Page 39 of Seeley


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Seeley, always coming to my rescue.

That was originally how we’d met.

I’d just been brought by child services from my mom’s apartment to my grandma’s place. A new state. A new school. A new rough area that I didn’t quite know how to navigate yet.

At around ten years old, well, your peers could be real assholes. And they were. Complete and utter assholes.

I got teased relentlessly that first week. From the typical comments on being a teacher’s pet and know-it-all to actually getting shoved around.

That was precisely what had happened that afternoon as I made my way home from school, clutching my precious library books to my chest because there was no money to actually buy my own, when a couple of slightly older boys blocked my way just outside the courtyard of my new apartment building, ripping the books out of my hands, ripping some apart, tossing others on the ground and stomping on them while I cried and begged for them to stop.

Because I would owe the library, yes.

But also because they were the only escape I had from the screaming matches of the neighbors to the right, and the crying baby to the left, and the pounding music of the potheads the floor above.

They were all I had that was familiar and safe in this very new life I was living in.

Unfortunately, bullies, yeah, they liked weakness. They liked to know they got the better of you.

So when I dropped down to my knees, pulling the tattered pages to my chest as I cried, yeah, they turned their attention to me instead of my books.

My hair got pulled.

My shoulder got shoved.

As I braced myself for more, suddenly, there was screams and howls and crying.

From the boys, this time.

When I looked up, it was all a blur through my tears, but I saw fists flying, and my attackers hitting the ground, then eventually rushing away.

“You okay?” a voice asked, accompanying the shadow standing over me. “They won’t bother you anymore,” he added. And, somehow, that only made me cry harder. “Why you crying?” he asked, sounding a mix of disgusted and confused at the same time. “‘Cause of the books?” he asked, reaching for one of them. “They’re not even yours,” he reasoned.

“I wanted to read them,” I whimpered as I sniffled and tried to dry my cheeks.

“Yeah, you can’t do that now. They’re all ripped up,” he said, shrugging it off.

And, well, his casual disregard of them had another pathetic whimper escaping me.

“Don’t do that. Stop,” he demanded, sounding more and more desperate. “I’ll fix it,” he said.

“You can’t fix them!”

“Didn’t say I’d fix them,” he said, shrugging again. “You live here, right? Moved in with that old lady?”

“My grandma,” I told him, nodding.

“She’s nice. Gave me a pair of her old gloves once,” he said. “I’m Seeley,” he told me. “What’s your name?”

“Amaranta,” I told him.

“Ah, yeah, I’m just gonna call you Ama,” he told me. And from that day on, he did just that. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

“Did I lose you again?” Seeley asked, shocking me back to the present.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“What were you thinking about?”

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