By the time I got home, my left eye was nearly swollen shut. I set my backpack on the kitchen table, then went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My eye looked like a ripe plum. There was no way of hiding it from my mother. I got a washcloth and wiped the blood off my nose and chin.
My mother usually got home around six thirty, so I heated up a can of SpaghettiOs for dinner, grabbed the blue ice pack she kept in the freezer for her occasional headaches, then held the ice against my eye while I played video games with one hand. I know I should have been studying for my biology test, but after a day like this one, I just didn’t have it in me.
I really didn’t want to talk to my mom about my day, so when I heard her key in the door, I ran to my room, shut the door, turned out the lights, threw off my shirt, and crawled into bed.
She called for me from the front room. “Michael?” Twenty seconds later she knocked on my door, then opened it. I pretended to be sleeping, but she didn’t fall for it.
“Hey, pal, what are you doing in bed?”
“I don’t feel well,” I said. I pulled the covers over my head.
“What’s wrong?”
She turned on my bedroom light and immediately saw my torn shirt on the floor and the blood on it. “Michael, what happened?” She walked over to my bed. “Michael, look at me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Michael.”
Reluctantly, I pulled the covers down. Her mouth opened a little when she saw my face. “Oh my… what happened?”
A lump came to my throat. “Jack and his friends wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Oh, honey,” she said. She sat down on the side of my bed. After a minute she asked, “Did it… happen?”
I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want to upset her more than she already was. “I’m sorry, Mom. I tried not to. But they wouldn’t leave me alone. They were trying to pull my pants off.”
She gently brushed the hair back from my face. “Stupid boys,” she said softly. I could see the worry on her face. “Well, they had it coming, didn’t they?” A moment later she said, “I’m sorry, Michael. I wish I knew what to do.”
“Why won’t they just leave me alone?”
My cheek was twitching and she gently ran her thumb over it. Then she leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “I wish I knew, son. I wish I knew.”
