Page 5 of Break

Slamming my bag down on the wood planks of Danny’s front porch, I sit on the steps while waiting for the guys to get here. Digging my nails into the palm of my hands to try to control how freaking pissed I am, Aiden’s words eat at me.

“Your dad is such a piece of shit and your mom is a pushover,” he sneers at me while his buddies are laughing behind their hands.

Narrowing my eyes, I try to stare him down. “The hell are you getting on about? You don’t know me or my family, you dick.”

Smirking, he stands a little taller. “Oh, no? So, it wasn’t your dad that me and my folks saw stumbling out of a bar Saturday night with one of the trailer women under his arm? Grabbin’ her butt and kissin’ on her? It was disgusting. My mom and dad said that he’s always out doing that kind of shit and your mom doesn’t even care! She just lets him screw all the dirty trash in town, and then lets him come right on home.”

I fist my hands at my side and get right in his face. “You have no damncluewhat the hell you’re on about! Shut your mouth before I shut it for you!”

Ethan grabs my shoulder to pull me away and mutters in my ear, “Come on, man. Don’t let him get to you. Let’s get out of here.”

Danny is quick to pipe up in my defense, putting himself between me and Aiden. “I’d think real hard about messing with him. You mess with him, you mess with us. Wouldn’t want your ass kicked, would you? Maybe I should tell Megan that you’ve been passing notes to her best friend during Computers class?”

He doesn’t wait for Aiden to answer him as he turns around to face me. “Come on, meet up at my house. We’ll deal with him later.”

So, here I sit after taking off on my bike from school, trying my best not to punch the daylights out of the pillars holding the roof up over Danny’s front porch.I’m not my dad, I’m not my dad, I’m not my dad. Squeezing my eyes shut, I can’t talk myself down from the rage I’m feeling. I want to fuckinghurthim.Allof them.

“You alright, Max?” Vincent asks. I don’t see my friends show up until Vincent speaks, dropping next to me on the steps. Laughing, he slaps me on my back before continuing. “Aiden is just a pussy, talking the big talk to look good in front of his friends. He’s been a little shit since elementary school.”

Gritting my teeth, I shove Vincent away from me. “I want to hurt that piece of shit. He’s so cocky, thinking he’s better than me ‘cuz his house is bigger and nicer than mine. I’m sosickof it!”

Danny leans against the handrail, dropping his backpack by his feet. “So hurt him then. No one’s gonna say anything about it if you do it outside. I wouldn’t let anyone talk tomelike that, that’s for sure. Don’t let him push you around, dude.”

I glare at him. “I wasaboutto lay him out, but you all pulled me back!”

“No, not like that. We were in school. You’d have been suspended for starting a fight. You gotta scare the shit out of him where there’s no one to stop it so he knows you’re being for real.”

Ethan hasn’t said anything until now. “What do you mean, scare him? How do we scare him if he wasn’t scared that Max was going to punch him?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, I fight my urge to punch Danny’s smirk off his face. He acts like he knows everything. “Weeeellllll… Take one of my pocket knives with you to school and flash it at him. Threaten him to stop running his mouth about you and your family.OH!Make him apologize in front of all of his friends, or you’ll use it on him.”

A smile works its way onto my face as I imagine Aiden crying like a little girl. “That’s freaking perfect. He’ll piss himself!”

“Of course it’s a good idea! I’ll run and grab one for you. I’ve got like ten of them in my room. Hold on a sec.” He pushes his way between Vincent and me, forcing us to catch ourselves before we fall to our sides.

“Asshole!” Vincent yells out, laughing at him.

“I don’t know if this is a good id-” Ethan starts to say before Danny’s nosey neighbor cuts him off.

“Hey… umm, Max? Can I talk to you a minute?” Mina asks.

“Jesus!Where the hell did you come from?” Vincent barks at her. Seriously though, I didn’t even see her walking up to us.

Trying not to be a total ass to her, I huff out a breath. “Not now. We’re kind of in the middle of something. Besides, don’t you have homework or something you should be working on?”

“B-but it’s important.Please… can I talk to you f-for just a second?” she asks again, this time looking right at me. Her hands are folded in front of her long sack dress that she’s always wearing.

The poor kid isn’t doing herself any favors with the way she dresses at school. She’s gonna get her ass kicked at some point. Besides, who still wears their hair braided in pigtails at her age?

Groaning, I stand up. “Fine but be quick about it.” I walk over to the side of the house and put my hands on my hips, glaring down at her. “What do you need?”

“I-I-I…” she trails off, and her stuttering just pisses me off.

“Out with it, Mina, or I’m just gonna go sit back down!” I snap at her and I feel a little bad when she flinches at my anger.

“I… umm, I wasn’t t-tryin’ to listen to what y-you guys were talking about… but umm, I just…” She trails off again, but then takes a big breath and stands up a little taller. “The B-bible says that if you see someone sin, you’re supposed to tell them with n-no one around first so-so you can try to get them to listen. I-I don’t think that you sh-should bring a knife to school…” She looks down and digs her toe into the dirt.

Who the hell does this girl think she is?Talking to me like I’m a kid and telling me what to do.

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