Chapitre 1: And I Thought Our First Conversation Would be More Dramatic than This
"You're not my son, Ryder! You're one goddamn devil!" A man bellowed on top of his lungs.
"Who the hell wants to be your son, anyway?!" Another man shouted back, his voice was a bit higher, indicating his youth. The venom in his words, however, matched the older one.
"Can't you two just stop fighting?" This time, a woman piped in, but instead of calming things down, the two men's fight became even worse, resulting in higher volume and more profanities at the argument.
Sometimes, a few slapping and clacking sounds could be heard, which meant that they had started throwing things at each other.
I rubbed my eyes sleepily. It wasn't even six-thirty in the morning, and already, everything was ear-shattering. My cellphone was under my pillow, and it was supposed to ring the alarm twenty minutes later. But of course, the Blacks weren't kind enough to let me have my eight hours of beauty sleep.
For people who liked to fight and yell at one another, they rose from bed pretty annoyingly early.
Lately, the Blacks 'good-morning' fights had been my personal alarm. Most of the fights went down on their kitchen, which was located not more than ten meters from me. The walls in our neighborhood were thin, I tell you.
Pro of having my own personal alarm; A sure way to get up, since their bickerings were obviously a far more effective alarm than my cellphone-based one.
Con of having my own personal alarm; I felt like I was getting wrinkles because of sleep deprivation. They didn't stop even at weekends.
"Get out of the house, Ryder!" The older man shouted, it didn't take a psychologist to recognize the absolute hatred in his voice.
"Gladly, Gregory!" Ryder retorted.
'Not a good option, Ryder, every time you say your father's given name, the fight would last more than three days!" I mumbled to myself, as I took my toothbrush.
As I brushed my teeth, I listened more to their fight.
It was about the pancake today. Apparently, Mrs. Black had some burnt parts on the edge of Ryder's pancake, and Ryder refused to eat those particular crusts. Enraged, Mr. Black attacked Ryder verbally, and he of course attacked back.
That was how things had been with the Blacks.
"I'll leave the house! I'll leave the fucking house today!" Ryder was shouting on the top of his lungs.
"Ryder!" Mrs. Black cried out.
"Get off me, Mom! I want to get away from this monster." Even from this distance, I could hear Mr. Black gasping, as Ryder shoved his mother away from him.
I could already imagine what Mr. Black's face would look like; flaring nostrils, the bald area of his head glinting at the morning sunlight, his beard went ultra frizzy and scraggly, with a bit of saliva got caught in between the hairs.
Okay. So I stalked my neighbor a lot. Big deal.
"You're an insolent, disrespectful kid! You're not my son!"
Ha! Told ya that Mr. Black would go loco if he said that. Another score for April!
Anyway, I was very much aware that I was acting like a complete ignorant whack-job here. A neighbor of mine was having a serious fight with his father, and yet, here I was, doing commentaries. I knew I should try to placate them, or at least sympathize with them, but then living next to them for the last ten years had dulled my sympathy in respond to their daily fights.
My family and Ryder's family had never been close. We'd been living side by side for years, but you could say that none of us humble Hales had been engaged in a full conversation with any of them ballsy Blacks. Sometimes we accidentally met them in front of our houses, but that was all. The Blacks had an aura of uppity and quite frankly, after hearing them fight which contained a lot of their personal problems every day, it was awkward to start a conversation with them in broad daylight.
'So, hey, I heard you were having a fight with your father. I thought that you should just eat the burnt crisp, you know?' Totally impossible.
And besides, we'd ignored each other for the last ten years, why start caring now?
I'd finished brushing my teeth, and took a peek of the room across my window. Ryder's room and mine were in a row, and I just needed to crane my neck to get a very clear view of his room.
It didn't help that he had a bad habit of not closing his blinds.
Whenever he and his father had stopped fighting, Ryder would go to his room and pack his bag, and rush to school. And then he wouldn't go home until it was very late at night, and when he did get home, he wouldn't be in a good condition. Sometimes, he was home drunk, sometimes there were scars on his body, and starting last year, he occasionally brought home a girl. He had had three different partners at the course of one year, but I only knew one of them, which was a female athlete from our school.
The voices of their love-making had been instilled to my head ever since one, two years ago, and along that time, Ryder cemented his reputation as our school's token Bad Boy.
And how could he not be the token bad boy? He was everything but. He had the dark, brooding looks going on. He worked out regularly, and some rumors even said that he was involved in some underground fights. (Unconfirmed, although some days I did see him going home with lots of bruises and blood covering his body.) The girls had gone gaga for his tattoos. (Confirmed. He currently had three small ones, and one huge one on his side). And plus, he was undeniably, intensely, EHMAGERDly good looking (my eyes could confirm this.)
Just like I predicted, Ryder went to his room, slamming the door shut so hard that I had to cringe to not let the sound shatter my ears. This morning he was wearing a simple black t-shirt with ripped jeans. His dark hair was disheveled, and his whole face was red from anger. Without words, he lunged for his backpack, and checked his cellphone.
The way his face fell already told me that there was no uplifting messages, or if any.
Aside from being the fighting machine that reveled in all sort of bad rumors, Ryder was also known as the school's lone-wolf. Sure, his life revolved around blood, girls, and very possibly drugs. But I had never known anyone who would associate him or herself with Ryder Black in regular basis. Basically, he didn't seem interested in forming long-term-relationship with women, and the men never made any effort to be friends with him.
For a moment there, I almost felt sympathy for him. As much as I was concerned, Ryder was a good student. He had flying marks, despite his numerous issues, and this was probably the only thing that kept the school from expelling him.
I heard Mr. Black yelling at him again, and in response, Ryder slammed his cellphone to the floor. It broke into pieces, courtesy to his strength, and he growled in fury, as he realized the mess that he'd created.
Oh my God. The fight must had been more serious than the usual. I'd never seen Ryder break anything over anger. He might be fond of punching things, (or cheeks, on some occasions.) but he certainly loved his stuff. I should know, I lived ten meters next to him for the last ten years.
I must had said something out loud, because suddenly, Ryder lifted his face and our gaze met. I gasped, but my shock was too great to let my feet move into hiding. His eyes were dark colored, although I couldn't decide the color, since I'd never seen him up close.
His eyebrows rose in recognition, and I did the same. This might sound weird, but I figured that this was probably our very first interaction since our first meeting eleven years ago. I couldn't identify him due to the massive changes that he'd had over the years. He used to be a happy toddler, and now, he was just... Sad.
And hot.
But sad. Really sad.
I tried to avert my gaze, but Ryder kept looking at me. He didn't do anything; he didn't wave his hand, he wasn't even trying to communicate with me. He just stared at me like I was a pet zoo, and this was making me uncomfortable.
"Ryder!" Mr. Black was shouting again.
Ryder sighed in frustration, and then he started to look around his room. Like a typical guy's room, Ryder's was incredibly messy. There were posters of various bands everywhere, and lots and lots of guy toys were all over the place. I stared in confusion as Ryder started writing something in a piece of paper. I noticed that it was the backside of last week Biology exam.
He got an A by the way.
After he finished writing, Ryder put up the paper for me to read.
'COVER YOUR EARS. I'M GOING TO SAY BAD WORDS TO MY FATHER'
Ryder tilted his head as he motioned to his ear. I covered them like he told me to.
A second later, Mr. Black burst into the room, and Ryder's face soured. They started a screaming match which I couldn't really hear since I was covering both of my ears. The fight lasted a few minutes, before then Mr. Black stormed off the room, and Ryder following him the next minute.
Today marked as the first day I talked to Ryder Black, and I wasn't sure if it was celebratory or just plain sad.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone