Roulette
2
It was days later when things began to feel normal. He was in a new city enrolled in a new school and living with older siblings that he probably wasn’t related to who were bossing him around. The razzle dazzle of a new town had worn off the moment he felt the familiar sting of the back of a hand across his cheekbone. He was home again. Thrown to the ground, he looked up at his male guardian and gaged several things in an instant; his facial expression, rage level and body language to name a few.
The oldest sibling stood upon the stairway in the near distance, watching without expression. He was bigger than the male guardian and he could’ve done something to stop him.
When the male guardian bunched up his shirt at the collarbone he decided to pull away from the shirt and stretch it to cartoon like proportions until he was let go. From there he threw himself over the bars of the oldest sibling’s bicycle and pedaled to freedom. If home was violence, freedom was escaping it.
Hours later he began to shiver in the darkness of the cool summer night. He was lost but also learning the new area he would have to navigate until it was time to move again. The houses were bigger in this area and people were quick to shoo him away. His 2 new brothers found him leaned against a metal lamppost, the bike propping him up as he looked up at the street light. They convinced him to go home, that it was an isolated incident, that it wouldn’t happen again and that it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. He returned home to find the homeowner passed out on his bed, the couch in front of the TV and he and his backpack of clothing were moved into the smallest bedroom upstairs as he was now assigned to share a bed with the male guardian.
