Blood Brothers by Keith Latch

the
staff parking area. Making sure no one was watching he slunk down
low, using the vehicles as cover. Michael followed the parking lot
a little north to the edge of the elementary building, then he
dashed west into the playground.
    This route was complicated. It would have
been much easier to simply take a left out of Mrs. Wegmann’s
hallway, follow the corridor until it ended, push through the doors
and voila, there you go. Unfortunately, if the teachers hadn’t
stopped him from heading that way, another staff member would
have.
    From the corner of the yard, Michael dashed
past the merry-go-round and down a small hill, past the swings.
Now, the school building blocked him from the parking lot and he
stopped for a breath. This was pretty cool. He was sneaking, not to
get away from bullies who would like nothing more than to hold him
down and spit loogies on his forehead, but to actually meet-up with
Kelly.
    Speaking of Kelly…Michael glanced around the
deserted recess area. There was something a tad spooky about the
huge area filled with monkey bars, swing sets, see saws, but
completely empty of children. It just looked wrong. Now, that was
neither here nor there. But one thing was wrong.
    Kelly was nowhere to be seen.
    There were countless reasons—not all of them
having to do with Mike, but that didn’t keep his heart from
dropping into his stomach. Sure, she could have changed her mind.
Maybe she’d thought about it and just didn’t want to be seen with
him—it wasn’t that far-fetched. Or maybe she was kept after class.
Even though Michael hadn’t noticed Mrs. Wegmann say anything about
it to her, and she hadn’t gotten in trouble for anything, that
option was still possible. Or maybe, just maybe, she was making her
way to the playground at this very moment and she would get here
any second.
    So Michael waited. And waited.
    And waited some more.
    He listened as the school buses, now filled
with their charges, geared up and drove away. Michael took a deep
breath. He was committed to this. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t
get on the bus now. They were leaving. In a moment they would all
be gone.
    Rejection and abandonment are never easy
things to take. Even to Mike, who had been treated like a mistake
by both his parents for as far back as he could remember, and was
the dog crap the other kids got on their shoes and tried to wipe
away, he never got used to the feelings. You can be cut by a sharp
knife every single day of your life. The blade, always sharp, but
not too sharp, the way it hurts, kind of drags across the soft
skin, splitting it apart as the blood oozes up from it. Still, each
day the cutting hurts just as much as it did the day before, and
the day before that. As a matter of fact, it hurt worse. When you
experience such a pain over and over again, just thinking about the
next time begins to get to you. You start expecting the physical
pain, but you also start to dread it, dread it and the thought of
the pain you can do nothing to stop.
    Michael looked at his watch. It was fifteen
after three and if he wanted to get home anytime soon, he needed to
get started. It was hard to do. As soon as he started his walk home
and he turned his back on the playground, the deal would be sealed.
Kelly wouldn’t have come and he would be alone again. As long as he
stood here there was a chance she would still show. Slim, almost
dwindling down to nothing, but still a chance.
    “Hey, fag, who you waiting for?” Michael
recognized the voice instantly. The words, the voice, chilled him
in a way that the bright summer sunshine couldn’t warm.
    Michael twirled, searching for where they
were. Jerry, Bobby, Cliff, and Ricky stood shoulder to shoulder at
the top of the hill. Each face Mike’s eyes saw looked meaner than
the last.
    Bobby, the tallest of the group, stepped
forward. “Little sissy looks sad. Your girlfriend not show?”
    How did they know? Michael was pretty sure
that even though there’d been a lot