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Middle school is when Andrew had picked his first fight.
The guy was taller, bulkier than him. Played on the basketball team, liked bragging about his wins. Liked putting others down, specially scrawny losers like Andrew. He was loud and brash. An abuser of the blind eye school faculty turned to bullying.
The day Andrew finally snapped back was like any other day, and it wasn’t anything to marvel x5x6at. The guy had been teasing something, laughing and making fun of something that wasn’t quite clear in his memory anymore, white hot rage had taken his head over and that was the first time when Andrew had snapped and punched another person hard- right in the face.
The guy went down and Andrew, for a moment, felt relief. Relief that took him in a wave, an unfamiliar, welcome feeling.
Looking down– how great it was to be the one looking down for a change, to be a pillar to a pebble–he sees he managed to hook the guy's nose at a bad angle. It was bleeding. Not too heavily, but enough. Blood flowed down in a steady trickle, wetting the guy's face and adding to his anger.
That guy had stood up, obviously furious, and after wiping his nose with his hand went full out on Andrew. Andrew didn't have any apologies nor regrets to say to him. He had just readied his fists and prepared himself.
The fist was bloody as it collided with Andrew's cheek.
-
The fight had only broken apart because one very annoyed teacher had pulled the other guy right off Andrew. Had dragged him by the arm, Leaving Andrew gasping and clenching his teeth. How pathetic he must look, like a dog with his tail between his legs. A kicked puppy. Authority was too late to have saved the bruise forming under his chin, a black eye, a series of scratches on his limbs and a nose that was bleeding much worse than the other guy.
The jock had dug his dull nails into Andrew's arm, leaving a shallow, bleeding cut. The torn flesh caught the bitter winter air and it stung, but Andrew had ignored the pain in favor of adrenaline during the fight. Now, his arm throbbed, his face hurt, and the guy was giving him a death glare sharper than a knife.
A small crowd had gathered. Andrew had heard some kids betting that the other guy would just straight up kill him. Maybe he would’ve. Andrew wouldn’t have let him.
He was escorted to the nurse and the other guy to the principal's office to get lectured on his apparent record for harassment. Their bloodied nose had stopped so he had no excuse to go to the nurse and glare at Andrew.
Andrew notices that he had left a bruise or two on the guy's arms. He stared at the swelling purple and red as the guy left his view and he felt a strange sort of pride. For himself. For standing up for once.
For once, he’d bit back.
-
In the nurses office, he sits on a bench while absentmindedly rubbing an ice pack on his face. It hurt. His nose was still bleeding, slightly, but it had mostly dried up and Andrew was only left with a light crimson hint of dried crust. It smelled of rust and copper but nothing was broken and the damage wasn’t too bad.
The nurse had given him a bandaid to slap on his arm injury and a leaky ice pack to rub on everything else. She’d left him there then.
He scratched his arm, picking at the bandaid that he had haphazardly slapped on without much thought. It barely covered the whole wound. He can see the edges, the ugly ragged skin poking out at him.
It's scabbed over already. Dark and brown and hard, a dam attempting to stop a flood, desperately trying to heal. It itched and it made Andrew scratch harder, rub at the freshly healed wound. Nails dug in, harder, harder. Dig back into what should’ve healed, that would’ve fixed itself.
He tore skin and it bled.
Andrew jolted, a sudden sting of pain and cool air distracting him from the icepack he’d moved to press to the bottom of his mouth. His lip had gotten torn in the scuffle and it had bled, swelling a deep, rich shade of red. He can taste the metal and the torn lips that he had. It wasn’t pleasant.
He pays his attention to the freshly opened wound. A steady trickle of crimson made its way slowly down his arm. Andrew pressed his finger on it and it came away red.
He’d stared at it for a second. The fresh, swelling pain– it woke him from his strange, careless trance. The pain had alerted him and he felt awake. Present.
He’d pressed harder. The ache was grounding. His fingers were wet and helped blood pool grow.
The pain helped him.
He didn’t call it self harm then. He still doesn’t. It had took the story being told to Ivan for him to shove the uncomfortable truth in his head and say- Andrew, it's alright. It's alright to admit what had been done. You don’t always have to carry your own weight. Let me help.
He’d been guided by his friend to take care of himself. He’d leaned on Ivan's help and it made him feel like everything could be okay.
Andrew kicked the habit a while ago, with Ivan's help. He learned not to pick at old wounds. Listened and left his problems behind him, left them in the dust.
-
Leave him in the dust. Leave him behind. Use his advice against him. Fight back and hit hard. LIke a man.
Old petty habits had surged back full force after what Ivan had done. His old way of holding grudges, of latching on and trying to hurt as much as possible before being dragged off, tooth and nail. Make it hurt. Make it dig into his cold, hard soul. Hurt him like he’d hurt Andrew, tear him apart from the inside.
Ivan had once compared him to a bull. Angry at the world and set its eyes on the nearest moving thing, and would not stop until it was more than dead. Andrew had wondered then if Ivan knew much about bulls.
Andrew had called Ivan something akin to an owl, then. Wise and smart and a little unsettling at times.
Andrew now knows he is wrong. Ivan's not an owl, he's a snake. The worst meaning there was to it. Hissing and silent and deadly, Andrew hadn’t even noticed the noose that was Ivan's words tying around his neck before it was too late. Ivan had him wrapped up all on his pretty fingers, and Andrew, being the naive, desperate fool he was, trusted him. Ivan, he told his prey and choked it to death. Swallowing it whole and raw. Cruel, and monstrous. Thats what it was.
It took a long time before Andrew could call it abuse. Nothing physical happened ever, No threat to his well being had forced him to stay. He couldn’t admit what was being done, at least not for a good long while.
And look where that got him? On the streets, with nothing. He’d rushed out as fast as he could, just to get far, far away from the murderous gleam he’d seen in Ivan’s eyes. For a split second, his quiet, skittish friend had become dangerous.
The worst kind of danger, in Andrew's opinion, was when it gave you hope and made you think it could all work out before ripping it away, leaving you undefended and vulnerable. Cold and bare in a storm, feeding yourself to the warmth of a fire.
He should’ve thought about taking his PC. In the process of rushing out as fast as he could, he’d left it. All of his work, lost to Ivan, and it's left to the question of what he was thinking. Now he has nothing but himself, and no hope of a home, a job, not friends to lean on.
The winter air stung his hands. He’d been picking at an old cut he’d gotten one day back in early December, trying to chop some vegetables. He’d cut through skin, bled crimson and red and bright, staining his hands like a crime scene. Ivan had helped him clean up the blood, promising that it was okay though he’d colored Ivan’s recently cleaned countertop a bold shade of crimson. The tips of his fingers were red from the cold. Andrew digs them into himself.
Ivan had used that situation against him once.
Ivan was good at taking little things from the past and twisting them until all Andrew had left was guilt and apologies. His forgiveness was just words.
This was ironic. The metaphorical element to it all. He’s opening his old wounds and letting them bleed out until there is nothing left. Andrew could of course ignore it. Andrew can let this wound scab over and heal itself, the creature that had caused it can go reel in its own head. Andrew shouldn’t have cared. Ivan would’ve liked this metaphor.
Would he have stolen it and put it in the game too? Some salty, raging part of him whispered.
He stormed back anyway, through the chilling air, past the streets and the buildings until they started looking familiar. And there he was, just caught outside.
Throwing Andrews gift away.
Maybe Ivan was doing the right thing, leaving Andrew behind. But Andrew lost himself anyway.
-
He’d punched him. Hard enough for Ivan to stumble back, hitting the floor and clenching his cheek, looking up to Andrew with fear, hate, pettiness. Hope, maybe.
Ivan had always looked at Andrew like that, like he’d hung the stars in the sky. Not in an admiring way, more like.. Jealousy. It bothered him. It disgusts him now.
He’d raised Andrew on pedestal and blamed him for his own insecurities. Showered him in praise and acted like Andrew was the one who said it. He’d lifted his pride and yelled at him for not being up to his standard.
He scarcely thought of the words that he had yelled, he was never good at planning, nor talking, nor making solid arguments. He’d let himself explode with his fury and grief. Grief at what they could’ve had, could’ve fixed and let healed until Ivan tore it all apart.
Ivan's responses, of course, were calm and calculated, even as he was at a physical disadvantage.
Did he even know he was in the wrong?
“We had something good going on for us.” Andrew choked out, stumbling though his words. “You’ll fall down, and I'll help you up. And you’ll do the same for me.”
You were always good with words, Ivan. So tell me the ones I need to use to let you know how much I despise you.
He’d held himself back from hitting him again, settling for trying to scar him mentally as he had scarred Andrew.
He wanted to haunt him. He wanted to scar him with his messy blubbering as Ivan had hurt him with his precise strikes. You’d hurt me, his mind screamed, the same part that had driven him to fight back the first, third, fiftieth time. You hurt me and you must care.
Calm down Andrew. Walk away. A snake whispers in his ear. Listen to me Andrew. I’m right and you know it.
So Andrew stepped back, spitting out a final, petty message. He wasn’t coming back. The cold winter air greeted him as he stepped outside the heat of the building.
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