December 15th 1996

December 15th 1996

Cal, Logan, Jess, Peter and Michael sat looking around the courtyard for Jackson without much hope. “Why are you so obsessed with this Jackson kid Cal? You’re not guy right?” Michael laughed. Cal reached up and burned Michael’s arm with his cigarette.

“You didn’t see what we saw” Logan said.

“Well if you tell us we might understand.” Jess suggested.

“There he is” Peter pointed him out as he limped through the school doors. Cal and Logan stood up and Michael followed as they walked to where Jackson struggled to sit down.

Jackson looked up and waited for Cal to speak. Seeing more cuts and bruises, Cal hesitated. “Hey Jackson, um,”

“You know Cal,” Michael cut in, “I’m gunna ditch this burn’s really starting to hurt.” Jackson looked up at the burn on Michaels arm and started to laugh.

Several other students standing around the courtyard turned to look but eventually went back to whatever they were doing. Once he stopped he slowly and painfully stood up. He walked up to Michael and his smile melted into a hateful scorn, “you want pain?” Jackson took off his jacket revealing his bruised and scared arms. There were several horizontal cuts on his left wrist, obviously made by a knife. “You don’t know what pain is rich boy.” Jackson put his jacket back on and walked away, standing as strait as he could, ignoring the pain in his leg.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Michael tried to laugh and Cal glared at him, disgusted, and started walking away. “Come on I was just trying to make it less depressing.” Cal gave Logan a meaningful look and kept walking.

“You need to know when to shut up. Your jokes don’t help anybody so keep them to yourself.” Logan answered for him.

Michael got the message, “Cal I don’t get why you trust everything to this street boy, but I know when I’m not wanted, you won’t ever get rid of me though. You can’t discard your oldest friend just like that.”

Logan tripped Michael and he fell to the ground, “Cal can do whatever he wants, he can get out of anything. If he wanted to kill you he could, understand? You have nothing, get out of here.”

Michael lay on the ground and stared at Logan. Wondering why Logan had been so ferocious, Michael just nodded. “Good” Logan turned and followed Cal.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself” Cal grinned at Logan.

“Of course you couldn’t” Logan playfully pushed Cal “I’m the only one who thinks exactly like you brother.”

“Logan,” Cal glanced back at Michael who had finally gotten up, “why’d he call you a street boy?”

Logan turned away, “No reason really. It was an insult or something from our last fight.”

“Ok, well he won’t be bothering us anymore.” Cal stated as the bell rang and they turned to go inside.