Morning all and happy Friday. I am very ready for the weekend actually. But before then, we have Friday, So let’s set those timers and see what our final prompt of the week brings us. Fifteen minutes, please, and off we go.
This sort of fits with a story I have had spilling in my head for a bit. I need to collect all the bits and see about coming up with an outline for them at some point.
Friday, June 26th: He yelled in frustration.
He yelled in frustration. Birds were startled from the trees and he was certain something scampered off into the undergrowth.
‘Great,’ he thought trying to catch his breath. ‘I’m frightening bunnies now.’
He imagined the bunny scampering off to it’s hutch and telling the other rabbits about the fearsome creature it encountered in the woods. Picturing it made him chuckle. The chuckle became a laugh, the laugh blossomed. He laughed until tears round down his cheeks and his ribs hurt. He was gasping for air again but it felt better than the panting he did after his frustrated yell.
He sank down onto the path. It was a dirt path through the woods but he knew no one really came out here. It was why he felt safe venting his frustration. He hated to think about how often he came out here over the years. This year had been especially hard.
‘The last year,’ he thought.
He just had to get through this year and he was home free. His step brothers weren’t making it easy. The twins had always been hard to deal with. Physically they were so much larger than he was that everyone often forgot he was older by two years. The forgetting helped because they weren’t in the same schools. He was in public school while the twin’s father happily paid for them to go to private school.
Since no one paid much attention looking at the size difference made everyone think he was younger. The size difference at home meant the twins thought they could take anything he had as their own. When he complained he was told he needed to learn to share. The fact that he only got his things back after they were broken beyond use was a fact everyone conveniently ignored.
Their taking and breaking things while he accepted this as the due course was what often sent him out here to the woods. It was better to terrify rabbits than to let the others hear him. Complaints were punished and punishments often came with well worn lectures about gratitude.
‘’It will be over soon,’ he reminded himself. He turned eighteen three months prior. Only his Aunt remembered. She not only took him out for a celebratory meal, but took him to the bank and helped him transfer all of his banking into his name alone, including the college fund his father and their family had been building over the years.
He took advantage of the school programs while in high school and not only took advanced classes but thorough a university program he managed to take and pass all of his prerequisites. When he graduated next month he would have only two years at University to pay for in order to get his degree. He was already working part time and earning experience as well.
He just had to hold out until the end of the school year. Then he would have a place to live that wasn’t the house and even if it was a tiny apartment, he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone taking his things. He shifted and felt the weight of the watch in his pocket. It was his fathers and he kept it in his sock drawer to keep it safe. One of the twins found it, liked it and ‘borrowed’ it. He hadn’t realized it was gone as the box was left behind. At least not until it was returned to him with a shattered face. ‘It can be repaired,’ he thought. And soon I will be gone.’
Ten til Midnight 