A memory, or a dream. A home, two weeks ago.

A bolt of lightning speared across the sky as I ran. The rain soaked me through as I struggled to keep going.

"C'mon!" Alex shouted. "You're never going to get any better if you don't try!"

I tried to run faster, I tried to summon the stamina necessary to keep going, but my lungs hurt, my sides ached, and I felt light-headed. I walked over to the overhang of a restaurant that wanted to be fancy, but was really small town fancy. I bent over and tried to catch my breath.

I heard Alex sigh and walk over to me. "Again?" He asked. "You're never going to get stronger at this rate."

"Sorry to... disappoint." I gasped.

"Yeah? Well, when all you do is sit around on your ass and do nothing, it's hard to believe you're actually trying." He said. "You have to push yourself, y'know? Do you want to end up like Mike? All he does is sit on his ass and smoke pot."

"It is legal." I pointed out.

"So?" He asked. "He doesn't do anything."

"I clean." I remarked. "When was the last time you took the trash out?"

He looked offended. "I work, you don't." He said.

"And look where that's gotten you." I said. "You barely took the trash out when you didn't have a job and you still don't now that you do." I sat down.

"Whatever." He said. "If you want to be a fat ass who jerks off to giant anime tits, be my guest."

"Says the person who constantly remarks how you'd tap Lydia, or Cait, or literally every video game female with a pretty face and boobs."

He leaned against the wall. "What the hell happened to you, Ryan?" He asked.

"Before, or after my classmates started to harass me for being weird?" I asked. "Before or after every friend I ever had left me because of stupid rumors?"

"I'm serious." He said.

"So am I."

The rain continued to fall as I wrapped my arms around my knees. "You keep talking like this is all somehow my fault. That the reason everything's crap is because I'm the one who didn't try hard enough, because I'm the one who cried when people got mean." I looked at him. "I had nobody to back me up, you had everyone. The same traits I got demonized for are the traits you were respected for."

"You never stood up for yourself." He said.

"Yeah? And why do you think that is?" I asked. "Every time I spoke up, it got worse. Every time I fought back, I was threatened. For every punch, a bloodied lip. For every kick, an arm twisted around my back. All I could do was ignore it because the alternative was some well-meaning idiot telling me how violence isn't the answer. The apologies never meant anything."

He sighed. "You're pathetic."

"And you're a fucking asshole." I retorted. "Took me until tenth grade to start cursing, everyone else started in sixth."

"Then why did you ask me to help you get in shape?" He asked, ignoring my statement.

"Because I fooled myself into thinking that maybe you'd actually be capable of pacing yourself instead of showing off like an ass." I said. "I'm tired of having to run fast, only to find I have no energy left to do anything else."

"Fine, we'll take it slow." He said in a disparaging tone.

"I don't want you to go slow!" I shouted as I stood up. "This isn't fucking gym class where I can lightly jog my way through, you've been in weight training, you know you can't tackle the big shit before you build your way up to it! Why is it every time I ask for some goddamn help, that people give me lip service?!"

"Because everyone knows you're not going to actually try." He said. "Because if you were, you wouldn't be bugging people to do it with you. You'd get up by yourself and do it on your own. 'Oh, I need someone to run with me because otherwise I'm going to get it over with. Boo hoo.' You never take anything seriously."

"I don't know how to do this crap!" I snapped. "I don't know how I'm supposed to work out, I don't know how I'm supposed to act around people to get them to not immediately despise me! It comes naturally to you, but I don't know how! And nobody can explain it to me! They just say they've always been able to do it, they can't explain it and they treat me like a moron because-" I had to take a deep breath to keep from crying. "I just don't understand, okay? Nobody explained to me how this shit works, nobody told me that the real world doesn't make any sense. They always told me if I wished hard enough, that I could do anything."

"Wishes don't come true." He said.

"They do, if you work hard enough." I replied. "I can't do it alone anymore. I can't be the only one trying to make my life better." I looked at him again. "How many times have you told me you'd help me get a job, only to completely drop the ball? How many times have you told me to get a job, and done literally nothing to push me toward getting one? Why am I the only one who has to jump through so many hoops to have the chance to get anything when you've always been the lucky one?"

He sighed and looked up. "You always say that. 'I'm the lucky one'. As if I didn't work for what I have."

"But you didn't." I said. "I spent years trying to repair my reputation, I spent years trying to improve my grades. I went through an extra year of school to get my diploma, and that's literally the only thing I have to show for my sheer stubbornness and spite." I patted my chest. "I did everything I could to have this one achievement, only to learn it's not enough. But you, you had friends to back you up and to support you. You think you got strong on your own, but it was because you had people at your back that allowed you to try something and fuck up. You had someone to pick you up, to keep people from dragging you down. You had people to explain to you what I had to learn on my own."

I lowered my hand. "Why do I have to suffer?"

"Why do you have to complain so much?" He asked. "I get it, you had it rough because you were an antisocial emo, life is pain, yadda yadda. I'm honestly surprised you didn't cut yourself like a little-"

It was the first time I'd ever intentionally punched someone. He stumbled back into the rain and fell on his ass on the wet concrete. I was breathing heavily, my hand hurt, there was blood on his face, but the rain washed it away.

"Don't you ever fucking joke about that." I said. "Ever." I forced myself to unclench my fists. "I don't care about how shitty a person you are. You can call me fatass, idiot, retard... I can take it because I've been called worse by better people. But don't you ever fucking joke about that." I took a deep breath. "Fuck off, I'll walk home by myself." I turned around and walked away. I had to take a deep breath every few moments, to keep my anger in check. I'd wanted to throw him to the ground and beat his face in, but I couldn't. I couldn't allow myself to do that.

I looked at my hand, which was bleeding. I let the rain fall on it, even though it stung a little.

"Hey." I looked up to see a man stopped on the sidewalk. "Got a smoke?" He asked.

"I don't smoke." I said.

He nodded and after a moment asked, "You doin' okay, man?" He asked.

I wanted to say no, I wanted to tell him that nothing was okay, and that nothing was likely to ever be okay. I wanted to tell him how nothing made any sense any more, I wanted to tell him how hard it was to keep pretending that everything was indeed okay. I wanted to tell him how I felt dead inside, but instead, I just said, "It's just been a rough day."

He nodded. "Alright, take care, man." He walked off, and I continued walking home. I stepped onto the train tracks that crossed the road and looked down both sides. There were no trains, nor was it anywhere close to the time that they normally would come by.

"Come on, Rex, when was the last time you did anything the easy way?" I asked myself. "You can't prove them right."

I took a deep breath and I kept walking until I just couldn't. I walked over to a nearby tree and sat down and leaned my back against the trunk. I pulled my legs up to my chest, rested my arms on my knees, and I rested my forehead against them.

I began to cry. I cried because I couldn't just not do something, I could only keep it all in for so long. I would have preferred to have done it in my room, where I could at least do it quietly so as to not be disturbed, but...

I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and looked up. It was Mom. I wordlessly got up and followed her to the car. I brushed the seat of my pants off before sitting down, and she started to drive.

"You hurt your hand." She said. "There's a first aid kit in the center console."

I took it out as she pulled into a parking lot. She then took it once we parked and she began taking care of it.

"I punched Alex." I said.

"I am aware." She replied. "He told me you just hit him for no reason. What was the reason?"

"It's not important." I replied.

"It was to you." She replied. "Otherwise you wouldn't have punched him." She put a bandage on the wound and kissed it. It was a small gesture, but it actually did help, even if a little bit.

"We got in a fight, he said something shi- stupid, and I punched him."

"What did he say?" She asked.

"He was going to make a joke about me cutting myself." I said.

She pulled out of the parking lot as she said, "He knows better."

"He does. And the thing is, I asked him to help me try to get into shape, and he spent the entire time showing off, trying to make me do more than I'm actually capable of. He said I'm not trying hard enough, that I'm lazy and that I'm no better than Mike."

"Honey." She said. "As much as I don't want to play favorites, I have to disagree with Alex. Even though you frustrate me, you do what I ask, even when all you want to do is sleep and watch your cartoons."

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in outrage and were suddenly ignored." I joked. Mom shot me a glance. "There are a lot of people who would be insulted that you would call anime a cartoon, even though you're not incorrect." I explained. "Hence the joke."

She gave a smirk, having understood. "I love you, Ryan." She said. "When you do clean up, even if you're just doing the bare minimum, you don't half-ass it, and when I ask you to do something, you don't argue, you don't ignore me, you get up and you do it."

"Because you asked me to." I replied. "I'm still figuring things out, and I know it's not really much, but I've filled out an application for food stamps so that I can contribute toward meals, and I did some research into maybe getting a therapist so I can try to deal with... well, everything. It's unfair to you for me to constantly talk about my problems and my stresses."

"If you think it will help, I have no problem, as long as the insurance can take care of it and the copay isn't too high."

"Yeah." I said. "It's just a matter of convincing Willis to go along with it."

"I wish you wouldn't talk about your father like that." She said.

I bit my tongue, I loved Mom too much to just talk bad about my father. "I'm just making sure I have all of my bases covered before I talk to him about money." I said. "You know how he can get."

"I am aware." She replied. "But that's why I told him I would never let any of you kids go without a home. That I'd leave him before I would ever allow one of you kids to go homeless." We pulled into another parking lot. "When we get home, I want you to apologize to your brother for hitting him." She noticed my expression. "I know you're mad at him, but he means well, even if he's being a brat."

"All it's going to do is reinforce that his actions don't really have any consequences." I said. "I'm not going to f- I'm not going to apologize, he needs to know he crossed a line that I am not willing to forgive easily. I'm a writer, I understand the power words can have, how the language we choose to use effects other people. He needs to understand that, now more than ever since he's a legal adult."

"I know." She said. "But is it worth the fighting?"

"Yes." I said. "I love him as much as I love the rest of my family, and that's why his actions hurt me when I see how he acts."

It was now that I noticed where we'd pulled into, which was the drive thru of a Dutch Bros. I looked at Mom with a raised eyebrow, and she nodded.

"Alex likes the double chocolate mocha." I said. "It's his favorite."

"He told me." She said. "He asked that I get him one, gave me the money for it, so this isn't me getting him one out of the kindness of my heart. You on the other hand..."

"A small chocolate frost." I said.

She nodded as we pulled up to the window...