[5] A Strange Case

(Malory)

I spot a very dread-looking Kyle Davidson walking through the entrance doors as I’m conversing with some girls from my class. He has the look and smell of death; like someone dragged him across the block by his ankle and then powdered him in milk. He looks pale, exhausted, irritated, sick and has the face of a serial killer. Only one eye peeks out from behind his thick, unkempt hair. Should I feel sorry for him? Or should I pummel the daylight out of his good eye for being absent from rehearsals? Delinquent. I excuse myself from the current conversation and practically bounce my way over to Kyle with a toothy grin.

“Looks like someone beat me to it, already pressing your piss-off button. Who do I have to thank?”

“Not today, Lloyd.”

I smirk. “I’m saying this as a cooperative co-star: You look like shit.”

“Do me a favour?” He says, wearily.

“Uh huh?”

He inhales sharply. “Don’t talk to me.”

He continues walking on so I just fall into step with him. There’s no way he’s getting off that easily after he did exactly the same thing to me.

“Why didn’t you show up to rehearsals on Friday? What, did you have to attend some clown club? Or is it because you’re like your character, Angus, in the script where you have some kind of massive possession of tangible wealth and had to manage it all? How are your livestock? Where do you hide your golden coins and precious jewels? Did your mother wake you up at the sound of the cock’s crow to tend to the horses? And you became so preoccupied that you forgot you had other duties to attend to?”

Kyle comes to an abrupt halt in the hallway. The next thing I feel is the palm of his hand shoving me backwards and then my body slams against the locker behind me.

Why was the metal so cold? Why is his hand shaking? Why does everything – the locker, his hand- feel like ice against my skin?

I grimace. “Ouch. What the hell is wrong with you today? Did you down an extra dose of Sure-Pissed syrup or something?”

Kyle glares down at me. There’s an uneasy tension between us as I process how close he actually gets to me. “Let’s get one thing straight, Lloyd,” he says in a stern, spiteful tone. “Do not ever utter a word about my family from your filthy mouth. Do I ever piss you off about the dead drunkard you called a father? I don’t care how annoying you get. Leave everyone else out of it. Don’t cross the line. Especially not today.”

I feel my heart stop for a minute. Something about his anger has definitely caught me off guard. I feel the fear. I push it aside.

How could you do that to me? My eyes ask him. How could you mention my father?

My knee finds his abdomen, and his grip of my shoulder is gone. He stumbles backward. He groans in pain and bends forward –and then I see it. Hiding behind his thick, messy black hair is an awful purple bruise that puts a knot in my stomach and gives me the worst nauseating, sinister feeling I have ever felt. It puts a chill up my spine and into my neck. The bruise covers his cheekbone, and much of his left cheek, and his hair had done a pretty good job of concealing it from the eyes of others. I can’t help but wonder what happened to him.

Genuinely concerned, eyes wide and voice low, I say, “Kyle...” he looks up at me, painfully, “what the hell happened to your face?”

Kyle’s expression goes from fury and pain to shock, fear and anxiety in the span of two seconds. He frantically fixes his hair over his face again, straightening his back. “Mind your own business, Lloyd.”

“Did you get into a fight?”

He ignores me and walks away. Ron appears from around the corner just in time to almost bump into his best friend. He extends a hand for a fist bump but receives nothing. Kyle just pauses, looking down at Ron’s clenched fist, oblivious. Ron clears his throat and lowers his hand awkwardly. “Hey, you know what was fun?” he asks Kyle sarcastically. “Eating all the junk food by myself, last night. Why didn’t you show up? The least you could’ve done was give me a heads up. I had to hide six cans of energy drinks in my room for the night just so my mom wouldn’t piss off about them lying around this morning. I couldn’t drink it all out because I’d downed like five in one hour. Do you know how much damage that does? Anyway, forget it. Why do you look like shit today? What’s up with you? Why haven’t you responded to any of my messages or calls this weekend. We have important things to do, man. I was worried.”

Kyle doesn’t utter a word. He ignores Ron and heads to his classroom.

“What’d you do to him this time?” Ron asks me, spitefully.

“I didn’t do anything,” I confess. “He walked into school like that. Even I’ve never seen him this bad. And he ignored you all weekend?”

“We were supposed to hang out at my house. He didn’t cancel, didn’t come and didn’t respond to me all weekend. I don’t know what’s going on.”

The image of the deep purple bruise on Kyle’s pale face flashes across my mind again, his expression of fear and anxiety rippling in my mind.

“What do you think happened?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I think it’s got something to do with his uncle who’s flying out of the country again. When I called him during rehearsals on Friday he said he couldn’t make it because he was doing errands for him. He probably has a lot on his mind since he’ll have the whole house to himself once his uncle is gone. That’s probably why he’s so irritated. His brain is probably working overtime.”

“He lives with his uncle? What about his parents? Come to think of it I’ve never seen them. Not that I really thought much about it, but it is kind of weird. What do you mean he’ll be in the house all by himself? Have you ever been to his house?”

Ron sighs, defeated. “All I know is that his uncle is his guardian. He said it’s best never to talk about his parents. He gets pretty aggressive whenever they’re mentioned. After a while I just learnt to deal with not knowing. He stopped being aggressive once the topic dropped. And his uncle travels a lot. I’ve never been to his house, though. I’ve suggested hanging out at his place –even jokingly- but it’s never happened. I don’t know where exactly he lives, either. Besides, I get the feeling his uncle doesn’t like visitors. He’s not the type to show his face here anyway, is he? He’s probably the sort who avoids company.”

“Strange,” I say.

***

“Oh! Hey, my mom called yesterday,” I tell Olivia as we find seats in the crowded cafeteria.

“She did?” She asks excitably, “How’s everything in China?”

“She says it’s great. She had to do surgery on a panda.”

“Is the panda okay?”

“She said he’ll be fine after getting a lot of rest.”

“When is she coming back?”

“She’s supposed to be back in two weeks,” I tell her. “Supposed to be. I’m not counting on it. I know how messy her schedule is. Something new always comes up. She knows I can manage on my own, though.”

Olivia smiles, weakly. “I admire her so much.”

I smile, a bit sadly. “It’s amazing how she’s built herself up over the past year. She was such a mess after... well...”

Olivia frowns. “I know. You don’t have to bring it up if you don’t want to.”

She pats my back. I get a flashback of when Kyle slammed me into the lockers earlier today –how my back hit the metal lockers and I cringed. I straighten my back and clear my throat, taking a sip from my juice, shoving the thought aside.

“She keeps me motivated for the animal rights group,” I say. “It’s a shame I didn’t end up being great at science to take after her and become a vet. I’m kinda disappointed in myself. I used to be a science god in middle school. Time really shapes your path, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sure she’s proud that you’re doing what you love, so it doesn’t matter. Don’t be too disappointed. You may not end up in any career that deals with science but you can do so many other things.”

I laugh, pitifully. “I guess... but I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m pathetic.” I pout.

She stops rubbing my back and looks at me pointedly. “Not true.”

Ron appears out of nowhere and slams his filled lunch tray down on our table with a huff. Olivia and I look up at him as he stares blindly at the table. We look at each other and raise our brows, slowly biting into our lunches.

“May I?” He asks, exasperated.

Olivia scoots over and I follow her, until there’s enough space for Ron to take a seat beside me. He drops into the seat with a furrow of his brows.

“What’s going on?” Olivia asks.

“Is that doofus still ignoring you?” I roll my eyes.

He inhales sharply. “He’s pissing me off. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“Kyle?” Olivia chews her lunch.

“I’m tired of trying for today. I need to preserve whatever sanity I have left before one of my favourite classes this afternoon,” says an irritated and hungry Ron.

I pause in the middle of a juice sip. “Ron...” I said, carefully.

“Yea?”

“What if he got into a fight with someone?”

“I wouldn’t know about it,” he says in a spiteful, annoyed tone. “Why? Do you think he fought with someone?”

I wonder if I should tell him –or anyone at all. Then again, as Kyle said, I really should just mind my own business. Serves him right for getting punched... kinda. Maybe if I gave Ron a subtle hint...

“Did he even look in your direction at all today?”

“No,” he replies. “He ignored my existence, didn’t talk to me and looked at literally anything else. I don’t care anymore, though. We have two more periods before school ends for the day and I’m not about to spoil my mood before a double of literature. I’m just going to stay with you guys until he stops being a dick,” he concludes. “He isn’t leaving me with much of a choice anyway, being so closed off. You’d think at least opening up to one person would do him some good. Sometimes I wonder if there’s some real life horror story that’s going on in his life and nobody knows a damn thing. I’m not gonna lie. I’m worried about him and simultaneously scared for my own life. And all of this is just based on assumptions.”

“Can’t believe I’m saying this,” I mutter, “but I think you might be right.”

He definitely has some horror caging him in. The question is... What is it?

The other question is... Why on Earth do I even care?

“Just let him cool off,” Olivia says in a defeated tone. “He’ll be fine. I think he’ll be fine. He’s just having a really bad day.”

I take a big bite into my sandwich. He’s having such a bad day he had to bring up my father?

When my father died, the school was notified, and news about it trickled through the student body. It faded like any other old news story since I’m not actually that important around here, but I guess Kyle had been saving that line to use on me for a long time.

“Let the day pass,” Ron says, more to himself than to anyone else, and I find myself listening. If Kyle’s abnormal attitude gets out of hand, I’ll just get to the core of it like I always do.

***

“Strange,” Katy says, when I explain the situation to her in between tending to customers.

“Right?” I say. “I didn’t tell Olivia or Ron about the bruise I saw, though. Not yet, at least. I know Olivia. She’d either talk about it too loudly or try to sneak a glance at it –but she’s too obvious and she’ll sell me out and then Kyle might actually kill me. And if Ron finds out well... honestly I don’t know what would happen, but I don’t want to have any part in jeopardising their friendship. Let Kyle destroy that on his own.”

“Who would he get into a fight with if he keeps to himself so much?” She asks.

I shrug. “Who knows? I have my suspicions. I think if it wasn’t some lowlife gang then it was probably his uncle. That’s just a suspicion, though. Kyle is so unpredictable I don’t want to get ahead of myself at all –especially when it comes to him.”

She frowns. “Either way, a purple bruise to the face? Kinda leaves the impression that whoever hurt him wanted to teach him a lesson he should never forget.”

“You should have seen the size of it, Katy,” I exasperate. “I could have sworn I was probably seeing things. But his hair is so thick and messy and annoying that it actually hides everything. I think one of these days I’ll do him a favour and chop some of it off, myself.”

“Do you think you can get a picture of it?”

“Are you insane?”

“You’ll have evidence of what you’ve seen in case you need it later on,” she says. “The bruise will only be there for so long. Aren’t you the one who likes to hoard blackmail on people? All I’m saying is a picture of a bruise that bad might be useful.”

Pondering over her logic, I silently agree. “I... can try to get one, I guess.”

After a moment of silence, Katy turns to me and scoffs.

“What?”

“It’s funny...” She says. “You supposedly hate this guy and yet here you are worried about him getting beaten up. Thought you’d be celebrating.”

“Hey!” I say, defensively. “I can fight him. I choose not to fight him because I am a civilised human being. We annoy each other but we wouldn’t go so far as to actually kill each other. I don’t think so. You do know the only reason we get away with hating and annoying each other is because we have excellent grades, right? The school would never allow that kind of behaviour otherwise. The school doesn’t get involved in our fights unless another student accidentally gets caught up in the action or gets hurt... or if the school’s reputation is at risk.”

“But you’re not denying that you’re worried about him.”

I can’t lie and say I’m not worried. I can’t. The bruise I’d seen felt like a scar dug open on my own skin. Damn my empathy.

I’ve known my own bruises. I never wanted to reopen wounds like those, but Kyle had managed to vividly bring it all back to me in just a couple of seconds.

“I’d be worried about anyone I see with a bruise that big, Katy.” I say.

“Even for, and I quote,” she clears her throat, “the disgusting dog that is Kyle Davidson?”

I scoff, thinking back to all I’d said. It’s true, I don’t quite like him. He makes my blood crawl and I usually get a headache the minute I hear his name or see a single strand of his hair flip as he appears from around the corner, but seeing him hurt that bad –especially by someone else who might have had other ill intentions for him- makes me feel really bad. My eyes become sad. I turn to Katy.

“Even for him.”