บท 1: (don't) break the circle
Mom doesn't like it when I cause trouble. I know that. The displeased look on her face as she gets into the car only makes it all the more obvious.
I crawl into the yellow wreck of a car, listening to the familiar sounds of the seat squeaking beneath me. Mom won't look at me, but the corners of her mouth are downturned and her nose is scrunched up in the way it gets whenever I've done something really, really bad.
"Mom?"
Her face twitches slightly, but she keeps looking out the windshield as she backs out of the school parking lot. I click on the seatbelt.
The car sounds like it's farting, small bursts of sound coming from the hidden machinery every few seconds. If Mom wasn't mad, I'd joke about it like I've done so many times before.
"Mommy?" I say. My voice goes a bit higher at the end, sounding a bit more urgent than it did before.
Her gaze flickers away from the road, briefly drawn in by the slight desperation in my voice. "What is it, Wesley?" she bites at me.
I open my mouth to reply, words just waiting to spill out, but she interrupts me by continuing speaking. Irritation is audible in her voice, boiling just under the surface – a volcano ready to explode, just like the one in the video Miss Olsen showed us in class the other day. "Another excuse? What did Jeremy do to deserve your wrath this time?"
"He was being mean!" I defend myself. The annoyed voice Mom is using makes me feel like I've got something to prove. I hate it when she talks like that.
"And that's a good reason to punch him in the face?" Mom asks, controlled anger seeping into her voice.
"Yeah!" I exclaim. "I wanted to be on the swing, and he wouldn't let me!"
Instead of responding to my words immediately Mom redirects her focus on the road. We're speeding past lines of tall, dark-green pine trees. My face is reflected back at me in the window: cheeks red with agitation, eyes wide, and hair a mess on my head.
When Mom speaks again, her voice is a lot calmer. "Miss Olsen told me what happened," she says. "Jeremy was using the swing, and when he wouldn't get off like you demanded of him, you pulled him off and punched him right in the nose."
Her gaze touches lightly upon the small, red smear of Jeremy's blood on my white T-shirt. Although she's looking at my clothes rather than my body, I feel really naked. It's like she's seeing right through me, and that she doesn't like what she sees. I don't know what to say. I hate it when it's like this.
"Do you think that's fair, Wesley? To force another boy off the swing and hit him, just because he's not doing what you want him to?"
My hands are twitching by my sides. I feel so uneasy about the whole situation, but I don't know how to explain all of it to Mom. She always seems to know just what to say to make me feel stripped down, but I have no way of fighting back. I can't think of anything to say. It's just not fair.
"I just wanted to use the swing, and he wouldn't get off even though I asked him to," I say. It's more or less a repetition of the last thing I said, but I feel like everything that comes out my mouth is just wet and slimy and sticky. The words won't cooperate at all, and I don't know how to explain how unfair Jeremy was being. My head feels like it's filled with smoke.
It was all a mess. Jeremy had been on the swing for super long, and I just wanted to play with it before the break ended and class began again. Jeremy just wouldn't understand that it was my turn, even though I asked him to get off again and again. It was so unfair. If he didn't want me to hit him he could've just gotten off.
Thoughts are swirling all around inside of my head, just like the bubbles in the bath water going down the drain. I don't know how to say any of it out loud.
"You think that makes you entitled to hit him," Mom says after a while. This time it isn't even a question, just a disappointment-oozing statement.
"It was my turn," I say, the words almost inaudible; squashed down by the sound of the car moving against the road.
Mom tightens her grip on the steering wheel just slightly. She's biting her lip in the way she does when she wants to smoke, and for just a short second she looks almost sad. It's almost enough to make me regret what I did. Almost.
"I love you, Wesley. I really do," Mom says. My heart flutters in my chest; a short second of happiness soaring in the skies before I fall down again. "But you resemble your Dad way too much."
The seatbelt feels tight around my chest, forcing me to breathe lightly. I feel just slightly dizzy, my mouth is dry, and I can feel my heart jumping around in my chest like it wants to exit my body.
"I know it's difficult to fit in a new place when it's been just a few months, but this is the fifth time in just two months that I've had to pick you up at the principal's office," she says. Her soft voice only just barely registers through the sound of her previous sentence echoing in my head. "I don't get why you have to be so violent. Haven't we had enough of that?"
The sound of the car farting stops as Mom parks it outside of our house and turns it off. I can feel tears burning in my eyes, but when Mom worriedly reaches out to touch my shoulder, I jerk away.
It's all just so much. I just wanted to play and have fun. It's not fair that Mom won't understand. I try to breathe, but the air in the car feels so heavy that I can't. I'm shaking and I can't breathe and my heart feels like it's about to beat out of my chest.
I can't do this.
"I'd much rather be like Dad than like you!" I cry out as I take off the seatbelt and open the door. My voice cracks halfway through, but I keep barreling on.
"Wesley..." Mom says, bright eyes getting more glossy by the second.
I can't, I can't, I can't. It just isn't fair.
"I wish he would've taken me with him instead of leaving me with you! I'd rather be anywhere than here!" My voice rises louder and louder until I'm shouting the last few words at the top of my lungs.
The echo of my yelling rings loud in the air as I jump out of the car and run inside. The look on Mom's face – shocked and hurt, like my words were a fist to the face – makes me think of everytime Mom and Dad fought, and how she looked exactly like that when he raised his hand. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder if words can leave purple-blue-green marks behind too.
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