“Just get out.” Steven threw Sebastian out of the room so he could hide away with his girlfriend, completely unconcerned that Sebastian’s schoolwork was in there—basically his whole life except for his phone. Sebastian just didn’t get how his brother could be such an asshole. He stormed down the stairs and into the kitchen. His mother looked at him knowing exactly what the issue was. She said nothing though.
“What’s wrong with him? Just a minute or two to grab my school stuff and he could make out with his girlfriend all he wants. And he locked me out.”
“He locked you out—again?”
“Yeah. Threw me out then locked me out. Like he just pushes me around ’cause he’s bigger than me.” He pulled out his phone and texted Bobby. Bobby was apparently having one of those days when other people were not welcome in his house. He didn’t understand Bobby sometimes. He got so into his conversation with Bobby that he didn’t notice his mother had left until he heard her shouting and in record breaking time his brother was in the kitchen fuming with his girlfriend. She was looking a bit flustered. No shock there. His mother had that effect on people.
Sebastian just gave his brother the best ‘if looks could kill’ look he had in him then went up to get his bag. He only had one thought—that peeing on that kid in the woods was a little bit extreme.
***
Mark got home feeling pretty good about the day. He walked into his home, straight to his room and then out into the kitchen for food. No work could possibly be done on an empty stomach. Walking into the kitchen, he found his mother crying—more accurately, trying to act like she hadn’t been crying.
“You okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just… So you walked home today?”
“Yeah. Me Josh, Sebastian, Bobby. Took the lake path.”
“Okay. Nice.” His mother was totally out of it. Like she wasn’t even there. He knew only his father could get her this upset. He was starting to feel angry. And this was the same man who did nothing but go on and on about Mark’s mom’s successful beauty spa and his sons’ abilities. He even had the nerve to brag about Mark’s sister’s success in college so far, and he hated her. His dad was so fake, and all he did was pretend everything was okay. He really hated this man and was wondering how long he or his brother could continue to pretend to like him.
***
Bobby sent a last text to Sebastian. He had lasagna to finish making. He didn’t have time to ward off Sebastian. His parents were actually sober today. And still drinking. He didn’t understand it at all. Any real drunk surrounded by this much alcohol would be wasted by now. But his parents had been home from work for a while and barely cleaned out two glasses of wine. Maybe their problem was really their friends. Could rehab sort that kind of issue or did that require therapy? He didn’t care. He was just happy tonight would be a normal night for a change.
After the walk through the woods, he was up for some normalcy. He needed this. And his dad was helping him cook. The gods were most definitely smiling down on him today.
***
Joshua was sitting on his bed fuming. He was getting into a bit of trouble in school. Bullying. His dad was clearly overreacting. He’d broken no bones. Released no blood. And lots of people got picked on in school. Joshua was only making sure that he wasn’t one of them. Well, it just got crazy from there. His dad and his mom started fighting. Something they almost never did, but it always was about him. He got the gist of it though. Mom always thought his father was overreacting. Never wrong but overacting. And they grew up together, so she had insider info on him that Josh was still slowly starting to learn. He was only ten after all.
He was used to it. His dad would apologise; they would get over it. Josh would say that he’d do better and would for a while, but somehow his role as one of the school bullies was hard to get rid of. And after the trek on the path home that day, he was actually starting to see how his dad might be right. Still, he couldn’t help but think his dad had a really insane reaction to some things, things that all kids were doing and most to a far worse extent than him.
He wondered why his dad was such a hater of certain types of guys. Especially, given his personality, he could be and probably was similar to them in his youth. What happened and, more importantly, why did Joshua have to deal with whatever issues his dad was dealing with? He didn’t have too long to think about it or continue to be mad at his dad for shouting at him. Mark had just sent him a text saying how much he hated his dad.
Josh had issues with his dad, but even he could admit that they fell into a zone unique to their family. He didn’t like it, but it was rare that any of them fought or didn’t get along. And he was mostly sure that it also had something to do with him being gay and an only child. His dad was seemingly on a path of total overprotection. Josh was too independent for that even at ten years of age. He had no idea how much problems this would cause as a teenager. But now he had to deal with a best friend who actually had dad issues.
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