Excerpt 1
He woke up to June the 7th, his thick duvet covered the fetal position he’d held himself tight in for the last few hours. His pillow was damp from water leaked from eyes which were now wide. Bags underneath them showed his sleep deprivation. Bags underneath them brought colourful insight into the troubled world of a boy just 13.June the 7th had always been a bad date for him, where memories compressed to the back of his brain forced a way to the surface. The date was like his personal Friday the 13th, if anything was to go bad, then today was the day. He prayed for a good day but wasn’t convinced that God was listening. He heard a knock at his door. “Jerry it’s time to get up for school,” his keyworker Ann said. He rolled his eyes inwardly, his earlier appeal to God fell on deaf ears. Though he still had no intentions of going to school today, he had a task to do, and it’s not like he’d miss anything in school anyway, since being kicked out of mainstream he couldn’t remember the last time he learned anything worthwhile, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d wrote on a piece of paper. No, school was pointless, he reasoned. He held his fetal position tighter, he wished he could stay in the safety of his bed, the warmth reminded him of a mother’s loving arms. He caught himself. The word love was moist, he wasn’t moist, he was a 13-year-old moving deeper than most his age would ever dream to. He broke from comfort, swinging his long legs from the bed. His size 9 feet landed with a thud. He remembered being with his gran one morning and when taking a look at his feet she said in her patois ‘yu foot long ehh?’ Memories forced a chuckle to escape from his lips, he hadn’t seen his gran in so long, he’d been a resident of care for what felt like too long. Days spent at the breakfast table of different care homes had him forgetting the meaning of family life. He wondered how his grandma was. His door knocked a tune of tap, tap. “Jerry?” His mood switched to rude. “Yessss,” he gave a long drawn-out answer. “You getting ready for school?” He gave an answer with hidden truths. “I’m getting up” he replied, but he had no intentions of going PRU. The only reason he even answered was that Ann was at his door, a key worker he liked as she was always straight up and real with him. She’d say, “You’re getting older Jerry, so there’s no need for me to sugarcoat things to you. When you’re doing good, I’m going to tell you and when you’re doing bad, I’m most definitely going to tell you.” She’d add that last part with a chuckle and warm smile. He respected that. Combined with the way she made a mean chicken short crust pie, she’d quickly grown to become one of his favourite key workers. Though today that didn’t mean much, he just wasn’t in the mood, he waited until he heard the creaky footsteps of her going back downstairs before he reached for his towel, shower gel, and other toiletries. He stepped out of his room and into the confines of a bathroom, housing a toilet, mirror, and slim walk-in shower. Ten minutes later and he stepped from the bathroom and into his room baby bottom clean, Lynx effect fresh. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror on his wardrobe the match of vanity struck, he noticed the signs of a muscular bulge to his arms, he slow stepped to the left and dabbed to the right, he would have added a left shoulder gun lean too, but he heard his name being called, his half smile faded...
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