The Boy I Hate

Sixteen.

"Mind your own goddamn business, East." 

I growled, and flicked him in head despite his injuries. "Why do you have to be such an asshole all the time? Just answer the question!"

He shifted in his seat to glare back at me, giving me deja vu. He scoffed slightly under his breath, "I thought he would've told you eventually."

"Told me what?" He didn't answer, so I raised my voice, "told me what?"

He furrowed his brows, searching my face for deception, "you really don't know?"

"Know what?" I wasn't sure how I could make it any more obvious that I didn't know what he was talking about.

He looked taken aback, and turned around to ignore me. I gripped the seat below me to stop myself from grabbing and shaking him. I didn't have much time to dwell on his silence though, because we were quickly parked outside of Charlie's trailer. Bobby and I hobbled him towards the mobile home and as we did a head of raven hair popped through the door eagerly. She seemed like a mixture of angry and scarred - frantic. "Charlie, where have you been?"

That's when I recognized her, "Teresa?"

She did a double take, looking from me to Charlie and back to me, "Mabel?"

Charlie hung onto Bobby's side, "you two know each other?"

Teresa rushed forward to Charlie, inspecting his face with sad eyes. "It doesn't matter. What happened to you?"

He coughed and jutted his head toward me, "ask her ex boyfriend."

She looked at me with a bewildered expression, "that boy from the tea party did this?"

I shrugged, opening and closing my mouth a couple times, "I wasn't there."

"Look," Charlie stumbled a bit, and had to be steadied by Bobby. "Can we talk about this inside, please?"

Teresa supported Charlie on the opposite side as Bobby, so I went to hold the trailer door open for everyone. When they piled in, Bobby sat Charlie on his bed, and Teresa got a wet rag. She tended to his wounds immediately, asking him frantic questions. "Did you provoke them? Where did it happen? Does it hurt here? Here? What about here?"

Through all of it Charlie gave bored answers, and shrugged her away like a little kid embarrassed by his mom. "Maybe. West High parking lot. No. Kind of. Ouch- yes."

I wondered who she was to him. I knew he didn't have any siblings, and I had met his mom when we were kids. Yet I could tell they were related. They shared the raven hair, and more noticeably, the blue eyes. She was older, but not too much. I guessed she was a cousin, but then I remembered a brief moment when he said his aunt was sleeping the day I brought him coffee.

I tried to remember the look of Charlie's mother, and even from that childhood recollection it was clear Teresa was her sister. She must have been staying with him, but that left me to wonder - where was his mother?

From the conversation between Charlie and Teresa I gathered three things: the east side boys started it, there were five of them, and they didn't try to hurt Bobby unless he got in the way. From this point of view it seemed really, really bad. I still promised myself I wouldn't let the sour taste in my mouth take over until I got Richard's side of the story.

Soon Charlie was all cleaned up, and Teresa forced him to lay down with a rag over his head, even though he protested that he was totally fine. He fell asleep seemingly immediately. Teresa ushered Bobby and I outside.

"Bobby," she scolded, pointing a finger. "Was he telling the truth in there?"

Bobby nodded, "yes m'am."