Control

2

For days after that initial incident, I was terrified to even look at my mother. She noticed the change in me, I‟m sure, as did my father. One night, I overheard them talking from their bedroom as I crept to the bathroom. "What‟s wrong with Carter?" my father asked. The sound of my name caused me to pause in my steps. I quietly snuck to my parents bedroom door, pressing my ear close to the crack between the door and doorframe.

"I don‟t know," my mother replied, her voice a farther distance than my fathers. I could faintly hear water running the background, and assumed she must be in their ensuite bathroom. "He asked for a toy the other day at the store. I said no, and he tried to pull a Kevin. Stood there defiantly." The sound of water stopped, and my mothers voice became more clear as she exited the bathroom. "He must still be mad at me for not giving in to him."

I frowned. Straightening up from my stooped position, I quickly retreated to the safety of the bathroom.

Once back in bed, I tried to block out all thoughts and eventually drifted off to sleep.

As the months passed, I was able to return to my normal self. At least somewhat. I wouldn‟t let myself concentrate too hard on anything in case that was the trigger. I tried not to give my parents a hard time, thinking maybe that was why everything had slowed down, and my mother had somehow fallen to my will, albeit momentarily.

But sometimes when I was alone in my room at night I would let my thoughts wander, and sometimes even let myself concentrate enough that I could almost hear that voice in the back of my mind urging me on. But every time I reached that point, I would pull back, frightened.

Occasionally, though, it would happen. Usually when I wasn‟t even trying. Kevin and I would be fighting over a toy or the television, more than once as my emotions were rising, the sensation would skirt around the edges of my consciousness and if I looked at Kevin hard enough his eyes would begin to empty. Immediately I would stop fighting, everything coming to an abrupt halt. Kevin always took this as me giving up, and would begin to gloat and carry on. I didn‟t care, I was too afraid to push myself.

A little over a year passed before it happened again.

I was now in the fourth grade, and Kevin had just entered grade one. He was small for his age, and his knack for all things annoying didn‟t wane as he got older. This prompted some of the other kids to dislike him.

One October afternoon, I was sitting with my friend Brian on a bench outside the gym. The weather had been growing cooler as the month wore on, trading our t-shirts and shorts for sweaters and pants at the insistence of our mothers.

We were talking about our teacher, Mr Fitzpatrick, and what we felt would be an adequate punishment for him in return for giving us both a detention for talking during class. Brian figured we should put a boggie in his coffee cup. Brian‟s solution for most things included putting boggies in things.

"Yeah," I interjected. "But if he found out and told my mom, I‟d be dead."

"He wouldn‟t know it was us," Brian argued. "Most of our class doesn‟t like him. It could be anyone." He smiled at his own logic.

I grinned. It was an enticing possibility.

Just then, my attention was drawn to a loud scuffle around the corner from where we sat.

Standing, I crept to the corner to peak around the side of the building. Usually, I didn‟t get involved in other peoples fights. I had my own problems. But today for some reason I decided to look.

Jake Polasky, a big, burly second grader had cornered Kevin against the wall of the gym. Surrounding them was Jake‟s gang of riffraff, random kids who chose to be on Jake‟s „team‟ rather than one of his many victims.