Something So Strong (British Invasion #2)

PROLOGUE

Bum-fuck nowhere

Manitoba, CANADA

For the first time in my life, I’m thankful my house is at the end of the road.

The worst property on the worst street—a real estate agent’s dream. Who wouldn’t want to live in a shit box with an overgrown lawn littered with random scraps from my father’s failed endeavors? I know the pride that swells within me when I see him sitting on the front porch with a beer in his hand. It hits me deep in my soul. And he’s truly the role model of the century when he yells at my chicken-shit mother to bring him something to eat, or forces my sister to play bartender for his friends.

This evening would have been no different. He’ll have empty cans scattered on the worn boards, left for someone else to pick up. He was sitting on his rotten recliner listening to the radio when I left.

“Gonna get your dick wet tonight?” he scoffed as I rushed past him down the front steps. “It’ll be the first thing I have to be proud about, Nancy boy.” What a delightful goodbye to your sixteen-year-old son. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him I like girls, the only thing he hears is I don’t like sports, so I’m a fag.

I pause beside the pole where the street sign should be, and estimate how many steps it’ll take me to get to my window. One hundred? One-twenty, maybe? Probably more, considering the state I’m in.

One. Two. Three… I start counting in my head as my feet scuff along the gravel road.

At least they didn’t take my shoes. But who’d want high-top wannabe Converse from Walmart?

As with most small towns that offer nothing for their teenage populus to do during the lacrosse off-season before hockey starts, I met my friends at the park. Amy, Millie, Candace, and Laura. Hot, cute, sexy, and beautiful, and all with boyfriends who hate me. Though, is it really my fault that I listen to what they have to say instead of watching their lips move and wondering how long it’ll be before they can put my cock between them?

The most painful irony is that I know they’d cheat on their jock boyfriends with me in a heartbeat. I can see it in their eyes when I roll up on my skateboard and as they bite their bottom lips whenever I punch someone in the face with my wit. I’m queen B of the mean girls, and any of them would quit flicking their beans over me to get a taste of the real thing if only I’d ask.

If only I wanted them like that.

If only I saw them as objects instead of my best friends.

And, as logic would have it, the off-season also means the players have nothing to occupy their meat-head brains with, especially when the pussy that’s ‘meant’ to be theirs is drinking cherry schnapps with me.

Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two...

My swollen eyes squint as the streetlight flashes above me. It’s the only one that isn’t completely broken. Without it, Russell Road would be as dark as the far side of the park before Josh and his goons pulled up in his dad’s pickup.

The girls weren’t expecting them, but I was. I had been since the start of ninth grade. I just didn’t expect their justification for taking it as far as they did to be so ass-backward.

Millie was the first to scream when Josh hit me. She tried to pull him off, but he sent her flying. His own girlfriend, crying and covered in mud because he had a twisted vendetta.

One by one, they forced the girls into the back of the truck and Josh threw Trevor the keys. “Take ‘em home. But don’t bring it out here when you get back. Park it in the lot and walk.” Trevor nodded, blindly following his orders because that’s how these types of guys work. They were a team, and I was the opposition. The out-of-towner they’d show who was boss.

Forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight…

I couldn’t see anything in the dark with my face in the mud, but my mouth still worked.

“Have you been fucking Millie behind my back?” Josh yelled down at me—no doubt believing himself to be the hero in his own story.

“If I was fucking her, she’d have dumped your ass.” I got a kick in the guts for that one.

“So, which one have you been messing around with, then?”

“What makes you think it’s just one?”

Three different brands of running shoes rained down on my head, my ribs, my legs, and everywhere in between.

Sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one…

“I’m not fucking any of them,” I tried to scream, but a mixture of spit and blood gurgled out of my mouth.

“Are you saying they’re not good enough?”

“We’re just friends,” I coughed.

“I bet he’s a fag,” Jonno piped up.

“Yeah,” Josh agreed, stepping closer to me. “Probably why he’s never tried out for anything. He knows he’d get a hard-on watching us shower. Is that what it is, Kai?” Looming above, Josh nudged me with his toe. “Are you a fucking fag?”

I spat at his feet. “So what if I am?” The answer should have made them happy, even if it was a lie. If I was gay, there would be no danger of their girlfriends straying.

Ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four…

I’m close enough to home that I can see one of Dad’s empty beer cans roll along the porch. White. Shiny enough to pick up the moon’s reflection as it clangs down the steps.

Stopping, I let the breeze whoosh past me, hoping it will take with it some of the pain. The throbbing of my head, the wheeze every time I take a breath, the shame of where they’d forced me, or even just the tiniest sliver of the agony in my hands.

Over a utility pole is where they did it. The barrier of the park’s public land with gravel on the other side. I’d been sitting on it ten minutes before a foot pressed my cheek into the rocks and my hands were crushed. Jumped on. My fingers broken. All so I didn’t try to get away.

One-hundred-and-five, one-hundred-and-six, one-hundred-and-seven…

The toe of my shitty shoes catches on the curb as I step onto my lawn and I have to let go of the fabric I have pushed between my palms so I don’t fall on my hands.

They… He… Josh ripped my jeans—the button falling off and the zipper cracking as he hurriedly tore at them. I tried to kick my legs, but he held them down with his own. Soon enough, any willpower left inside me was focused on making sure I was still breathing as the three of them laughed above me… Behind me.

What kind of cruel satire?

Josh was hard, but I was gay?

He was on top of me; thrusting and grunting, but I was the faggot who needed to be taught a lesson?

What lesson?

What could forcing his dick into me possibly teach that my broken ribs and fingers hadn’t already?

One-hundred-fifteen, one-hundred-sixteen, one-hundred-seventeen…

It’s that time of year in Manitoba where the days are still reasonably warm, but the cold of night frosts any moisture in the air. Stomach down, I pull myself along the icy grass by my forearms before collapsing by the front steps. Laying here, with the unmowed grass standing high around me, I contemplate dragging myself back down Russel Road to Millie’s place.

I’ll get sympathy there.

She’ll hug me, put me in the bath, and insist I call the police. It’ll feel good at the time—like justice is what I need. Even though I know telling the cops means the town finding out and my father consumed with even more hatred for me than he already has because now people will know his son has taken it up the ass.

Elbows on the bottom step, I pull myself back upright and—using the porch railing as a crutch—stumble to the side of the house.

One-twenty-one, one-twenty-two, one-twenty-three…

Blakely’s room is first. Her night light is on and unicorns dance across the ceiling. She’s too young for this shit. Too tiny. She already cries most nights, and that’s without Dad ever laying a hand on her. She’s the only thing that keeps me going, though I’m not even sure if I have the strength for that, anymore.

Beneath my window, I wish I could call out to my mom and she’d run to my side, let me cry on her shoulder, and promise no one would ever hurt me again. That she’d protect me from Dad’s cruel tongue. Leave him and take me, too. But as quickly as the thought enters my mind, it’s gone again. I’ve already wasted too many hours of my life expecting things from that woman. Dad’s never hit her, but that wouldn’t stop me from killing him if I thought I could get away with it. Or if I thought my mother wouldn’t just end up turning me in.

One-twenty-four…

I was already Josh’s sloppy thirds by the time Trevor got back. The back of my legs were coated with blood and cum and misery, and he was told he had to go next. They all had to have a go, like I was a ride at a carnival you lined up for. An inanimate object with no feelings or thoughts that could be used until it didn’t work anymore and was dumped like trash.

But I am trash.

I’ve always been trash.

Filthy, dirty, and good for nothing.

One-twenty-four-and-a-half…

Gritting my teeth, I manage to push up my window with the heels of my hands until there’s enough room for me to fit, only I can’t pull myself through. My fingers don’t work, my jeans are around my knees, and the rest of my body is too battered and bruised.

Shuffling to the shed, I link an empty paint can over my arm and hobble back.

My room light is on and the once closed door is now open.

Mom must have heard me and this is her way of saying I’m glad you’re home, but I don’t want to know why you’re sneaking in.

Barely non-existent and never spoken is my mother’s love. She cooks and cleans and hopes it’s enough. Her life is spent on eggshells, but it’s my opinions, thoughts, and feelings she’s meant to care about. Not his. But I know, I’ve always known—ever since my father backhanded me at five when I couldn’t catch his drunken spiral pass and Mom didn’t do a goddamn thing about it—that if I was going to be saved, I’d have to do it myself.