But he still wasn’t looking at me, instead he was tapping out a message on his phone; I assumed it was the hospital. My mother stood up off her chair and walked around our oakwood kitchen table to hug me, while I still had both my arms stuck, straight down at my s ides.
My mother is a petite woman, who only reaches the height of my chest, and her chestnut -b rown hair is always perfectly combed no matter what time of day i t is.
“It breaks my heart to see your perfect face bruised like this. I can barely see your beautiful blue eyes,” she said in a soft, sad v oice.
Being an optometrist, my mother notices everything about someone’s eyes. She held my face gently, giving me a kiss on my right cheek and skilfully avoiding the sore side of my face. It always made me feel horrible to see her so u pset.
“I know, Mom. I’m sorry,” I whisp ered.
She looked at me with her warm brown eyes and then turned away, walking back to the table to stand beside my father’s chair. He slowly pressed his finger down on the power button, releasing it on top, and pushing it away from him. Finally, he looked over a t me.
“Your hair is a mess,” he said, with an unreadable expres sion.
Oh, I didn’t mention before that I have a lot of hair. Thick, brown hair. Not only am I named Elvis, I even have Presley’s crazy hair!
My siblings nearly stomped on each other trying to get up and out of the room as soon as my father spoke. Allison had warned me several times in the past—It’s better not to give Dad anything to pick on when he’s in a foul mood if it can be avo ided.
This is an effort to help me stop getting into so much tro uble.
It looked like my hair would be my downfall that day, and neither of them were willing to stick around for the fal lout.
“Good luck, little bro,” Adam said as he walked past me, patting my right shoulder affectiona tely.
“Yeah, thanks.” I leaned against the granite countertop, looking at the gr ound.
“Hey, you know where to find me if you want to talk after all this.” Allison smiled as she made her way out of the kit chen.
My sister has always been a good friend to me. She’s someone I can confide in. Allison inherited our mother’s petite build with the same chestnut -b rown hair and the same warm brown eyes.
She’s happy all the time, very cheery and bubbly, always optimistic. My sister is definitely high on life!
I was still looking down at our white marble kitchen floor when I heard my father clear his th roat.
“I’m not exactly sure if I’ll ground you again, Elvis,” he said in a quiet but angry voice, “since that doesn’t stop you from getting yourself into trouble again as soon as you’re off the hook.”
My eyes travelled to him, then to my mother. She had the palm of her hand leaning on his shoulder, and I noticed her squeezing it a little to silently calm him. All I could do was stare at them in a daze as my mind replayed the night scene by scene. I couldn’t care less if my father thought about grounding me or not. I wasn’t even sure how to clear my head enough to tell my parents all about it. I couldn’t get the girl out of my mind. Was she all right? What happened to her? Did she even mak e it?
“Elvis, sweetheart, what is it? Why do you seem so distant?” My mother’s concern distracted me from my thou ghts.
“Does it hurt? Do you need an ice pack?” she a sked.
“No, I don’t need an ice pack, Mom. I’m fine.”
“What is it that draws you to this every time, Elvis? Why can’t you learn to walk away from trouble when you see it, instead of running right int o it?”
My father went right in with the line of questioning, as u sual.
“I’m waiting for you to understand that there’s more to life than partying all the time, dating a different girl every week, and being part of all this nonsense that brings you home looking like this! It breaks your mother’s heart every time she sees your face all smashed up. Do you think it’s ever easy on your mother to check in on her son in the morning, only to see that his face has been treated like a punching bag and his clothes are covered in blood? I think I speak for the both of us when I say we would be tormented if something worse happened to you, Elvis. You’re graduating high school in a couple of weeks. Trust me, reality will be the next thing to hit you in the face.”
He stood up suddenly from his chair, smacking the enormous wooden table with his big hand, creating such a loud noise that my mother gasped. But I stayed where I was without reacting. My dad was right. I knew this hurt them, and reality had already hit me.
It hit me the night before, but not in the face. More like in my gut, in my chest, and in my heart. My dad took another breath in to continue his speech when my mother interrupted with her soothing, sweet v oice.
“Elvis, every time you leave the house, I worry about you, my heart aches. I can’t keep having to think something terrible might happen to you. I pray every now and then for you to be safe, for nothing to harm you. Seeing you look like this over and over again hurts beyond belief.” She had tears in her eyes that she was trying to hold back.
I have to admit that hurt the most. Knowing that my actions affected my family that way. I thought about the girl, how her parents must have felt when they arrived at the hospital to find their daughter in a horrific state. I shuddered at the thought.
It would devastate my family if they ever had to see me or Adam or—I could hardly think about it let alone say it—Allison in such a state. Oh God, I would have found whoever was responsible for such brutality and made them wish they had never been born. The anger built up inside of me began to take over.
I can’t even imagine. Those poor parents. That poor girl.
“You’re going to be an adult in just a couple of months, Elvis.”
My father’s voice took me out of my deep thoughts—he sounded furious. “It’s time you started acting like one.”
He walked towards the double French doors to our terrace, staring through the glass at the view. Tall forest -g reen trees crossed with the clear blue water of the Pacific Ocean and were shadowed by the mountains, wrapped around it all. He just stood there, gazing through the big windows with his lips in a hard line.
Eventually, he turned around to face me, continuing his lecture where he’d left off. But I wanted them to hear me out. Maybe my father could find out something about the girl, I thought. He was still preaching, but I couldn’t listen to his words anymore. I was too distracted by my own thoughts and a little too disturbed by the echoes of the night. I had to let them know.
I shook myself, ran my fingers through my wild brown hair and held up my hand, interrupting my father. He stopped, and I began tell them about the night be fore.
It was the biggest graduation party of the year. Amanda Black’s family was hosting it at their banquet hall in Burnaby. There must have been over eight hundred graduating students who showed up. Amanda had invited students who invited other students from different high schools in the city. It was the wildest party before prom.
Liam, Philip, and I decided to take the transit bus to Hastings Street. The bus was full of students—some knew each other, some were new faces, and it seemed that everyone had chosen that route because most of us were heading to the same place. Everyone was ready to have the best night of their life. We were all on the same page, cheering loudly, enjoying the vibe. But I couldn’t take my attention off of these three guys sitting all the way at the back of the bus. I had noticed them just as we stepped onto the bus, and we briefly made eye contact but then got distracted by everyone’s excitement. The guys seemed a little older than everyone else, and the way they carried themselves had me on the defensive. They looked like trouble. I was curious to know if they were heading to the same place. They didn’t seem as enthusiastic as the rest of us, but then, sure enough, they stepped off the bus with the same crowd making their way to Amanda Black’s party. Liam noticed me staring disapprovingly, and he put his hand on my arm.