Death

by C. M. Radcliff

  We were the last ones called to clean out our lockers and after that, we were free to go. It didn’t take me long to empty my locker since the only thing in there were my school books.

  I should have rushed out as soon as I could, but I took my time instead, walking to each classroom to return my books. The school needed a better method, with the chaos it created. I was pushed to the backs of the lines, which didn’t affect me much.

  I was used to it, my place was at the back of the line.

  When I finally finished making my way around the school, I was one of the last people to walk out. I continued to take my time as I meandered down the steps toward the sidewalk.

  I should have seen them waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, but I wasn’t paying attention.

  As my feet hit the short walkway, I felt a rough hand wrap around my bicep and jerk me backward. I stumbled, tripping over my feet, before standing face to face with Gat. Andre stood behind him, with his eyes narrowed and a smirk on his face.

  Gat grabbed ahold of the cords for my headphones and ripped them out of my ears. “’Sup firecrotch?” he sneered. “You too good for everyone here, walking around ignoring everyone like you own the fuckin’ place?”

  “No,” I said quickly and shook my head.

  “Right.” Gat nodded slowly and took a step closer, putting his face in mine. “I own this fuckin’ place, so you need to fall the fuck in line.”

  Andre chuckled from behind him. I frantically looked around for anyone who could help me, but the few lingering students didn’t even look in our direction. The rest of Gat’s crew wasn’t there, but I knew things were about to go downhill quickly.

  “What do you guys want?” I asked, turning my attention back to Gat.

  He barked out a laugh and his lips curled upward. “Did you really think we forgot about you, Matthews?”

  I clutched the straps of my backpack tightly in my hands and swallowed nervously. I knew they didn’t forget about me, but I thought they were over tormenting me.

  “We figured we’d give everybody else their fair chance to fuck with you.” Andre jumped in and moved beside Gat.

  Gat’s eyes grew dark and his smile grew wide. “Now it’s our turn.”

  He planted his palms on my chest and I braced myself as he shoved me backward. I shifted back slightly before regaining my footing and swung my fist at him.

  I expected to hit nothing but air and then my hand connected with his jaw.

  “You motherfucker!” he yelled as I grabbed my fist and winced. My knuckles instantly ached from hitting the bone and I could feel them starting to swell.

  The pain distracted me from Gat and gave him enough time to hit me back. He drove his fist into my eye socket, following through with his other hand that caught me underneath my jaw.

  He caught me off guard and I stumbled backward into Andre who had crept up behind me. Andre linked his arms with mine, holding mine firmly behind my back. I tried to break free, but he only held tighter, straining my shoulders.

  Gat sauntered over as he spit out a mouth full of blood, his teeth were bright red, glistening as he smiled at me. “You fucked up, yo,” he chuckled as he cocked back and pummeled my face. Blow after blow, his fists rained down on my face and my torso as Andre held me defenseless.

  “What is going on out here?” a voice shrieked in the distance. Gat’s arms had grown tired and my head had grown fuzzy. I could barely keep my eyes open and felt the pull of the darkness dragging me under. My legs were like wet noodles and could barely support my weight.

  “Shit, man,” Andre said quietly. “We gotta bounce.”

  “Fuck.” I heard Gat’s voice as Andre dropped me to the ground and listened to their footsteps as they took off down the street.

  My head throbbed as I struggled to climb to my feet. I stood, swaying back and forth as Miss Darlene stopped in front of me.

  “Mr. Matthews!” she yelled. “What in the hell was that?”

  My jaw ached as I opened my mouth and licked my bloody lips. “It was nothing.”

  “The hell it wasn’t,” she retorted. “You’re still on school grounds… I should call the cops.” Her face was blurry as she narrowed her eyes at me. “Thankfully, we have cameras now so whatever happened out here is on tape. Dr. Thompson will deal with this. You better get home and clean yourself up.”

  My mind lagged as I tried to follow everything she said, but it was choppy and her words cut in and out like a phone call with bad reception. Her face came in and out of focus as I struggled to keep my eyes on her.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” she demanded, pointing her finger down the street. “Go home, Curtis.”

  I took a deep breath, wincing as my lungs expanded against my bruised ribs and nodded. Nothing she had said made any sense to me except for me to go home.

  Miss Darlene spun on her heel and marched back to the school. I turned around and hobbled down the street, but I didn’t go home.

  Without a second thought, I went to my grandma’s instead, knowing that she was the only one who had ever cared.

  chapter twenty

  PAST

  I didn’t spend a lot of time with my grandma that summer. After Gat beat the shit out of me, I fell into a deep depression. I was never very social, but I spent every single day locked away in my room, barely talking to anyone.

  My grandma would come to visit and call me throughout the week, but even she wasn’t enough to pull me out of the hole I’d fallen down.

  I was just sick and tired of it all. The bullying and the abuse… it was slowly killing me. I was dancing on the edge, getting closer to throwing in the towel.

  My mother was off gallivanting with a new dirtbag she had found, and my father was still being his mean, drunken self.

  Most days, he would let me be and he never noticed how badly I was hurting. He wouldn’t have cared even if he did notice. His solution would be to beat some sense into me and knock out the depression.

  I would have rather felt the force of his hands than the cuts from his words.

  It wasn’t until summer was nearly over that I was beginning to feel more like myself. I wasn’t trying to make any friends any time soon, but I was finally coming out of my bedroom and answering my grandma’s calls.

  I even started to show Carson more attention, which I didn’t even realize at the time how alone he was.

  It was my eighteenth birthday, but we never celebrated our birthdays at home. I was sitting on the couch with Carson, watching cartoons when my phone started ringing.

  It was my grandma. She never, ever forgot our birthdays, even my piece of shit parents’.

  I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday, but she insisted. She was taking me out for dinner and that was final. No matter what I had done in life, I always made sure that disappointing her wasn’t on that list.

  I promised her that I would be over around four o’clock. She always liked to go out to eat early, before it got too crowded. That woman hated to wait and was always in a rush.

  After getting showered and cleaned up, I threw on the nicest pair of shorts and shirt that I could find. I grabbed Carson and headed down to her house. Celebrating birthdays was important to her, so I knew how much this meant to her.

  When I got to her house, she was still in her housecoat, with her hair a frizzy mess.

  “Curtis!” she had said excitedly as she pulled me in for a hug. “Is it already that time?”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was only three thirty. “We’re a little early,” I shrugged.

  “No bother!” she replied as she quickly walked through the house. “I just need to get a quick shower and such and I’ll be ready to go.”

  Carson and I sat down on the couch, as I grabbed the remote and nodded.

  “I’ll be quick!” she promised as she strode up the stairs.

  The T.V. flickered to life when I pressed the on button and I surfed through the channels for something to zone out o
n. The bathroom door shut upstairs, and a loud creak ran through the house as the shower turned on and the water rushed through the pipes.

  My grandma had basic cable with limited channels, so I kept flipping through them. Eventually I landed on America’s Funniest Home Videos and dropped the remote down onto the couch.

  Being at her house, it had felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I laughed along to the videos on the show. It felt foreign, to smile and laugh.

  The show switched over to a commercial break and I was still sporting a grin, chuckling to myself. The same groan came from the walls as the water to the shower was turned off. I leaned back against the couch and slid my hands underneath my head right as I heard a loud bang from upstairs.

  The ceiling above me shook, startling Carson and me. I jumped to my feet on high alert and spun around toward the stairs as he sank lower into the couch. The house fell silent except for the T.V. playing behind me.

  “Grandma?” I called out, inching closer to the staircase.

  Silence.

  “Grandma?” I tried again and waited.

  Silence.

  “Carson,” I said, grabbing onto the stair rail. “Stay here, okay buddy?” He quickly nodded and I took off up the stairs. I ran as fast as I could, skipping steps on my way up. The bathroom was the first door and it was unlocked when I reached it. I took a deep breath and shoved the door open in a haste.

  With a towel wrapped around her plump body, she was sprawled out on the floor. Her legs were propped up, with her feet sitting on the bathtub and she was laying with her head underneath her porcelain sink.

  I ran into the room, dropping to my knees beside her. Her face was peaceful, as if she had just fallen asleep. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing with her towel on, so I quickly put my finger under her nose. I felt her faint breath as my finger slid through a clear liquid draining from her nose.

  “Grandma,” I said loudly as I grabbed her shoulder and tried to shake her. She needed to wake up.

  Her body moved limply as I pushed her around. “Grandma!” I called out louder, feeling around her throat for a pulse. Just as I found a very faint beating, her body grew rigid and began to move on its own.

  She thrashed around on the floor as her body jerked back and forth. A thick white foam spilled from her lips as she moved violently. I jumped to my feet and pulled out my phone, not knowing what I was supposed to do.

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  I quickly wiped my face and stared at the floor. “My grandma, she fell in the bathroom and I think she’s really hurt.”

  “Okay,” the woman said quietly. “What’s she doing right now?”

  “Shaking around on the floor,” I replied quickly, dropping back down to my knees.

  “Is there any blood?”

  “No.”

  “Is she conscious?”

  “No.”

  “I need you to get down on the floor and try and turn her onto her side with her head in your lap,” the woman instructed calmly.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “What’s your address, hun?”

  I gave her the address stored in my mind, the one where I had spent countless hours.

  “Just keep her head protected,” the woman reminds me. “Help will be there soon.”

  I quickly ended the call and held my grandma’s head tightly within my hands. Her shaking slowly stopped and her body twitched a few times. It had felt like a lifetime passed as I waited for the paramedics to arrive.

  I couldn’t have Carson come up here and see this, but he always did as he was told. He stayed downstairs as I sat on the bathroom floor, holding my Grandma’s limp body in my arms.

  “Just hold on, Grandma,” I whispered, stroking her damp hair as the ambulance sirens sounded in the distance.

  Please, just hold on.

  chapter twenty-one

  PRESENT

  Silence.

  All I get is silence.

  “She had a massive brain bleed and she died during surgery,” I tell her quietly.

  “Jesus,” Christine says under her breath after what feels like a lifetime. “That is a lot for someone to have to go through and a lot for the mind to try and process.”

  I give her silence in return.

  I lived through it, I know.

  She looks at me in a way that I’ve never been looked at before. Her eyes are filled with sadness and sympathy.

  Every inch of her expression is genuine. I don’t want to believe it or accept it, but I have to. She owes me nothing, yet she’s staring at me like she wants to wrap her arms around me.

  What I wouldn’t give for that to be possible.

  A hint of doubt fills me, and I narrow my eyes at her. She can’t possibly feel sympathy for me.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Christine demands as her expression hardens.

  “Like what?” I challenge, cocking my head to the side.

  Her nostrils flare and she rolls her eyes. “You know how you’re looking at me and I have a good idea that I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

  She pauses for a moment and I open my mouth to speak but she cuts me off before I get the chance. “I don’t pity you, Curtis. We’ve been through this already. I’m allowed to feel sad for you and sympathetic and you’re allowed to have people feel that way about you and your story.”

  I disagree.

  I don’t deserve anyone’s sympathy.

  Nodding in agreement, I keep my thoughts to myself and watch her face transform. Her eyes become warmer and her face softens as a small smile plays on her lips.

  My lies, they make her happy.

  I’ll tell her whatever lies that she needs to hear if it will keep that smile on her face.

  She’s only a reporter and I’m just a piece of shit inmate that she’s interviewing, but in the short amount of time that we’ve been talking, I’ve told her more about my life and myself than anyone else in the world. I’ve opened the pages of my book for her to read every last piece of it.

  She knows everything there is to know.

  There’s an undeniable connection between us and it’s conflicting and confusing. The more I open up to her, the closer I feel, but I will never be close enough.

  “So, tell me about life after you lost her,” Christine suggests, breaking into my thoughts.

  I turn the tattered page to the next chapter of my life.

  I’m ready to bleed out for her, spilling all of my blood and fragments of my soul onto the table between us.

  Taking a deep breath, I exhale and flashback into the past…

  chapter twenty-two

  PAST

  Senior year, the year everyone looks forward to. The very last year that sends us off into a world of freedom.

  Senior year was everything I never imagined it would be.

  School was the last place that I had wanted to go. I didn’t want to return to that hell hole and face the pieces of shit that walked the halls for another year, but it was my only option. With my grandma dead, school was my only escape from home.

  And home was the last place that I wanted to be.

  It was our first day back after the worst summer I had ever had. The summer that changed my entire life.

  By then, most kids my age or in my grade at least had their driver’s license. The few of us who didn’t were stuck walking to school.

  My morning routines still hadn’t changed. I’d drag myself out of bed, get ready and get Carson dressed. Then I would walk him to his school on the way to mine.

  I dreaded it, especially that morning, but I did it anyway. Carson didn’t fully understand what happened with our grandma, so he deserved the normalcy. Too much in his life had already changed.

  Our walk to school was uneventful. I had dropped Carson off with his doting teachers. He was always in good hands there. His school was one place where a part of a system didn’t fail one of us. He was where he belonged, getting the education and care he des
erved.

  When I arrived at my school, I braced myself for the blows from my peers, expecting their typical shit talking, but no one had said a word to me. I got strange looks as they all exchanged whispers amongst one another, but no one even spit in my direction.

  It was unusual and it made me unsettled, but I tried to ignore it as I walked to the main office. When I opened the door and stepped inside, all heads turned to look at me with either looks of confusion or surprise.

  Something wasn’t right.

  “Curtis,” Miss Darlene, the receptionist called out as I walked up to her. She looked very confused with her eyebrows drawn together. “Is there something that I can help you with?”

  I slid my hands into the pockets of my pants, trying to wipe away the moisture that was collecting on my palms. “I am here to get my schedule since I didn’t get it in the mail.”

  She stared at me for a moment and bit down on the inside of her cheek. She winced and ran her hand over her face. “Did you or your parents receive anything in the mail?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  “Dammit,” she mumbled under her breath and pressed her hand to her forehead. “Hold on a second, okay?” she said as she picked up the phone. “Just take a seat for now.”

  Reluctantly, I nodded and walked over to a row of chairs. I knew something was up by the way she was acting… I just didn’t know what was going on.

  The office had cleared out at that point and the morning bell rang through the hallways. Miss Darlene watched me as she whispered into the phone with her mouth covered.

  I sat silently, wringing my hands together as the morning announcements sounded through the speakers. I tuned them out, solely focused on Miss Darlene and her phone call.

  She abruptly hung up and still stared at me. The door beside her desk was pushed open and Dr. Thompson, the principal, was standing in the doorway, staring at me.