AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Just say it.” Brock’s voice remained level as he spoke, as if being kind, the way they used to be, as if it was only them in the showers, the two childhood friends they once were. “One word. That’s all it will take. I’m forgiving, but only with you. Just one word and I forget it all. Say you’re sorry to me, Kyle. Right now. Save your life and just say it.”
Kyle felt like a bundle of lifeless limbs, held up off the floor only by the power in Brock’s fingers that gripped his chin.
When the silence persisted, Brock’s tone hardened. “Even after all this, you’d still choose to defend him? That fucker? At the cost of your future? At the cost of our friendship?”
It seemed like all of the team had come into the showers by then, paying silent witness, all of them as weak as the others, always silent witnesses, watching, learning.
“What friendship?” choked Kyle through his teeth.
Brock’s face was stone. “Alright,” he said, as simple as that, released Kyle’s face, letting him drop to the floor, and turned to leave, finished.
But Kyle was not finished.
It was like a roll of thunder when Kyle flung himself from the floor and charged at his back. Brock barely had time to turn before Kyle came crashing into him.
The two slammed heavily to the floor. Both naked and wet, there was nothing to grab onto, so the moment Kyle had Brock underneath him, he threw fists. Brock shielded his face with his arms as Kyle let loose, one after another. None hit, but the rage in his heart kept his fists going. Years of rage, years of suffering under Brock’s unchecked authority. Bright red drops fell from Kyle’s nose. Each becoming a tiny pool on Brock’s forearms, on his chest, on his cheek. Someone came to pull Kyle off, but he shoved him away to continue his assault. Someone else came next, achieved a grip on Kyle’s right arm just before his next swing, and then the boys were separated.
Two of Kyle’s teammates grabbed his arms, holding him. Brock rose slowly from the floor, his dark eyes on Kyle. A tense silence followed as the two of them faced off.
Brock was able to draw blood with a single hit.
After a dozen, Kyle couldn’t even break skin.
What did that say?
Still restrained by his teammates, Kyle decided to use the only weapon available: his mouth. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone, Brock?? Who made you the person who gets to decide how everyone else lives? This is all your fault!”
Brock gently inspected his own nose, as if to check for an injury. Then, to his hand, he quietly muttered, “Your life just ended today.”
Kyle swallowed, shaking.
Brock turned to leave, and this time, nothing stopped him. The teammates let go of Kyle and followed. Not a single one of them looked back, leaving Kyle in the steam and the noise.
Kyle lifted a hand gently to his cheek, where it ached.
Still blurry-eyed, he gazed down at the floor where pale red water circled the drain. He didn’t even care what bled.
There was no going back now.
6.
Here, a Gift.
—·—
By the time Kyle returned to his locker, the team was gone. It was just him, his stinging cheek, the silence, the doubts. As he dressed alone, he found himself questioning everything.
Could it be possible, even in the tiniest way, that Brock was right all along? That Kyle should have chosen him? Sided with his team and former best friend?
What if Tristan really was a master manipulator?
What if it was all just Tristan’s wild imagination? All of his allergies, his taste for blood, the slow transformation crap?
Kyle, being a gullible, small-town idiot, falling for Tristan’s bullshit, at the price of everything he knew and loved?
That night, Kyle was in his bedroom, house phone wedged between his neck and ear, avoiding the spot on his cheek that still smarted, and Brock’s mother told him her son was out with his friends—the whole team. “Wait a second, now why aren’t you out with them?” she asked as it occurred to her. “It’s a team outing, he said, big team outing before the game this weekend. Are you grounded? Did you do somethin’ bad, young man?”
Kyle squeezed the house phone between his fingers and tried to think of a word other than “hate”.
Nothing came to mind.
Kyle barely touched his food at dinner, heart heavy, circles under his eyes as he listened to his parents praise his brother on another big achievement—something to do with the school debate team, chess club, violin recital, or whatever else he was involved in, Kyle could barely keep up. No one noticed his cheekbone, nor his aloof demeanor. He even left the table without a word and the conversation carried on uninterrupted, his mother chirping with laughter when Kaleb said something clever, his father’s eyes swelling with pride.
