Harley's Story

Chapter One


I rolled over in my bed to look at my digital clock. It was 8:01; time to get up. I walked into the kitchen, yawned, and sat down at the table. Both of my brothers looked over at me.

It was almost funny, how alike they looked. Anyone who didn’t know my family would think they were twins, with their flame-red hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin. Being their brother, though, I knew that Liam was two years older than twenty-one year old Ryan was. I - the youngest - had turned eighteen three months ago.

Ryan turned away almost instantly; I wasn’t interesting enough for him to pay any attention to. Liam, however, glared at me, which was not unusual.

“You have to work today?” he snarled at me.

I looked up, to make it seem like I was trying to remember. Really, though, I was just trying to hide the fact that I was rolling my eyes.

“I’ve told you a million times. I have to work every day, from 9 am to 10 pm.

“Don’t get sarcastic with me!” Liam yelled, standing up.

I flinched away from him. This was a reflex. Most abused people flinch when voices raise and people move to quickly. And when someone raised an arm.

Yes, I was abused. Not by my parents; they couldn’t abuse me if they wanted to, because they were dead. No, I was abused by my oldest brother.

“Sorry.” I pretended to feel bad. “I have a headache, and you were talking really loud.” I lied.

He walked over to the tiny cupboard and got out a tiny red plastic bowl, the kind you give a five year old when it’s filled with some kind of afternoon snack. He filled that bowl halfway up with Raisin Bran -- the cheapest at the store -- and set it in front of me. I dug in hungrily.

“That’s no excuse,” he told me angrily. He smacked the back of my head. Hard. I winced.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he announced. He walked off without another word.


I finished my measly breakfast in about three minutes. I was still starving. This wasn’t new. However, Liam didn’t usually leave the room while I was eating. He thought I was going to take more than I was allowed. He was right.

Unlike most of the abuse I get, the not getting enough food thing isn’t because my brothers hate me. It’s because we can’t afford enough food to begin with. And, as the youngest, I got the least -- and worst-- of everything. I stood up and walked over to the cupboard that we keep our food in, getting out the cereal. I poured enough of it to fill the bowl.

Ryan glanced up at the sound of the cereal hitting the bowl. He saw what I was doing and raised his eyebrows.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting enough to eat for once,” I replied.

“That’s not a good idea,” he warned me.

“He’s in the shower,” I reminded him sarcastically.

“It’s your neck,” he mumbled, turning back to the newspaper he had stolen out of one of the boxes.


“Whatever.” I sat down and started eating.

I ate maybe five bites. Suddenly, I heard loud, angry footsteps falling on the floor behind me. I gulped down my mouthful of cereal and turned around.

“What,” Liam growled angrily, “do you think you are doing?”

“Eating,” I said in a small voice, making it sound like a question.

Liam grabbed the back of my chair and pulled it roughly out from under me. I hit the black and white checkered tile and winced. I looked up at Liam, feeling the fear that I knew was obvious on my face. He towered over me, an evil smile on his face. I curled instinctively into a ball, trying to protect myself. It was a wasted effort.

Liam rolled me onto my back and started kicking me, as hard as he could. I felt as though my bones were shattering, even though I knew they weren’t. He reached down to grab the collar of my shirt and pulled me into a standing position, choking me. He drew back his fist and slammed it into my stomach with all of his might.

I doubled up in pain. He let go of me and I dropped to the floor, gasping for air.

Liam started to laugh. After a few seconds, Ryan did, too.

I was used to this. Liam found a reason to hit me at least ten times a day. But this time it was different. I’d done much, much worse, yet this was the hardest he’d ever hit me. I was suddenly furious.

I flew to my feet and walked to the door, tension in my every step. I opened the door, went outside, and slammed it behind me as I walked away. This did little good, because our door was hanging off its hinges. I started running.

Liam came outside.

“Get back here!” he yelled, but I was already long gone.

I was heading for Maple Street. It was my favorite place, lined with maples and jasmine. I always walked down that road when I was mad. It helped calm me down.

There was a bridge at the end of Maple. The water that flowed underneath looked gentle from the top, and was great to watch. But, below the surface, that current was speeding along at an alarming rate. Falling into the water meant death for sure. Either you drowned when the current dragged you under or you went over the huge waterfall at the end. The kids in town were forbidden to swim in it.

My anger was beginning to wear off when the screaming started. I knew instantly where it was coming from. They were screams of terror. I didn’t know why anyone would scream like that. It was getting more and more frantic as time went on. Yet there I stood, frozen, like an idiot. So I kicked it into high gear and ran as fast as I could to that bridge.

I was surprised by the sight that awaited me.



A black Mercedes and silver Porsche had been parked along the wall to my right, but the expensive cars weren‘t what caught my attention

. Two people, a man and a woman, were leaning out over the opposite wall, screaming and looking down at something below. I heard them shout “NO!” and then heard a high-pitched, frightened scream that had been uttered by neither the man nor the woman. I ran over to the side and saw a young girl, maybe 16 or 17, hit the water.

After what seemed like hours, she came up and started trying to fight the current.

I was an eighteen-year-old boy, strong, and really, fast. I was a strong swimmer, but I knew that I could never fight this raging current. Still, that didn’t stop me from doing the most stupid thing I have done my entire life.

I jumped in after her. Man, was that water cold! It was like a liquid block of ice! And the current was stronger than I had expected it to be. But when I looked downstream and into the terrified blue eyes of that poor girl, I didn’t care. Who cared if I died? I was expendable. That girl was what mattered. Nothing else.

I knew what I had to do. I swam as fast as I could up to the girl. Which really wasn’t that hard, thanks to the current. But we were already halfway to the waterfall, and her lips were turning blue. I had to act fast.

“Swim as fast as you can toward the closest bank!” I yelled over the roaring of the current as I grabbed onto her. “We don’t have much time!”

The looming waterfall was drawing closer every single second, and with that thought in my head, I started pulling her frantically towards the bank. This was already hard work, and it didn’t help that my limbs were growing numb.

Come ON, you stupid limbs! I thought viciously to myself. Can’t you see that you aren’t exactly expendable right now! It’s more important to get her safely to the bank than for me to live, and she must be worse. She hit the water first.

Oh God. I could hear the roar of the waterfall now. We were way to close for comfort, here. The poor girl looked up at me with terrified eyes.

But there was something else there, too. Trust. She trusted me enough, a complete stranger, that she was willing to put her life in my hands. Me. Harley Davidson. Whose name was pretty much a town joke. The biggest. Apparently, my parents had possessed a sense of humor. Very funny, guys.

But with that one, tiny, simple look, I realized that I must save her. No matter what the cost. Even if that cost were my life, I would save her. But that waterfall was close. Too close. I would never, ever, in a million years, make it in time. The bank was too far. Still, I had to try. For her. For the beautiful girl with the trusting blue eyes. Eyes that trusted the wrong person. Eyes that trusted me.

I didn’t let her down. I got a good foothold in the dirt on the bank a few feet from the waterfall. Still, it was too close. She could have gone over. She could have died. No. God. Do not think that, Harley. That could never happen. Not to her. Not to this girl. NEVER.

As I was thinking about what could have become of us, blue-eyes shivered beside me. You moron! I thought to myself. You’re worrying about what hasn’t even happened while she’s shivering her head off. Idiot. I shifted myself closer to her, and noticed she had blonde hair. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. But instead of voicing my thoughts, as I usually did, I asked her a question instead.

“How exactly did you get yourself into this mess?” I asked her.

“My parents and I are j-j-just moving here from California,” she started.
Figures, I thought. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Classic Cali girl. “What does this story have to do with jumping off the bridge?” I asked in a casual, joking way.

She understood that I was joking, and rolled her beautiful blue eyes accordingly. “I didn’t j-j-jump. We’d been riding in the c-c-car for hours and we n-n-needed a break. This l-l-looked like a good place to stop, and the bridge looked like a nice place, so we got out to s-s-streach our legs. We went over to look at the w-w-water. I leaned too far over the edge, and almost f-f-fell. I grabbed onto a ridge at the b-b-bottom of the bridge, but I c-c-couldn’t hold on for long. I slipped.” she clarified. She wasn’t shivering as much now. “I’m just glad you were there to save me.” Her eyes suddenly turned harsh, and the next thing I know, she’s yelling at me. “You could have gotten yourself killed! What a stupid, suicidal thing to do!” she shrieked at me.

I chuckled. “A simple thank you would suffice, you know.”

She blushed, a beautiful shade of red. Rose. “Sorry,” she said meekly. “Thanks, I guess. You saved my life.”

“It’s no big deal,” I told her, shrugging.

“Yes, it is. You would have sacrificed your life for me. I saw in in your eyes.” Darn. Was I really that readable?

“Well, I should probably walk you back now, considering the fact that your parents probably think we both drowned. Come on.”

“Okay,” she agreed. We walked the rest of the way in silence.

When we got back to the bridge, maybe 20 minutes later, I almost laughed at the sight. Her parents were still hanging over the edge, as if blue-eyes were still hanging off the bottom. When she yelled “I’m okay!”, they looked up and got these looks on their faces. I had never seen anyone that happy in my entire life. Of course, that’s not saying much, because the only looks I get are looks of despise or hatred.

“Jessica!” they both yelled at the same time, “You’re okay!” O-oh, I thought, a little rudely, so her name’s Jessica. That would have been nice to know.

When we got up to the top of the bridge, she ran to her parents and hugged them, wet clothes and all.

Nice. I thought, feeling a jealous edge creep into my thoughts. If I did that, my brothers would pummel me. I wonder what it would be like to have a loving family. It’s not as though I’ll ever find out.

After her parents hugged her for a while, they turned to me.

“I will never be able to thank you enough for saving my Jessica,” her father said, slowly and earnestly. “If there is anything I can do for you, I’ll do it.”

“Well,” I chuckled, trying to loosen up the tense atmosphere, as it was giving me the creeps, “Unless you’ve seen either of my brothers commit a federal crime, I can’t ask for much.”

Jessica’s mother looked at me like I was nuts. “Why would you say that?” she asked me in a confused voice. “Don’t you like you’re brothers?”

“Nope,” I shrugged. “They annoy the life out of me. And I’m not exactly their favorite person either.”

“Why would you think that?” her mother asked. I realized that these were the type of people who thought that everything in the world was nice and dandy, just because their lives were. “Surely you’re just saying that. You must love your brothers dearly.”

“Wrong again.” I said in what I hoped was an I-don’t-care tone. “But speaking of my brothers, I better get home before they accuse me of treason and kick me out.” I turned without another word and started to walk away. Jessica ran up to me.

“Hey,” she called to me, “Now you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“That’s true,” I said casually, trying to show her this conversation was over. I did not like where it was going.

“Well,” she continued in a slightly disgruntled voice, realizing I wanted the conversation to end, but persisting anyway, “what is it?”

Like I was going to tell her that. I didn’t want anyone to know my name. “That isn’t important,” I said angrily. My tone of voice obviously made her realize that I was not going to be the one to answer that question. She stopped in her tracks, a hurt look on her face. I sighed.

“It has nothing to do with you,” I told her, sorry at once that I had been snippish with her. “I just don’t want people to know my name.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice, “I’m sorry.” she obviously didn’t want me to be mad at her. “May God go with you, then,” she said.

I stopped in my tracks and turned back to look at her, standing about two yards in front of her parents. “I don’t believe in God,” I said shortly. I just caught the shocked looks on their faces as I turned away.