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The bell rang for the final time that night. Charle's opponent collasped, and he knew he won. Cheering increased into relentless roaring as the crowds from the stands gathered around the boxing ring.
"Charles! My man, you did it!" Javier yelled a little too close to the darker man's ear. Though he didn't react, if the ringing in his ears from the fight wasn't loud enough. The rest of his friends pushed their way through the crowds, eventually circling around him like his personal bodyguards. Later, he found himself sitting on one of the bottom row seats of the stands. A water bottle was shoved in his hands. He didn't bother looking up to who gave it to him. The pain nagging harshly at his temples. He won't be surprised if there is a bruise there the following day.
"I can't believe it. You actually did it." Someone said," Charles guessed it was Javier again or maybe Karen.
"Yeah, yippee.." Even for the victory, Charles voice sounded dry as his friends eventually settled down beside him. Javier, Sean, and Karen to his left, John and Abigail on his right. Mary-Beth, Tilly, and Lenny all sat in the front. The only person missing was Arthur.
"Where's Arthur?" Charles croaked.
"Oh, that old loon is smooching disgustingly with Eliza somewhere." John retorted. He didn't much want to imagine his brother's love life. His girlfriend, Abigail, silently laughed at his intolerable face, that he followed on with a glare.
"I regret giving him that advice." Said Sean.
"Sean, if he would have followed your advice, those two would have ended at some shitty bar." Karen swatted a polystyrene tray at her idoit boyfriend's head.
From her reaction, Charles could only imagine where their first date was at.
"Hey, you can find romance anywhere." Was Sean's argument back, cowering away from the continuous swatting.
"My kind of romance would be somewhere by the beach - no a French restaurant." Mary-Beth swooned, hugging a book to her chest.
The gang groaned.
"Was that in one of your books?" Tilly sighed as she tried and failed to yank the book her friend had sealed to her chest.
"No..." was Mary-Beth's reply still hiding her book from Tilly's prying hands.
"Can we just go to the library already, I hear the beanbags calling out to me." Lenny ,the sensible one out of boys (by Charles) muttered, and for that, Charles was grateful. He could only do so much with a luke warm water bottle pressed to his head.
There truly was never going to be a dull moment with these people.
The school library luckily wasn't too far from the gym. John ended up having the keys to it since Arthur gave it to him before his running escapade. Switching on the lights, the gang was introduced to tall rows of book shelves, each labeled with their genres.
Minus the occasional chairs on desks and some stacked computers in far corner of the library.
It was cozy.
The gang veered to the back part of the library where a small table and beanbags were laid out. The small table held a green lamp that flickered so often, which eventually led to Charles unplugging it from the wall unit. About 10 minutes go by, and Lenny and Sean have found an old Monopoly board game, which, by how much the two are yelling at each other, it wasn't going too well.
"You can't just steal my land." The red head hollers. He shoves a couple of the younger man's red houses off his bought land. The small houses fall to the floor, skittering among the chess pieces the boys decided to shove off as well along with the chess board before their monopoly game. Or court case to put it lightly.
"Well, you can't just break out of jail. You need to serve your time." Lenny shouted as he jammed Sean's boot player piece back to the "in jail" square.
"I'm starting to question if this is how they would act in the future." Karen mutters as she scrolls on her phone, looking through Instagram.
"Probably." The other two girls say in unison.
"I've never seen monopoly played this way." Mary-Beth says, leaning her head in her arm, much like Karen she wasn't interested in whatever the boys were doing. Instead, she read over Pride and Predujice for the uptinth time. While Tilly struggled to find out why she tried to hide it from her. She did not know.
"I think this is the first time in history anyone has played this way ,Beth." Tilly says, digging out a ball of blue yarn and knitting needles. Her knitting progress of the beanie she is working on was about 60% complete.
Her friends smile and congratulate her on the progress before a humble Arthur walks in with Javier. Unsurprisingly, no Eliza hot on his heels. Since the girl's aunt didn't allow her to hang out with their bunch. For whatever reason, that's how Arthur traces it.
Arthur's face was just as batted and bruised like Charles but minus his blue boxing tee and shorts he had on. Arthur wore his worn-out grey hoodie with as much dignity as a clown with shoes triple his size. His joggers spiked a little high over his ankles, toning his muscler thighs.
"Look what the cat dragged in - you look half decent, not as disheveled as I thought you'd be." John grumbles. Spoiling his brother's silent ingress.
"I should say the same about you, John. When was the last time you saw your reflection." The older teen bit back.
John sends him back a middle finger.
"He got you there." Laughs out, Sean
"You're no different." Lenny mumbles bitterly, crouching down to scope for his missing player piece. Mumbling something else when he couldn't find it.
Charles chuckles slightly but bit back a hiss when a shooting pain flares up at his temples again. Arthur notices and hands him a pain med while he takes a seat on one of the unoccupied bean bags next to him.
The darker man whispers a thanks. The sudden quietness instilled by his friends welcomed him into slumber.
By 9 pm, Javier took everyone in his van. One by one, he dropped them off at their designated houses. Starting with Lenny down to Tilly, John and Arthur. Charles decided to join the three for a sleepover, and by joining, his father had not come home yet with the spare key.
By 11:30, John and Tilly were lights out in their rooms.
Arthur and Charles sat on the porch laughing at whatever Hosea encountered in the past. Once the old man met his bedtime, the two were finally alone.
"You weren't there." Charles broke the silence. He fiddled with the hemp of the shirt Arthur borrowed him. It scratched unevenly on the bruises he found on his torso.
"Well, I knew you'd win." Arthur sighed, stretching an ache he didn't know he had. Charles frowned.
"And if I didn't?"
"What if we test it?" Arthur sat up changing the subject. His tone off by a pitch.
"Test what?" Charles questioned, joining the other boxer in standing near the horse paddocks. Arthur had his back towards him now. All this energy was like a wall plastering up from the truth. When he did turn to the slightly taller man, his blue eyes were duller than the moon.
"You losing against me?" Arthur beamed like a dying lamp. Charles did not like it.
"Arthur, I'm tired and sore all over. Do you really wanna play wrestling now of all times?" If Arthur was going to play this game of hiding whatever this is, Charles was going to end it. Whether it be tonight, looking at his watch it bound to be early morning once he figures out what's wrong with this idiot.
"Come on, Charles, just flop on over, and I'll see to it that you'll be my personal bean bag." Arthur fake laughed. Too much pinched so little actually real.
"So the bean bags in the library are for decoration?" Charles eased his voice, there was a hint of a chuckle from the clearly troubled teen, but now it was forced enough for Sean to notice.
"Precisely. " Arthur croaked. Charles is not about to play Pictionary with this bitch.
"Eliza is treating you well?" Charles had to ask, since his friend was nearing a breakdown, and by a good guess the blank topic had something to do with her.
"Yea..." Arthur cries. There it is. Those tears crisp, fell down his beaten face. Like his tears it wasn't a guessing game anymore, words fell after each other even if Charles wasn't able to grasp any of it.
"I broke up with her a week ago." One sentence Charles could decipher.
"Oh." Is what he says so Arthur in his delirium would know he is listening.
"Sorry to hear that." He eases his voice a second time for good measure.
"If was for the best. I was the one that broke it off." The dark blonde sobs into his knees. Yep now they were on the ground again.
"I know what you are thinking. How could I ruin such a perfect relationship." He wasn't thinking that at all, but he let his friend continue. This would be the first time the fool ever opened up to anything.
"She was too perfect, too perfect for a sorry shit like me." He forgot this bitch did not go to therapy.
"Arthur -"
"She's pregnant." Woah that's a new page Charles didn't think he'd turn over.
"Don't worry, I'm not walking out on her." Arthur blabbered on like a drunk. He might as well have been drunk on depression. Drinking into too much of his sorrow, to properly cope. If this guy was even coping.
"Have you told Hosea." Charles asks like a suggestion. He really hoped Arthur would take.
Arthur defeatedly says "No."
"Does anyone else know?"
Arthur shook his head, burying it deep into his arms. After some time, by an inch he lifted his head to to cast his eyes at the other teen's. "Charles... I don't know what to do."
"I don't want the kid ending up like me. A juvi that will end up working for Hosea once I'm done... school." Arthur sighs, motioning to himself as if comparing himself to the broken fence north from them.
"I'm surprised the old man even took me in." Hosea would lecture him a whole essay and presentation if he heard that.
"Arthur, look at me." For Arthur he would listen to everything the man would say, would reason, but for his headache he would make an exception. Arthur, he knew the dumbass loved making excuses to avoid his problems and would ignore help like it's the plague. For him to confess this now, it must have been festering at him for a while. He does not search for answers he just burries his head impossibility deeper into himself. Charles did in fact roll his eyes, and he regretted once his headache spiked up.
"No, come on, look, I'm tired, sore, and it's probably one o'clock in the morning right now." Arthur sighed unfurling his legs and arms. He turned his head a little to face him. Those dopey eyes looked like a sad golden retriever's. Cognizant to the specific dog breed, the man was a people pleaser that Charles could bet on.
"Listen to me when I say this. I've known you for a short time, and in that short time, I've seen how you look after everyone. After John, after Hosea. Even me." That was the truth, and he was glad to see a prickle of hope in those blue glazed eyes.
"You are the kindest person I know. You just don't give yourself enough credit." This would be his final say for tonight before his head explodes.
"You just say that." Arthur mutters. Charles looks up from his friend's head to see the stars growing dimmer and the dark blue sky becoming paler. The sun was rising but before it does at least Charles would like to wake up in something soft. He nudges Arthur to get up, and he complies since he is a guilty motherfucker.
They'll talk more later in the morning once Arthur had a clear head. The two of them plot themselves on the living room couches. Maybe they did talk properly once the rooster crows and breakest was served and dished, but it wasn't like the dark blonde was listening.
A month before Arthur and Charles graduation. There was an announcement at school. A chance Arthur saw a veil before Charles could. There was no need to tell anyone anymore. That sickening feeling of relief swelled his gut, his chest, his heart.
It was quick. The shot pierced her skull in that bank . Her including her aunt and twelve other casualties Hosea read in the newspaper.
Eliza was dead, a fetus the size of a sunflower seed lay in her womb had yet a brain to develop to understand the concept of its father's pride. Did Arthur even consider it to be true. Something so small could ever truly exist. It might as well not have been the case.
Outside in the rain the gang wait with him in Javier's van. Once the choirs have sang and the priest his last sermon. Arthur places a white rose by the two graves.
He reads only her tombstone
A loving spirit loved by all
That she was. For what she was worth and all the good she always gave. Arthur was sorry. She would have been an amazing mother.
Charles stood by him, with the same silent grip he held before. He watched as his friends tears mixed with the rain. If he even cried no one knows.
No one will.