I rush after him, skipping stairs to catch up. He’s downstairs in the dining hall, trying to hide behind the other kids and use them like a shield.
“Give it back,” I growl.
“No, why would I? You don’t deserve it,” he says.
“It’s my toy. You have your own.”
“I don’t have enough,” he says, holding Phoenix with both hands, almost tearing off his head.
“Stop, you’re breaking it!”
“So what?” He pulls harder. “Are you afraid? Miles is afraihaid, Miles is afraihaid!” He’s chanting now, pissing me off so much that I want to hit him. Everybody starts laughing when they see my angry face.
“Miles is a loser!” The more he says it, the more the group joins in, and soon it’s all I hear.
I can’t take it anymore. I want my toy back, and I want them to leave me alone.
When my patience runs out, I push the kid he’s hiding behind so hard they both tumble on the floor, and then I grab the kid and punch his face repeatedly. The toy drops from his hand as he tries to block the attacks and prevent my fist from coming down, but I’m too quick.
“Fight, fight, fight!” the kids around us yell.
I keep punching and kicking, letting all my rage out on him.
“Stop!” he yells, but I pay no attention to his screams.
All I can think about is the blood pouring from his nose and the teeth flying around the room.
“Nobody. Touches. My. Toy,” I growl, hitting him in the face with each syllable.
“Please! Stop!” he begs, scratching my arms.
“I hate you!” I scream. “I hate all of you!”
I punch him so hard that my knuckles hurt, and I see red in front of my eyes. All I can think about is kicking his ass so hard that he’ll never be able to steal from me again. This is the last time that he’ll taunt me, the last time that he’ll tease me, the last time that anyone will ever try to hurt me again.
After a few minutes, the caretakers come and drag me away from him before I’m able to grab Phoenix. “What is this? How dare you assault a boy like that!”
“He stole my toy,” I say, folding my arms while staring at the toy.
“I don’t care what he did. You put your hands on him. We. Don’t. Punch. People.” She keeps tapping on my nose after each word, as if it’s supposed to impress me.
But all I can think about is killing the kid lying on the ground, bleeding, pleading for help.
The caretaker sighs roughly. “Here we go again.”
The whole room is quietly staring at me as she drags me out the door and up the stairs.
“You had to do it again, didn’t you? You just couldn’t keep your hands off him.”
“He keeps bullying me.”
“What did I just say?” she says, gazing back at me with a look that could kill. “We don’t touch other kids in here, Miles. You should know that by now. I guess it’s time for you to learn that lesson the hard way.”
She pushes me into my room. “I don’t want to hear any sound coming from here for the next few hours. Got that?”
I sit down on the bed. “But what about dinner?” I look at the clock, it’s almost six, and my stomach is growling.
She makes a face. “Bad kids don’t get food.”
And then she slams the door shut.
I run to the door, banging on it with my fists. “Wait! You can’t do that! I’m hungry!”
“Maybe you should try being friends with the kids first. Maybe then you won’t be so hungry,” she muses through the door.
“They don’t want to be friends with me. None of them do. They only want to tease me.”
“Maybe it isn’t them. Maybe it’s you,” she sneers. “No wonder your parents left you here.” She clears her throat, and then I hear her clicking heels as she walks down the stairs, leaving me upstairs all by myself.
My fingers scratch the wood as I sink to the floor. I try to think of happy things, but I come up empty. There’s nothing happy about this place, and I don’t remember a single day when I wasn’t in here.
Alone in my room, without a toy to play with and only the ticking clock as company, I waste away the hours of the day until I’m left wishing I wasn’t alive at all.
***
A few months later …
I ran away. I didn’t know what else to do after the kids pushed me down the stairs and the staff didn’t even bat an eye. I have nowhere to go, but I don’t want to go back there. I hate that place and everyone who lives or works there.
Nobody understands me.
My finger twirls through the grass and I rip it out of the ground and let it fly away with the wind. It’s so peaceful here in the middle of nowhere near this lonely road. Nothing for a few miles … all the world to myself. Love it.
This place is quickly turning into my favorite hiding spot. I don’t have to sit somewhere in a cramped, stinky corner to avoid being caught. I can just sit out in the open without anyone seeing me here.
But then a car suddenly zooms up at the end of the horizon, and I watch it come into view. Placing my hand over my eyes to block out the sun, I try to look inside as it passes by. I don’t see much, apart from two adults in the front… except for one little girl sitting in the back of the car, gazing at me with her bright eyes. She has the face of an angel.
And then it disappears just as quickly as it came, driving down that lonely road.
For a moment, I just enjoy the breeze, wondering who those people were and if I’ll ever have parents just like her.
Oh well, I’ll find out soon enough. Time to get back. They’re probably wrecking the whole place in search of me now. Or they haven’t even noticed I’m gone. Either way, I know they’ll be pissed.
So, I grab my bike and drive off onto the long and lonely road back to where I came from.
***
An hour later…
I’m sitting on the couch in the meeting room, waiting for someone to approach me, but all the potential parents give me the stink eye. I guess it’s because of the cuts and bruises on my face from getting in a fight again. I can’t help it; the kids here just won’t stop annoying me. It’s like they enjoy getting all up my back or something.
The caretaker comes up to me and gives me a side look. “Why aren’t you talking with them?”
“Well, I can’t just go up to them, can I?” I say.
“No, but you can at least present yourself a little more … appealing,” she says, clearing her throat. She always does that when she disapproves of me, so I hear it all day long.
“Try to put a little more effort into this, will you?” she says. “I don’t want you to be stuck here forever.”
I nod as she walks away to meet other potential parents with a fake smile on her face. What she actually meant was that she wants to get rid of me as quickly as possible because I’m a nuisance to this place, but she’ll never say that to my face. It was bad enough that she actually mentioned my parents to me, even though I don’t remember anything about them.
I guess that’s life. People just screw you over until you screw them back.
That’s my motto from now on, anyway.
With my hands folded on my lap, dangling my legs off the couch, I look at all the other kids talking with their potential parents, wishing someone was interested in me … enough to see past the layers of anger.
Sometimes, I wish I could be like those other kids. Happy. Normal. But I’m not, and I don’t know why. Every day, all I can think of is how to be smarter than someone else is. How to outwit them. How to win a fight. How to find someone’s weakness and use it to my advantage. I’m always so angry, and I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s because of who my parents are.
Or maybe it’s because of what they aren’t.
Who knows? Nobody can tell, not even me.
I can tell one thing, though. Even if they don’t pick me now, one day I will make it out this place, and I will show everyone that I am worth it.
***
Present