A Nerd Hurts a Bully

18

MANUEL

The car ride home wasn't silent, but in a good way. "Mom, I'm hungry." I said. "Anything you want, baby. I'll get it." She said. "What about Chipotle?" I asked. "Yes, craving some anyway." Mom said.

"Mom?" I said. "Yes, Manny?" She responded. "Are you mad at me for not telling you?" I asked. She looked at me surprised. "Oh gosh, baby no." She said. "I'm proud of you for telling me at all." She continued.

"Some people never end up telling their parents." Mom said. "Oh, I thought you would be. Some people think that I really wanted to have sex with Dad." I said. "Well those people can fuck off and get a life." She said. "Also, do you want to press charges against those people that took you to a house and did those awful things to you?" She asked. "No, that will just make things worse for me. I forgive them, Ma." I said. "Alright, let's get some Chipotle." Mom said while pulling up to the drive-thru.

Gosh, I was so fucking hungry. All I ate at my Dad's house was some leftovers from his dinner.

"Did your father feed you when you were there?" Mom asked. "No, not much. Only leftover scraps from his dinner." I said. "Of course, that son of a bitch rapes his own son and doesn't even fucking find the sanity to feed him?" She said angrily. She looked at me. She grabbed my cheeks with one hand. "I'm so sorry baby. I wish you had a father that cared for you." Mom said. "You're all I need, Mom." I said. She smiled.

"Do you want to eat here or at home?" Mom said. "I want to eat here, like the old times." I said. "I am glad you said that. I'm hungry as fuck I can't wait any longer!" She said. We laughed together as we opened our food. Obviously, we exchanged food to see how it tasted, just out of curiosity.

I love my mom to death. Whenever I'm around her, she makes me forget about all the bad things in life. If she dies, I die too. If I die, she dies too. We are so much alike. She had me at 15, so she made sure to take care of me and take full responsibility. My dad was 16 when they had me. They didn't have the best relationship, they were just horny teenagers, I guess. My dad cheated on my mom before they had me. That's when my dad had Max with some other woman. When I told her I got with Nadiya, I had to reassure her 20 times that me and her will not have any kids.

"I love you, Mom." I said. "I love you too, my Manny." We smiled at each other while our mouths were full of food. "We still have the rest of the day, Manny. What do you want to do? Let's look at the bright side of life for a bit." I said. "Can we just go home, talk, and watch TV? Only if that's okay with you." I asked. "Baby! Of course that's okay with me!" She said. My dad would kick me out if he saw me watching TV. I'm grateful for my mom.

Once we are in the house we both race upstairs because we both need to use the bathroom badly. "HA! I BEAT YOU TO IT BABY!" Mom yelled. "MOMM! PLEASE!" I yelled back. We just both ended up laughing. She let me use the bathroom first. After that, we went into our pajamas. My mom told me to go to the kitchen and get a bowl of popcorn and a bowl of M&M's. When I got the bowl, I accidentally dropped it and it broke.

I started crying and running to a corner to curl up into a ball, like I do whenever I do something wrong in my dad's house. I don't know why I reacted like this with my mom. My mom came running into the kitchen. "MANUEL! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" She yelled as she tried to look for me.

She then spotted me in a corner while I was crying. "I'm sorry, I won't do it again." I said. "Honey, I don't care if you broke a plate by accident. We all make mistakes." Mom said while kneeling down to comfort me. "Yeah, but I'm sorry. I'll get a new plate set for you. Just don't hit me, please." I said, still thinking that it's my dad. "Damn. He really traumatized my baby like this." My mom said while shedding a tear.

"Come on, go to the living room. I'll clean this up for you." She said. "Okay, thank you." I said. "Anything for my baby boy." She replied.

While my mom was cleaning up, I got a text message from the group chat.

Z: Manuel, are you okay?
B: yeah we haven't heard from u
W: let us know ur ok
N: max is in juvenile now
Z: that's a relief
M: im okay guys
N: glad u are, u guys just wanna hang out?
M: i can't, im with my mom
N: oh k that's good

This is probably the happiest I ever been since the party. It's crazy how this all happened so fast.

Is the pain actually all coming to an end? Of course it's not, but let's enjoy the good stuff while it lasts.