The Alternatives

The bus arrived at the brothers’ house and Jake left with a half bloodied face and a brother who was furious at Dylan for what he did. They saw Alice waiting on the steps of the house. They all greeted each other after six years and the first thing Alice noticed about Jake was his face.

“What happened to you?" she asked shockingly.

“I got into a fight on the bus,” he replied. After they all entered the house, Alice took Jake into the kitchen to clean him up. She had used a cotton ball and rubbed alcohol on the scars. It burned for a couple of seconds and she put a bandage on the scars.

“You gotta tell the teachers about this.” She stated.

“Why? They never help.” He initially protested that if he did so then barely little would be done. He was reflecting on how things were for him in middle school and how some of the teachers barely got stepped in to help him. They told him to either ignore it or get mad at him for continuing to report to them. When their mother came home from work, he told her what happened on the bus.

“Tell your teachers everything you told me so we will all work this out.” She told him. She made a point on Monday to report the incident to the principal. He went to sleep that night thinking about how the situation could have gone into a different direction. After the weekend was over, Jake and Julian sat in the same seats as they did on friday. Once Dylan sat in his seat, Jake knew Dylan was going to strike again when he least expected it. But what he did not expect was Dylan punching him in his left arm. Then Jake quickly got the upper hand and Dylan in his chin. As Jake was about to hit Dylan with his bookbag, Dylan swifty grabbed it and threw it in the back of the bus. The bus monitor saw the fight and pulled them away from each other.

Jake was allowed to sit in the backseat and a bus mate helped him with his backpack when everything in it fell out. The bus monitor gave Dylan a write up for the fight minutes before and the fight on friday. She also sat to talk with Jake about what was going on. He never answered. The bus arrived at the school and Jake and Julian had to wait until after every bus mate had left. Jake went to the principal’s office before he went to eat the school breakfast. He had stated to the principal about the fights that morning and Friday afternoon. The principal had a short meeting with other school officials to discuss what to do with Dylan based on what they learned about the incidents. They gave him detention for the rest of the week.

One night Jake had a nightmare that caused him to throw a chair across his and Julian's room. The sound of the chair had woke Julian up and he saw Jake very upset and had to calm him down. For the past four years, Jake had grown an attraction to Christina whom he had some of the same classes with. But he noticed how much she changed over the past four years. She had dyed her long black hair crimson red, sporting a rose tattoo on her right ankle and piercings on her nose, tongue and belly button. One of the few things they have in common was their dislike towards dylan.

“I did not like how he treated us. So I told the principal everything he had said and done. I hate him for what he did.” Christina had told him. At that moment he saw her as an angel.