Alice

There was blood.

Everywhere.

I waded through it in my mind.

The smell.

Almost feeling it against my skin; across my hands.
Almost as if I was there standing over him, hitting him myself.


Hurting him.

Watching the pain.


And in a way I was.


In a way I was hurting him too.
Hurting him as I glanced the other way.
Hurting him as I didn’t look back.
I just left.
Left him where, crying under there hands, whispering a word under his breath that I could so easily read in his eyes.

Please.

He was begging them.
To stop.
He was begging me.
To stop.

For them to stop breaking him, stop the blood oozing down his slender throat from a gasping mouth.
And for me to stop and help him, help him limp home to an abusive family.

Yah, I could tell.
I could tell that we was abused at home.
But, why was I the only one?
They could see the fresh bruises; everyone could.
His face was anxiously gaunt from behind frighteningly hollow, wide eyes.

Eyes an exotic, rich blue; like the ocean just before the sun sets; exotic blue eyes like imported, frothing clouds heavy with rain and blue, nearly purple with dark against the sky.
Gorgeous eyes.

So beautiful.

So innocent.



So emotionless.

He had given up feeling.
A long time ago.
Feeling just meant that it would hurt more.
Feeling meant the bruises wouldn’t go away in his mind.
Feeling meant he wouldn’t forget what they were doing to him; what even I was doing to him by doing nothing.
Even though he didn’t know my name, didn’t know and even though I didn’t know him, even his name.
That’s why he didn’t feel.
Maybe he wouldn’t feel.
Maybe he had forgotten how too.
Was it possible?


Probably.


But that didn’t change anything.
Not me; not them.
It only changed him.
And his eyes weren’t as beautiful as they had been, over lightly caramelized skin.
His eyes weren’t as beautiful as they had been though haggard, omen black hair.
Is that really a colour, omen black?
I think it is.
It’s the colour of the fear in someone – anyone- when they are frozen in deep terror, like in the horror films.
It’s a wild colour, doomed to lie and drag someone – anyone – though a pit of fear.
Yes, I think omen black is a colour.
Rich.
Sleek and his must be intoxicatingly soft and gentle to run your hands through.
Sometimes my hands itch to do that to his hair.
Just touch it.
Run my fingers through his ragged hair, jerkily cut off around his sharply narrow shoulders.

He probably cuts it himself.
Cuts off black hair, that funeral black hair till its just long enough to pull back into a length of string behind his head to sweep in a depressing procession down his back.

Everything about him is so soft, so exotic.
I can’t understand how he ends up there on the pavement, the rocks biting his bare hands, with a few of them hitting him.
Sometimes he almost cries.
But he never does.
Just almost.
And its harder to walk away when his deep eyes are swimming in crystal clear tears.
Its harder to pretend not to notice and turn and walk away when he catches my eyes and I see his mouth move to form a familiar word.

A word I’ve watched him breathe on so many occasions.


Please.


Please.


And sometimes I almost help him.
Almost help him as he almost cries.
Maybe the day he finally cries, breaking down completely and the tears are streaming down his face, bleeding – maybe on that day I’ll run towards him, and not away.

Maybe on that day.
Whichever day that is.
Whatever day, if ever.
He might never cry.


They might kill him, but he might never cry.


So I kept on walking.



As always.






They always did it in the tidy, narrow ally adjacent to the school, decorated with bushes and adding a perfect covering for them to drag him there where no one could see.


Mostly.


But I could.
I always could.



I walked by the ally every school day and there was a gap in the braches, just where they threw him.



Every time.



And every time, every day, I looked down the ally to that gap.
I knew I’d see him forced there.
I knew I’d see him there.
But I still looked.
I wanted, just once, to not see him there.
ut I always did.


And sometimes I wondered what they did to him.
Did they just beat him?
I shivered and hoped.
Because just beating him meant they weren’t raping him.

It happened a lot.

In that neighbourhood.

It was always on the news.
Boy beaten and raped in ally.


Sometimes they were killed.




I really didn’t care.




I knew which ally’s to avoid.
If someone else didn’t know, that was there own fault.
But he was different.
He never took the ally’s.
Ever.
They dragged him there.



And he was thin.
Too thin to be healthy.
He had no chance against them and I doubted he even fought back now.
Not after three weeks.

Five days a week.


And so that one day, I ended there sick ritual.
One day I didn’t walk away.
I couldn’t stand it any longer.
Not after I saw him at lunch one day, sitting, trapped between two seniors – I didn’t know there names.
They were in a few of my classes but I had never really talked to them.
And I could tell they were touching him under the table.



He looked so empty.
Not just his eyes either.


His expression.
There were no emotions.


Nothing.


Totally blank.




And I have to admit, it frightened me.



He was three years younger then me; only fifteen.
And they were killing him.

Though maybe not just physically.
And I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I couldn’t stand back and watch him slowly drowning alone.


That’s what hurt me hardest.


He was so alone.
No friends.
Not one.
And he was devastatingly beautiful.



So I stopped at the ally.









It was warm.



It was summer.
It was always warm.

But this morning it was stifling.


Stifling and I could barely breathe.


It wasn’t that I was afraid of the seniors.
I was a senior myself and they were all slighter then I was.
No, it wasn’t them I was afraid of.
It was him.
Him, the boy against the stones of the ally.
It was just yesterday I learnt that there was a name to the face; to those eyes.


Alice.

Alice.

My feet found the worn pattern of the sidewalk to the school. The pattern my feet sought unconsciously amidst the dust and dirt of the street.. Past the ally. That ally. And Alice. And them. There were only three of them. And Alice. He was already on the dirt. Scratching new bruising cuts to lace his shirt and hands. But I had stopped wincing weeks ago.
That’s when I stopped. For the first time. Around me the wind laughed, questioning why I had stopped but I didn’t know why. Why had I?
It was because I saw the tears. Spider-webbing across his face. Down the slender curve of a graceful throat. Buried to stain his dark hair.
He was crying.
And I stopped.
Something had changed.



“Alice.”



Something had changed.
There wasn’t the familiar scuffling of the feet of the boys.
Three of them.
It was silent.
I clapped m hand over my mouth.
I said his name aloud?



“Hello?”



My hand dropped.
It was different now.
There was no backing out.

I had promised.

When he cried.


I would stop.



He was crying.





I had stopped.




“Hey you.”




They had seen me now.
All of them.
Staring back at me standing there alone.
Along the sidewalk.
Across from the school and ignored by everyone else.
I took a step.


Towards the ally.


But I stumbled.


My feet weren’t use to this part of the sidewalk.
It seemed rougher and I watched the pavement.
Of the ally.
An ally I had never been in.
And never dreamed I would go into.
But here I was.


And there Alice was.


At my feet.



Crying again but softly amid gentle gasps of air.

But I shouldn’t be watching him.




“Get outta here.”



Had I said that?
My mouth had moved, words spilled out but my voice tasted foreign.



“Go on.”



They knew better.
Then to stay.
But I caught there glances as they moved past me.
Shuffled by.
Out of the ally and onto my path along the sidewalk.
I shouldn’t have interfered with them.
I knew I shouldn’t have.
They knew it and wide eyed Alice knew it as well.
Why did I then?
Just because of a few tears?
But there Alice lay at my feet, propped up on his elbows, back arched his jade eyes stormy with tears and puzzling questions.
Why was I there?
We were both asking the same question.



But who was I asking?