Scott was one of the few other people who got picked on by Ryan. Scott was gangly and thin and didn?t have a lot of friends. But whereas Kyle was shy Scott was outgoing. Often the class clown. He had been humiliated by Ryan a lot, though. But he had built up defense mechanism with his wit that often astounded Kyle, and often got him even more beat up.

?Yeah. And he has a crush on Danny. You know Danny? You guys hang out sometimes.?

Danny was a boy with glasses just like Kyle. He did talk to Kyle sometimes. Usually in homeroom. It seemed like the only two people that ever talked to Kyle were the same guys that got picked on by Ryan. They had talked at lunch a few times but never really hung out. Kyle didn?t hang out with anyone.

?I don?t??

?Anyway, Scott has a crush and for the longest time I thought it was Danny. They?re friends and all but it turns out, he doesn?t.?

?Oh.? Kyle felt his cheeks burning. He didn?t want to be here.

?Do you know who he likes??

?No.?

?He likes you, Kyle. Seriously. He likes you. So I told him, when I found out, I was like, don?t worry I?ll ask Kyle for you. So no one else knows,? she whispered.

?Oh.?

?So do you??

?What?? Kyle?s head was swimming. No one had ever talked to him like this before, confided like this before.

?Do you like guys? Are you gay? Because if you are, I can tell Scott.?

?I?do you promise not to tell anyone what I say??

?Cross my heart.?

?I think?at first I wasn?t sure. Cause I like girls. I like being with them.?

?Uh huh??

?But I think I want to kiss boys and Scott is really hot-?

And then the closet shutters burst open. Standing there were maybe twenty people. And at the center was?on no.

Oh no.

It was Ryan. Ryan bursting out laughing. Everyone laughing with him.

It became a blur.

Stacy didn?t say much. She just smiled. She said his name a few times but he barely heard her.

He tried to run through the crowd of people but they were all jeering at him. They were all laughing at him, calling him faggot and the boys were all asking if he wanted to suck their cocks. Someone threw their drink on him.

He ran towards the door. It was like one of those dreams that happen in slow motion.

Jenny was banging on the door. Some girl who was still smiling opened it. ?Oh my God you should have seen it!? The look on Jenny?s face of confusion as Kyle ran past and swung the door open further so he could escape. Jenny holding her poodle.

?Kyle, wait! Where are you going? What did you guys do to him? YOU! Get out! GET OUT! I don?t want you here, Ryan! I?m calling the police unless you and your friends get out!?

So they left and then Jenny?s friend told her what happened.

?We thought it would be funny. It just got out of control. I thought that she was going to make out with him.?

?Yeah, that?s what they told us,? her other friend said. But most people were milling about still talking about how funny it was.

?All of you get out,? she said stonily. ?NOW. GET OUT! EVERYONE GET OUT!?

Kyle?s life got worse after that. People called him faggot. People tripped him more. Rumors floated that he wanted to fuck Scott and Danny, the only guys who ever let him be even acquaintances with them. He didn?t talk to them. They avoided him whenever he saw them. He felt utterly alone.

One day, the principal, an ex army officer, called Ryan into his office. There was something wrong. Ryan hadn?t done anything in weeks.

?We have to have a little talk,? Principal Knight said. He folded his hands seriously. ?Do you know why you might be here??

?No, sir.? Ryan slouched in his chair.

?No.? Ryan was beginning to freak out. He?d been called to the office for a few fights but this seemed more serious. Principal Knight got out a folder and laid it on his desk.

?Kyle Sorenson has had a complete nervous and mental breakdown. He?s in TwoBrooks.? TwoBrooks was the local mental ward.

?Are you serious??

?Yes, you?re goddamned right I?m serious. Now I?ve had time to do some investigating. I?ve uncovered quite a bit of information about what happened. You were the one that locked Kyle in the gymnasium that day weren?t you? In his locker? ANSWER ME,?

Ryan looked at the cold voice of authority.

?Y-yes, sir.? He blurted out, without thinking.

?Well, that?s what I thought. Kyle wouldn?t talk about it at the time. He wouldn?t tell me who it was, even though I asked him to reconsider. You have literally no idea what that boy has been through. Do you? You little shit. You good for nothing bully shit? I have news for you. I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that your life here becomes a breathing agony. Because you are directly responsible for this, and the school board is NOT happy. You?re expelled. For a month. I can?t ban you from ever attending this school again but I can sure as hell take away that possibility of an athletic scholarship. You can kiss that dream good bye. And don?t think about changing to another school. Unless your dad is going to move out of state I doubt you?ll ever play sports again.? Principal Knight let that last part sink in. ?Now get the fuck out of my office.?

After that, things weren?t the fun time that they used to be for Ryan. He stopped being the center of attention. His two buddies were also expelled for the locker prank, and word spread quick about what had happened. Jenny was quick to tell everyone once she realized that Kyle wasn?t coming back. She turned the entire school against him. Soon, no one would even look at him. Everyone talked in hushed tones behind his back constantly.

Eventually he transferred because he was no longer the golden child. He needed a fresh start but at the school he went to, without sports he was nothing special. No one laughed at his jokes and being the new guy he often got left out.

PRESENT DAY

Ed drove me up to the school and dropped me off, and my mind was flooding with memories. How could I face my greatest torment? All I could keep thinking was ?I hope he?s not there.?

I wander almost in a daze past hallways that I was instantly familiar with; that reeked of smells that sent my mind reeling back in time. A distant time, but not distant enough.

I get to the reception lobby. The name of the high school and ?Ten Year Reunion? written in block letters. Well, twelve for me of course. I wonder if the invitation was a mistake. I graduated but just barely and maybe my credits were mostly here, and that?s why it was sent. I didn?t really think about how strange that was until just now.

I say my name and a flash of recognition floats over the woman?s eyes. She distractedly looks for the name tag. She is embarrassed. I don?t even remember her. I put on my name tag. I look at myself in the reflection in the glass trophy case.

It says my name in marker. RYAN JOHNSON.

I take a gulp of air, pause for a minute, and then walk inside the room.

[youngtrevor]

Wow! Brilliant! I was absolutely sure that the protagonist was Kyle.

[khsbig]

can't wait to read the next chapter and see how Kyle has changed.

[AmbientBob]

Amazing story! Can't wait to see what happens.