Stained Happiness: Dedicated to the Day of Silence

Pokemon Fan Fiction short
Stained Happiness
Extra

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‘Can we walk like we have somewhere to go?' John thought impatiently. It always pissed him off how slowly people would walk in the halls. He wanted to get to his next class as quickly as possible; out of six classes he only had one without his sister and that was last period. ‘Finally!’ John spotted a break in the line of snails walking in front of him and shot through it, not caring the slightest when he accidentally bumped into the one who had moved to close the gap.

Less than a minute later John was walking through the door to his next class. His gaze instantly went to the part of the room where he and his sister sat side-by-side. She was already at her desk, but her head was down, he shoulders shaking a little; she was crying.

“Kenzie!” John cried, running over to her, tossing his books listlessly onto his desk as he whipped past it, not caring when he heard most of his things hit the floor. The only thing that mattered to him in that moment was his sister. He knelt down beside her, wrapping one arm around her shoulder.

“Kenz, what’s wrong? What happened?”  He asked anxiously.

‘When I get my hands on the punk who made her cry,’ John thought angrily, ‘they’re going to pay!’ No one messed with his little sister, no one!

“John… I… It’s just…” Kenzie choked out between sobbing breaths.

“It’s just what?” John asked gently, stroking her hair softly because he knew that helped calm her down when she got upset. Anyone who knew John would say the only people he was always gentle with and never mad at were his mom and sister.

“Do you want to go see the counselor?” Their teacher asked, walking over to them. His question was met with a venomous amber glare from John.

‘Of course she doesn’t want to go the counselor you twit!’ John raged to himself, ‘All they ever give her are the same stupid, useless, unthoughtful lines they give to everyone else!’ John knew this because, back in elementary school, Kenzie had come, still crying, to him for comfort because the counselors wouldn’t really help her. By the time they’d reached middle school she’d stopped even trying, going only to John or their mom when she was upset.

“I just…” Kenzie sobbed, “I just want to go outside with my brother for a minute… please.”

The teacher nodded his permission, albeit reluctantly. Kenzie got up, her head bent down to hide her face as much as possible, John, keeping one arm protectively around her, snatched her purse off the floor as they walked out. There was still some time left in passing so the halls were overflowing with students because most didn’t care if they were late to class. John kept them close to the wall as they walked, blocking her as well as he could from the view of the other kids, knowing that when someone cried it was either an object of sympathy or scorn and which it would be was almost completely unpredictable.  It was at times like these when he was glad that Kenzie was so small. They were only nine months apart in age because Kenzie had been born almost three months premature, so she had always been very small for her age and of course having inherited what their mom liked to call the “metabolism on steroids” that ran in their family, even the girls, didn’t help only making her even more small and delicate looking. John had it too, he did everything he could think of in terms of diet to gain weight, but it was all he could do just to maintain his current weight between baseball, track, wrestling, and martial arts classes, not to mention snowboarding in the winter.

When they finally got out side John brought her around to the wall so that they couldn’t be seen through the glass doors, or any of the windows by kids too nosy for anyone’s good.

“Turn around and sit down.” John told her softly, though he hardly needed to, they had done this many times before.

“Oh no! I forgot my purse, my brush is in there!” Kenzie exclaimed in a choked voice, her greenish blue eyes still pooled with tears.

“I got it.” John reassured her.

“Thanks, you’re the best brother ever.” Kenzie replied as she turned around and sat down on the concrete, cold from being in the shade all day. John sat down too, drawing her brush out from the purse, and began to run it through her reddish orange hair in slow, gentle strokes.

“You can just start whenever you’re ready, okay?”

“Okay”

“You won’t fall asleep on me, will you?” John asked teasingly.

“No!” Kenzie replied, reaching back to smack him lightly on the leg. She’d fallen asleep on him before a few times when they had done this and, in true brotherly fashion, John refused to let her live it down.

They sat silently for several minutes before Kenzie finally spoke.
“It’s that stupid Tyler!” She confessed.

“I swear!” John spat venomously, “You’d think that kid would get tired of me beating the crap out of him after a while and learn to leave you alone.”

“Yeah, well this time he went way too far.” Kenzie replied, her voice choking up with sobs again.

“Hey, take it easy,” John murmured gently, “you know I hate seeing you cry. What’d he say this time?” He asked softly although in his mind he was already plotting what he was going to do to Tyler for bullying his sister again.

“He said… he said that he didn’t believe that we were full brother and sister then he… he…” Kenzie sobbed out, barely. John clenched his teeth in rage,

‘When I get my hands on- no, I can live with that, it’s just Tyler being stupid, we know where full blooded brother and sister, I mean c’mon how stupid can he be? And mom really hates it when I get into fights, I don’t want to make her sad.’ John thought, forcing himself to think rationally, but Kenzie wasn’t done telling him what had happened.

“He called Mommy a… a…” She continued, but broke down crying uncontrollably before she could finish.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say it Kenz.” John reassured her. It didn’t take a genius to fill in the blank, especially since Kenzie had said “mommy”, she only called their mom that when she was talking to her, never about her. That was why Kenzie was so upset. Even though his voice had been gentle while he was talking to Kenzie John was beyond livid. He was somewhat used to other kids bullying his sister so, at times, he was able to contain his anger, but his mom?! His sweet, gentle, kind hearted, wonderful, not to mention super cool and pretty mom? Insulting her, especially with such a foul word, that was going WAY too far!

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John sat in the front office, a proverbial storm about to break. Foul mood couldn’t even begin to describe him in that moment. Even though thinking about the look of pure terror that had filled Tyler’s eyes brought a small smirk of vindication to his stormy expression. He was still pissed off that the teacher had dragged him off of Tyler before he could actually do anything. That had probably saved him from expulsion and possibly Juvie, but still. His latent rage; however, only lasted until his mom, Lisa, walked into the office, come to take him home. John could only force himself to look at her for one brief moment, when she first walked in, before his eyes flew to the floor in shame. The mournful, disappointed expression she wore was too much for him to bear.

They rode home in complete silence; Lisa’s eyes pooled with tears, struggling to slide down her face, John making no attempt to justify himself. It seemed like an eternity passed before they were back, sitting in the living room of their home. As always John began by explaining what had happened, unable to bring himself to look at his mom. Had he looked he would have seen her flinch and close her eyes tightly when he told her the first part of what Tyler had said, that he didn’t believe John and Kenzie where full blooded brother and sister. She was silent for several minutes after John had finished his story. John waited patiently for her to choose her words, completely unprepared for what she would say. Finally, Lisa sighed in sad resignation, tucking a stray lock of dark red hair behind her ear nervously.

“John, there something I need to tell you. I should have told you sooner, but I- I just couldn’t do it, I’m sorry.”

John looked up at her in confusion. Despite her relatively calm voice she was crying. That didn’t surprise him though, Lisa, for whatever reason, was able to keep her voice clear even when she was crying.

“W-what do you mean?” John asked, concerned and unnerved by the pain and sorrow he saw in her golden-caramel eyes. She sighed again, as if trying to steel herself to say something she truly did not want to say

“It’s about your father.”

“My father?!” John exclaimed, “Don’t you mean Kenzie and I’s father?”

“No.” She replied simply.

John slumped backwards into the couch, his own golden eyes wide with shock, his tousled black hair half covering them, but he didn’t even notice. Lisa took a deep breath before she continued.

“You know, I’ve always worried about you, even before you were born. Everyone I knew, especially Kenzie’s father who was my fiancé at that time, kept trying to convince me to either get an abortion or find someone to adopt you immediately after you were born, though I should say only my parents insisted on that no one else. They kept telling me that, like every other woman in my position, I would never be able to love you because every time I looked at you it would remind me of being raped.”

John could have sworn his heart literally stopped for a moment at when she said that word. The thought that someone could do that to her, his sweet, wonderful, compassionate mom, and that he had come from that horrid crime utterly devastated him. His body went numb, it was almost as if nothing was real to him anymore, like he was just some distant spectator, watching this happen to someone else he didn’t even know, or maybe that this was all just a horrific nightmare that he was moments away from waking up from.

“But I couldn’t do that,” Lisa continued, her voice distant and sad, lost in the past, and John’s numbing shock, “I just couldn’t imagine that, not loving my own child was too horrible of an idea for me to even consider it. I told everyone that I would wait until after you were born to decide whether or not keep you. I had already lost my brother who had been my whole world growing up to the evils in the world, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing another family member because of another’s crimes. I’m so thankful now that I did decide to wait. I’ll never forget the first time I held you,” John was still in such a complete shock that he couldn’t register that her tone was now wistful, recalling a purely happy memory in her eyes, “you were so tiny and helpless. I just feel in love with you right then and there; I knew I could never give you up, I loved you too much for that, you were my son, that’s why I broke the engagement off with Kenzie’s father, I knew that if he couldn’t accept you just because you weren’t his son then I didn’t want to be with him.”

They sat in heavy silence for several minutes; John too shocked and dismayed to even think let alone speak and Lisa patiently, but anxiously waiting for his response.

“John,” she whispered at last in a pleading vice, “please say something, anything.”

John finally looked up at her again, his golden gaze broken and haunted.
“I just… I’m sorry,” He said, standing up abruptly, “but I just need to think this through on my own first.” He explained since that was the only rational thought he could form in that moment and slowly stumbled to his room, caught in a surreal daze.

John collapsed onto his bed, burying his face into the pillow, crying. That was the only thing that felt real, the pain, the pain of knowing that the happiness he had cherished with his family was, and had always been, stained by the circumstances of his birth.