Chapter Text
- Breaking Benjamin: “I Will Not Bow”
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My head made a rather large bang as it struck the door of my full length locker. Large hands exerted a great deal of pressure on my shoulders, pinning me in place. The locker’s latch dug into my back, reminding me that I had a considerable lack of appreciation for this sensation. But then, I doubt anyone enjoys the feeling of something sharp attempting to gouge a hole in her back.
Pushing past the pain, I found myself staring into the furious face of Martin Gates, the star of the school’s wrestling team. Despite the fact that I was a grade ahead of him, Martin still towered over me. He was taller than everyone in the eighth grade, and even some of the ninth-graders were shorter than him. However, Martin wasn’t just tall. He was also hefty, and I’m not implying that he was fat. Every ounce of his considerable mass was made of pure muscle.
Most kids had either one of two reactions to Martin. They were either intimidated by him (the boys), or they found him attractive (the girls). Martin was rather good looking, with his thick, dark blonde hair and a face that made nearly every girl in the school burn with desire. I was an exception to this rule because though I found Martin handsome, I considered it way more fun to wind him up. It was so easy. Being the star of the wrestling team had given Martin an enormous ego that I just couldn’t resist deflating. The fact that he was currently pinning me to my locker meant that he was riled up about something I did. Score for me, I noted with smug satisfaction.
“What do you want, Martin?” I asked, lacing my tone with apparent boredom. Martin’s frown deepened.
“You know what, Wilbourne. You made me look like an idiot in study hall yesterday, and now you’re gonna pay for it,” Martin growled. I rolled my eyes, unimpressed.
“I answered the teacher’s question for you,” I stated slowly, as though I were talking to a small child. “I helped you out, as you clearly were having some trouble figuring out the concept being presented. When someone helps you, you’re supposed to help them back.” I paused, frowning thoughtfully. “But then, you never were very good at math, so maybe you weren’t able to put two and two together on that one.”
Martin’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment as he struggled to come up with an appropriate comeback. He shoved me harder against my locker.
“You better shut your mouth, Katherine, or things are going to get nasty,” he ground out warningly. If Martin hadn’t called me by my full name, I might have reveled in the fact that he was unable to come up with a witty response and instead resorted to threatening me. As it was, he had succeeded in pissing me off. My earlier smugness had vanished.
“Call me Katherine again and you’ll find yourself with a bloody nose,” I growled. Martin scoffed and leaned back slightly. I sneered. “What’s the matter, wrestling champion?” I taunted. “Afraid to fight a girl?”
“You asked for it,” he snarled, pulling a hand off my shoulder and drawing it back. But before he had a chance to land his punch, I wriggled out of his grasp. Martin’s fist collided with my locker instead of my head, and he let out a howl of pain followed by a string of curses. I didn’t give him any time to recover and kicked the backs of his knees, making him crash to the floor. I deftly rolled out of the way and was back on my feet before he knew what hit him. The enraged wrestling champion let loose another string of swears and swung blindly at my legs, trying to knock me down. I jumped, but Martin caught a glancing blow on my right ankle. I landed off-balance, but was able to right myself. I retaliated with a sound kick to Martin’s shoulder.
By this point, a crowd of students had amassed around us.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” they chanted as Martin lunged up at me and succeeded in pulling me down to the floor. I landed with a grunt. Martin used the opportunity to get to his feet. I had just started to get up when he kicked me in the ribs. I let out an involuntary gasp of pain as I felt something crack. Fire lanced up my chest, but I rolled into Martin’s legs, attempting to knock him down again. I was so not going to let him get the best of me. Unfortunately, all I did was put myself back in Martin’s striking range. I took a blow to the shoulder before rolling away and hauling myself back up to my feet. I may have been hurt, but I was most definitely not done yet.
I ran forward and tackled Martin, resolutely ignoring the pain in my ribcage. What followed was a furious exchange of blows from every body part imaginable. Elbows, knees, ankles, feet, heads; you name it and we were pummeling each other with it. There was even some biting and scratching going on. This was a no-holds, no rules fight. We were determined to beat the tar out of each other in any and every method possible. Despite the fact that I was much smaller and skinnier than Martin, I gave as good as I got in that fight.
It took the teachers quite a while to get to the scene due to the thronging student body, but when they finally got through the crowd, they wasted no time breaking up the fight. Despite their presence, Martin and I weren’t quite finished with each other, and the teachers were forced to physically pull us apart. I strained against the grip of the two teachers holding me and glared at Martin, my rage not quite spent. However, I was pleased to note that Martin was now sporting that nosebleed I’d promised him as well as a black eye and several other bruises. I knew from the various complaints my body was raising that I had some nice bruises myself in addition to some possibly broken ribs and a swollen and gouged lip, if the blood running down my chin was any indication.
“That’s enough!” my gym teacher, Mr. Hancock hollered. “Martin, Kate, both of you will be making a trip to the principal’s office, and he’ll decide what to do with you.” Mr. Hancock shook his head disapprovingly. “I expected better out of you. Both of you.” I rolled my eyes as I was firmly steered towards the principal’s office. That showed just how little Mr. Hancock knew about Martin and me. I sighed in exasperation as I was escorted away from the scene, thinking idly that Uncle Jim wasn’t going to be happy about this.
“This isn’t over, Wilbourne,” Martin hissed, breaking me out of my thoughts. I smirked. No, it definitely wasn’t, and I was going to thoroughly enjoy beating the snot out of him again at a later date.
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Let’s be honest, here. My parents weren’t the best. My mother, Marian Wilbourne, didn’t make the right choices in life. She thought that she could just float through school and everything would turn out fine and dandy. She was intelligent, sure, but she never really applied herself seriously. My mother was much more concerned with having a good time than making sure that she got a good grade on her next test. “Why study and be bored when you can hang out and have fun?” was her mentality. She was often the first one to show up at a party and the last one to leave. This, of course, led to her flunking out of college in her first year.
That was when she first met my father, Andre Cooper. He was drop-dead gorgeous and fit perfectly into the “bad-boy” category. Andre was commonly found in bars, wooing any woman he deemed interesting and never the same one each night. Andre went through girlfriends like toddlers go through toys. He was a master charmer and impressing women was the only thing he really cared about. Like my mother, he was intelligent, but neglected his studies in favor of drinking and having a good time. Andre’s good looks combined with his considerable skill at seducing meant he was never lacking women to entrance.
When my mother first laid eyes on Andre, she was instantly attracted to him. She found his wild, devil-may-care attitude enthralling. Thus, she wasted no time in attempting to draw Andre’s attention. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), my mother’s dark hair and equally dark eyes lent her an exotic beauty that Andre found intoxicating. They married not six months later. Barely one year after the wedding, I was born.
It was her decision to have me that brought out Andre’s darker side. He wanted nothing to do with a child and tried numerous times to get my mother to have an abortion. As she had already had two before they married, Andre didn’t see why this time should be any different. My mother, however, was convinced that she’d married the perfect man and had thus achieved her “happily-ever-after.” She wanted the ideal happy family, and that meant having children. It would not have been proper before she was married, but now that she was, she could reach her goal. Consequently, she was adamant and had me despite Andre’s disapproval.
To exact revenge on my mother for going against his wishes and complicating his life with a child, Andre began bringing his various lady friends home. He had never stopped messing around with other women, even after marrying my mother. He flirted openly with others, despite my mother’s presence. Doubts about Andre were numerous in her mind at this point, but she ruthlessly squashed them. When my mother refused to abort me or put me up for adoption, Andre merely took his unseemly behavior up a notch.
This naturally made my mother furious. She had never liked that he leered at women even while in public with her, and had fought with him about it time and time again. What he was doing now was going too far in her opinion. Their fights became more frequent and degraded into shouting matches more often than not. Despite Andre’s obvious flaws, my mother stubbornly clung to her dream. She attacked Andre mercilessly in these arguments, determined to shame him into seeing things her way. Andre countered her by promising to stop cheating on her if she would give me up for adoption. My mother had none of that, and their relationship only degraded from there.
During one of these heated disputes, my mother discovered that Andre had an extensive criminal record. He had committed arson, armed robbery, assault, and fraud. As Andre was too lazy to get a legit job, he stole anything of value he could find and occasionally roughed someone up for a price. If he was paid or any other measure of gain for him involved and the crime was simple enough, Andre was willing to do it. He felt no remorse for his actions, and had no regards for the consequences. My mother was horrified, and rightly so.
When I was two, the police were able to collect enough evidence to arrest Andre. He was put on trial for theft, arson, and multiple charges of sexual assault. My mother willingly testified against him. She also attempted to have him charged for domestic abuse, but there was insufficient evidence. The jury’s vote was unanimous in light of the existing evidence, and Andre was found guilty on all charges. He was given a cumulative sentence of fifty years in prison.
Immediately after the trial, my mother divorced Andre. Her hopes had been dashed and her dreams had been destroyed. Harsh reality had taken their place. The only thing left for her to do was pick up the pieces of her shattered life, and it took every ounce of her will-power.
My mother did okay for her first year as a single parent, working odd jobs to provide for us. However, her lack of education was her undoing. It made her unable to obtain and secure a well-paying job. The final six months living with my mother were spent in and out of homeless shelters. It was that more than anything that made my mother realize that she couldn’t provide for herself, let alone me. She made the decision to give me up and sent me to live with her brother, Jim. She relinquished all responsibility of me to my uncle, and left.
I was very attached to my mother when I was little, and her leaving me at my uncle’s tore me apart inside. I was too young to understand why I couldn’t live with her. All I knew was that she had “abandoned” me. I started misbehaving in the hopes that if I was bad enough, Uncle Jim might send me back to my mother. Of course, that didn’t happen, but over time, misbehaving had become a habit. And I was starting to like it. Even though I came to understand why she left me with Uncle Jim, that didn’t make it hurt any less. However, she was still my mother. That was a tie I could not sever, no matter how much I resented her.
Hence, my aunt and uncle raised me with their three sons, Arnold, Justin, and Derrick. We may have been cousins, but we fought like siblings. There were countless mud fights and a lot of wrestling. I was in the thick of it too, determined not to be outdone by my “rivals.” Things like frilly dresses, pink purses, and sparkling jewels never interested me, oh, no. I would much rather run around in the woods with my “brothers.”
Arnold, as the oldest, was usually the leader of these expeditions, much to my annoyance. He was the responsible one, always doing his best to keep the rest of us out of trouble, but he did enjoy a little mischief himself now and then. The best way to get on Arnold’s nerves was to usurp his authority. I might tell Justin to do something that Arnold had specifically told him not to do, and Arnold would always give a disapproving scowl. His eyebrows would come down low, heavily shadowing his hazel eyes, and his face would crinkle up like a prune.
Justin, only a year younger than me, was my co-conspirator. I can safely say that I was a rather bad influence on him. He liked pulling pranks and getting into trouble as much as I did. But he had one thing that I lacked in that area: discretion. He didn’t do that kind of stuff while in school, and refused to help me with my nastier pranks. However, he would often ask me what the best way was to pull something on one of his friends. We’d sit in his room talking about it, and he’d be busy messing up his red hair as he tried to think of something brilliant, his brown eyes dancing with mischief. Of course, once we had the perfect plan concocted, we’d open the door to find that Derrick had been eavesdropping.
As the youngest in the house, Derrick was always trying to butt his way into everything. One of his favorite pastimes was to spy on his siblings. He was also a tattler and would not hesitate to let Aunt Lilly know about any potential pranks that Justin and I had planned. Our attempts to conceal our meetings only made him get more creative. Derrick often recruited his friends to help. They were ever planning ambushes for us. Even Arnold wasn’t safe from Derrick and his friends. We had to be especially careful after it rained, as Derrick’s favorite ammunition was mud. Even if he couldn’t get us with it, it was not uncommon for him to come home from a friend’s with an ample coating of mud hiding his curly brown hair. Justin and I had taken to calling him the “Mud Monster.”
I would much rather have Derrick ambush me with a huge mud pie than have to listen to the principal drone on about how I needed to stay out of trouble. After I heard that I would be suspended for two days, I tuned out completely. Suspension was perfectly fine with me, of course. I had plenty of things that I’d rather be doing instead of hanging around this dump for seven hours. Make me stay at home and do fun things instead of coming to school because I got in a fight? Cool. Not much of a punishment, if you ask me. In fact, it’s almost an incentive.
Uncle Jim, of course, was less than thrilled at this development. However, I could tell he was saving the lecture for when we got home, as he drove me to the hospital in stony silence. My chest was x-rayed and the doctors confirmed that I had two broken ribs. The third was cracked. I had my ribcage wrapped and got stitches in my lip. Uncle Jim paid the bill and we left.
“You’ve been suspended,” Uncle Jim said flatly.
“Yeah, so?” I replied nonchalantly. Uncle Jim huffed in frustration.
“Kate, you got into a fight,” he began.
“And?” I cut in.
“And not only did you get into a fight,” Uncle Jim continued, raising his voice to talk over me. “You started it.”
“Oh, he was asking for it,” I said emphatically.
“That’s no excuse, and you know it,” Uncle Jim admonished.
“Do I have to have an excuse to get in a fight with that puffed up baboon?” I spat scathingly.
“Katherine Lynn Wilbourne, you watch your tongue or you’ll find more than just your music missing,” Uncle Jim warned.
“You can’t take my music!” I protested.
“Yes, I can. And I already have. You need to learn that actions have consequences, Kate,” he said firmly.
“Piss off,” I said flippantly.
“And that revokes your internet privileges,” Uncle Jim stated calmly.
I scoffed in disbelief.
“Kate,” Uncle Jim began seriously. “You are never going to amount to anything if you keep getting into trouble like this.”
“I do my homework and I get good grades, so what does it matter if I get in fights occasionally?” I snapped.
Uncle Jim was silent for a moment.
“Do you want to end up like your father, Kate?” he said pointedly.
“What did you say to me?” I said in a dangerous tone.
“Because the way you’re acting certainly makes it seem like it,” Uncle Jim continued as if I hadn’t spoken.
“No. No, and don’t you ever compare me to that worthless piece of meat!” I shouted, torn between outrage and deep hurt.
“Well, then I suggest you get it together,” Uncle Jim said calmly.
I sat silently in the backseat, seething. How dare he compare me with my father! I was nothing like him! I would never be like him!
The second Uncle Jim put the car in park, I shot into the house.
I stormed through the unlocked front door and made a beeline for the basement. The voices of Aunt Lilly, Derrick, and Justin assaulted my ears, but I did not hear their words, nor did I care to. I just wanted to be left to stew alone. As I turned the knob of the basement door, Justin grabbed my arm, forcing me to pay attention to him.
“Where were you?” he asked, concern in his gaze.
“Let go, Justin!” I snapped, ripping my arm out of his grip. I pulled the door the rest of the way open and sped down the stairs. To my annoyance, Justin followed me.
“You got in a fight, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yeah. So?” I replied tersely. Justin sighed.
“Dad can’t be happy about this,” he said to himself.
“No duh,” I shot back as I crossed the den to the hallway leading to my room. “He grounded me and took my music!” And all but said I was just like my father, I added silently.
“Just because someone started a fight with you?” Justin asked in surprise.
“No,” I corrected. “I started the fight, but he was asking for it!”
Justin stared at me.
I scoffed in frustration and retreated into my room, slamming the door. I made sure it was locked and flopped onto my bed. Several Metallica and Anthrax posters stared down at me from the ceiling. My walls were also covered with posters from my other favorite bands: Megadeth, Tantel, Slayer, and Pantera. A select few posters were signed, souvenirs from concerts my friends and I had gone to. I could’ve really used a good Metallica song right then, but Uncle Jim had to go and take all my music. I banged my head against the pillow in frustration, and succeeded in getting my caramel colored hair in my face. I yanked the wavy strands aside, huffing in irritation.
I stewed for a good hour and a half, but eventually, I got bored. As there was nothing else to do and no music to listen to, I did my homework. I was about half-way through it when there was a knock on my door.
“What?” I drawled.
“Kate, sweetie, it’s me,” my mother’s voice came through the door. My heart leaped into my throat even as a pit settled into my stomach.
“What do you want?” I bit out. The doorknob clicked as she tried to turn it.
“Can I come in?” she asked instead of answering my question. Rolling my eyes and sighing, I got up and unlocked the door. Turning away immediately, I threw myself back onto my bed and did my best to ignore her. She shut the door after entering and walked over to my bed. Her footsteps stopped, and I heard my comforters give a slight rustle as she sat down.
“Jim said that you started a fight today,” she said.
I didn’t bother answering her, just kept working away at my current algebra problem.
“He said that he had to take you to the hospital and that you had a couple of broken ribs from the incident,” my mother continued.
Again, I remained silent.
After finishing my current problem, I started the next one.
The silence stretched like a rubber band, ready to snap at any moment.
“Kate, you remember Eric, don’t you?” my mother tried at last, changing the subject.
“Oh, I remember that grease bucket just fine, I assure you,” I said sarcastically.
“Kate,” my mother said sternly. “That’s no way to talk about a person.”
I shrugged dismissively. “Whatever.”
“Well, you know that we’ve been seeing each other for over a year now,” she continued. I frowned, not quite sure where this was going. “and last week he asked me to marry him.”
I froze in shock. Slowly, I twisted around in my chair to look at her. My mother had this huge smile on her face and her eyes were twinkling.
“I said yes.” The excitement was plain on her face and in her voice. “The wedding’s happening in a month. Neither of us saw the point of waiting any longer. Isn’t that great?”
“You’re getting married?” I asked in dumb disbelief. My mother nodded, that happy sparkle still in place. “Does that mean that I get to go home with you now?” I blurted out. The smile slowly melted off my mother’s face and her expression shifted from joyful to sympathetic.
“No, sweetie,” she said softly. “I think it would be better for you to stay here. After all, you’ve got your cousins here, where as you would be all alone at my house.” She tried for a smile.
All I had really heard was the first part, and I physically recoiled at it. My mother was getting married, but she didn’t want me back. I was supposed to stay here, and I would never live with her again.
When I was little, I used to pretend that my mom would come back to get me someday. As I got older, I squashed those fantasies, but they remained deep down. Now they were torn apart as I realized that they would never happen.
“Well, that’s just great,” I said sardonically. “Wonderful! Marvelous! Go on! Get married and leave me here to rot!” I continued scathingly.
“Kate, it’s not what you think,” my mother started.
“Isn’t it?” I cut in. “You’re all ready to start a new life, and that means leaving the old life behind. Leaving me behind.”
“I will still visit you,” she said with conviction.
“Oh, yeah, like that fixes everything,” I said sharply.
“Kate…”
“No! Get out!” I shouted. “Just get out!” I whipped back around.
My mom sighed. She got up and tried to hug me, but I slapped her arms away. She sighed again and left.
Unable to hold my hurt in any longer, I let my tears fall. I locked my door again and collapsed onto my bed, strangled, half-suppressed sobs tearing themselves from my throat.