Chapter 2

I just walked out of the kitchen with my freshly microwaved burrito, when I heard the front door open. It had been three hours since I was suspended, and it was time for Logan and Ava to arrive home. The entire afternoon I was unable to take my mind off the fight, but especially the confrontation with the principal that followed. What I told him was absolutely true. I really did ask the school staff for help, especially when the thefts started, but they never even did so much as hang Anti-Bullying posters in the hallways. The fact I now even had to threaten them with a lawyer after I was forced to defend myself, had kept me angry the entire time. So, when Logan and Ava stepped out of the hallway and into the living room, my mood was already pretty dark, and Ava must have noticed. She stopped dead in her tracks upon seeing me. Logan, however, came right at me.

“Great work, asshole! You proud...”

That was as far as he came before I threw my plate against the wall ten feet next to him, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Ava let out a shrill shriek and made a quick beeline to the stairs. Logan looked surprised about my outburst. He didn’t seem to have expected me to do anything but cower before him. But then again, his buddies didn’t expect me to hit back either. He had four inches in height on me, but I still got right in his face, causing him to slowly walk backwards, as I launched my tirade at him.

“Shut the fuck up, Golden Boy. I’ve fucking had it. Your friends have been beating on me for MONTHS! And you stood right next to them and WATCHED with a SMILE! I’m fucking done taking your shit! You’ve seen it today. You know what I’m capable of now. So go ahead and piss me off, motherfucker!” That last word I basically spat at him with all the loathing I could express, hinting at what I knew. “See how it works out for you.”

He visibly paled and took a few quick steps back from me. This was obviously not what he thought was going to happen. I wasn’t just seething, I was actually hoping he would try something so I could rip him apart. My fists were balled, my nails digging painfully into my palms, and my body was literally shaking in anger. The amount of pure hate that suddenly exploded inside me scared even myself. But he was there in the school’s hallway. He saw the violence. He knew what could happen if he pushed me over the edge again.

To my great pleasure, he turned and walked away without saying another word. My eyes followed him until Ava entered my field of vision, who was still standing at the bottom of the stairs. I was equally pleased to see the fright on her face before Logan reached her, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her up the stairs. When they were out of sight, I went back to the kitchen to get something to clean up my mess, and moaned about the loss of my afternoon snack.

About two hours later, I heard a knock on my door. When I opened it, I found myself face to face with Ava. By now I had calmed down significantly and just stared at her with a bored expression. She looked at me, opened her mouth to say something, but then seemed like she was taken aback. Her mouth slowly closing again, her eyes started wandering around my room, and a look I couldn’t place crept onto her face. Like she was irritated. Or nervous. Or, maybe, almost like she was concerned. I looked around myself but couldn’t see anything unsettling. Wasn’t much left, to be honest. Over the past year, my room had lost most of its personal touch.

I had my wardrobe, desk with chair, and twin-sized bed. I guess, since they never planned on sharing my bed with me, there was no need to get me a bigger one, like they did for their other children. Other than that, there were only my fridge and two shelf boards with my fantasy novels left.

The pictures that previously stood in those shelves had moved into a drawer, when the friends they showed distanced themselves from me. The posters and small rubbish went to the trash, when I lost interest in most of my hobbies. Now, the most prominent item in the room was my desk, which held my computer and all of my paperwork, like the invoices I wrote and the tax-crap I couldn’t figure out. It looked more like an office that someone had put a guest bed in. So, not seeing what Ava’s problem could be, I looked back at her and waited for her to gather her thoughts.

“What?” I asked impatiently, when she still couldn’t get a hold of herself after a minute.

“I was just ... I’m...” she stuttered but stopped again.

“ ... a bitch. I know, Princess. But do me a favor and stop wasting my time. Some people have stuff to do that doesn’t involve you.”

Now she looked hurt. The bitch looked hurt! After all the rumors she spread, all the badmouthing she subjected me to, all the insults she threw in my face whenever she found an opportunity to, she got hurt by that.

“Don’t call me a bitch, Tiny Tim! Don’t dump your frustration on me, it’s not my fault you can’t attract any girls.”

“Actually, it is. You were the one who started spreading those fucking rumors around school. You were also the one who roped the other fucking cheerleaders into making fun of me and started this shit I’m buried in!”

“I didn’t...” for just a second, she looked rattled, but she quickly caught herself. “They’re not rumors if they’re true!”

“Sure, Princess, tell yourself that. Now do yourself a favor and fuck off, before my ‘frustrations’ make me do something you’d surely regret.”

And with that, I slammed the door in her face.

Did that bitch seriously believe I still had a small dick!? Yes, back then the thing was barely three inches long. Probably even less if I’m being honest. Turns out, though, as a boy grows up, so does his dick! And the damn thing grows rather rapidly until a boy reaches sixteen years of age. It even keeps growing after he reaches sixteen, if only marginally, until the age of eighteen to twenty. Trust me, I read up on it every time my family had caused my insecurities to be off the charts again. So, I read about it a lot.

Now, I’ll never be a porn star with one of those eight-inch bats between their legs, but my penis should be absolutely adequate for sex, and thick enough to certainly be felt by a woman! After all, I can’t even stick my index finger into my mouth without gagging, which is merely three inches long. So, I figure there should be fun times ahead of me. If only those rumors Ava spread, and the bullying Logan encouraged, hadn’t effectively killed any chance I ever had to test that theory with any female my age.

Apart from that little clash with Golden Boy and the Princess, my suspension was highly uneventful and went largely unnoticed by my older cohabitors. I knew that Aaron and Claire were informed of my suspension the moment they set foot into the house. And I was willing to bet Logan talked to them about my outburst, trying to get me punished, but neither one of my parents bothered to come to my room. That was fine with me ... although, despite what I kept telling myself, somewhere in the back of my head, I was still holding up that small sliver of hope that at least one of them would start acting like a parent.

When I became the IT-Guy in a security firm, I thought it would be wise to expand my horizon and start looking into IT-Security. One of the very first things I learned was how to place a hidden tracker on phones. And yes, I did that with all of their phones, simply to test it out. A quick check revealed why nobody bothered to talk with me about what happened. They were at Uncle John’s house, undoubtedly having more orgies over there, like they did regularly since Ava’s sweet sixteen. They had more important things to do than to check in with me. At least Uncle John and Aunt Danielle could fill them in. Those two had seen me quite a few times during the training sessions, when they came in to meet up with Bill. Maybe they should have warned Golden Boy of what he had coming.

Although nobody dared lay a hand on me in school anymore, a couple of them did try outside of school a few times over the following months. Luckily, it ended much the same way as the first confrontation. The last attempt happened right after the football season started, and, after word got around exactly why the poor guys would have to sit out the first few games, I found myself being actually left alone. The verbal attacks kept coming, but I was long past giving a shit about those. As long as they would stop trying to physically assault me, this was progress.

I showed the guys at work the video of the fight, and was complimented for a job well done. They especially appreciated the part where I showed enough self control to put Jack into the recovery position, though Bill was not too happy about the part where I knee’d the guy in the face. Their opinion mattered more to me than the family’s.

I had used my suspension time to get my Learner’s Permit. With that, I went to register for the driver’s ed course in school as soon as I was allowed back in, but ran into a problem. The teacher for that class was Coach Jenkins, and, since I had put a number of his players off the field, he simply refused to get into a car with me. I was stuck without that course. I could hardly ask Aaron or Claire to give me lessons.

I bided my time over the next few months, though I held up my familial obligations. While I liked to claim it was solely to avoid yet another confrontation like on Ava’s birthday, I admit that it was actually my last desperate attempt to make the family acknowledge me.

When Mother’s Day came around in May, I got flowers, wrote a card, and left both on the kitchen table for Claire to find when she woke up in the morning. I found the card crumbled up together with the gift wrapping from her presents in the trash, so I wasn’t surprised when Claire never said anything about it. Since Logan could suck a dick for all I cared, my next attempt was Aaron’s birthday, which fell on Father’s Day that year. Knowing his obsession with football, I got him a wallet made from actual NFL uniforms worn by famous players. It cost me 280 dollars, but while I saw him use the damn thing, he never thanked me for it. And in August, when Claire’s birthday came around, I got her a Nest Egg Necklace made of sterling silver from an artist in California, with three “eggs” in the pendant representing her three children. I never learned if it had the desired effect.

While Claire never addressed my gift and I never saw her wear it, over the next few weeks she did behave like she was gathering the courage to talk about something. At dinner on the very next day after her birthday, she kept fixing me with a look before taking a deep breath as if preparing for a long talk. Whenever she did, everyone was looking at her expectantly because it was so obvious she had something to say. It never came out, though. She just stopped, breathed out again, and took another bite of her food.

She kept throwing me concerned glances every few minutes, though. She also stopped by my bedroom on a few evenings, but the result was just the same as when she tried at the dinner table. When I finally lost my patience one Saturday morning and asked what she wanted in an irritated voice, she, again, simply excused herself and walked away. She never tried again after that.

I dove into work, mentally kicking myself for getting my hopes up in the first place. Even if the Nest Egg Necklace had worked, what would it have gotten me? I would have learned that I needed to buy their consideration. So, maybe it was even better that it didn’t lead to anything. When the guys at work asked me about my license though, since I’d turn sixteen only a few months later, I told them about Coach Jenkins. They once again helped me out. I had just come out of the shower after one of our training sessions, when Bill walked into the dressing room and handed me a set of car keys, saying “I’ll wait for you in the parking lot.”, before leaving without waiting for an answer.

He took me for an hour-long drive around the parking lot, patiently explaining all the buttons and levers in the car, giving me pointers on how to do what. Then, each day after the training, he would walk into the dressing room and hand a set of keys to whomever was still in there with me. That person would eagerly give me another hour-long lesson in driving. Once I had the required hours accumulated, Bill called me into the office as soon as I arrived.

“The two of us are doing something else today.” he proclaimed, and tossed me a different set of car keys, before leading me to one of the lightly armored SUVs the company used to chauffeur clients around.

When we sat in the car, he gave me directions to a specially prepared lot where he gave me a six-hour specialized driving safety course. We started at daylight and ended late at night. I needed one of those, since my driving lessons should either be parent-taught or an approved driver’s ed course. Apparently he’s certified to give those. Holding the completion certificate in hand, I now had everything I needed to take my final test at the DMV. Everything apart from a parent’s signature on the application. Realizing this, I felt a burst of sadness rush through me.

I know, it’s not the manliest thing to say, but, at that moment, I had a hard time keeping those feelings inside. Bill had given me a chance when I desperately needed a job. All the people in the company simply accepted me as one of their own, no questions asked. They helped me get in shape and taught me how to defend myself in school. And now they taught me how to drive, like it was the most normal thing to do for someone they barely knew. These people had shown me more favor and more compassion than my own family. Even more than that, actually. Whenever my family actively buried me under another mountain of shit, these people helped me get out of it.

I somehow managed to get Aaron to sign the application at the breakfast table, and made an appointment for my final driver’s test. However, it was encouraged to take that test with the car I was intending to actually drive afterwards, so I put that off for the moment until I got myself a car and had it insured. I still didn’t want to unnecessarily tip the family off, so I looked for something cheap. Suddenly, every single guy at work had an opinion on what was most important in a car. I just wanted something cheap ... and maybe fun. So, I decided to get myself a used 2003 Jeep Wrangler Convertible. It had already 186,699 miles on it, but cost me only $5,200 dollars and it still looked presentable.

That was only in case the parents asked questions, though. Off the record, I paid another $1,800 to have it detailed, put on a new set of tires, and fitted with a decent stereo (that I can connect with a phone via Bluetooth, instead of having to burn audio-CDs). Then I had it parked at the company lot and got Aaron to, once again, sign the insurance papers at the breakfast table. I was pretty sure he thought it was for the driver’s ed class in school. But the car’s title and insurance were in my name, and would be paid from my bank account. I just needed him to co-sign to get the process started.

The week before my sixteenth birthday, Bill called me into his office once again. He informed me that, for the following Saturday, he had booked a day-long First Aid/CPR/AED course with the Red Cross for me, and they would also check my eyesight. I had no idea why he would do that, but, since he was paying, I decided that it couldn’t hurt and just attended.

The day I turned sixteen went much like my suspension: Unnoticed by the cohabitants. I skipped my afternoon classes to get my license instead. When I left the DMV, I noticed two missed calls from my grandma, so I called her back.

“Hey, Gran. I missed your calls?” I greeted her, the elation from passing the test found its way into my voice.

“Well! It’s been a while since someone sounded THAT happy to talk to me?” she chuckled.

“Eh, not that I wouldn’t be happy to talk with you! But a little part of it may be related to passing my driver’s test just half an hour ago and finally having my license!”

“I’m so happy for you, Pumpkin! Isn’t that a nice gift! Happy Birthday!” She sounded genuinely pleased.

“Thank you, Granny! I’m glad to be done with that. So, how’re you and Gramps?”

“We’re fine. We’re already packing for Thanksgiving. I almost can’t wait.” She sounded somewhat conspiratorial. Like she was hinting at something she didn’t want to say over the phone.

“Oh? Where’s it going?” I asked, clearly confused. She paused for a moment before she answered.

“Eh? We’re flying in for Thanksgiving. Didn’t you know? Didn’t Claire and Aaron ... tell you?” she asked, uncertainty thick in her voice.

“No, I had no idea. Well ... actually I don’t even know where the Thanksgiving Dinner is supposed to be this year. Had a lot on my plate and Thanksgiving just ... wasn’t on my mind.”

“Oh.” she said in surprise. “They ... they didn’t tell you anything? Well ... But, we’ll see you when we arrive?”

“Sure, Granny. I still live there, after all. See you then.”

After the call, I made my way to the firm. The people at work had other ideas than my family, though. When I arrived at the office, Bill called me in and I finally learned why he had sent me to that course with the Red Cross. He presented me with an actual employment contract! It came with a fixed salary for a twenty-eight-hour week and even included health insurance. The salary was actually high enough so I could drop all my side projects! The health insurance was only included on a condition, though. I had to accompany some of the guys to actual jobs. That certainly wasn’t a problem for me, so I happily accepted.

By five PM, Tess showed up in what was now my own little corner office. Right next to the server in the basement. One of the guys even put a little painter’s tape on the door and wrote “IT-Department” with permanent marker on it, even including the quotation marks as a little joke.

“I hear you’re a full-fledged member of the working force now.” she commented with a little smile, as she sat on my desk.

“Yeah. I had completely forgotten why I was here as a freelancer until now. And I still never made the connection when the Boss sent me to that First Aid Course. Took me a little by surprise.”

“Well, you know, as a proper employee in this firm, you’ll need the proper appearance to go with. What if you run into a client? Or go out on a job with the others? You’d either have to go shopping, or seriously step up that savants look you’re rocking right now.”

“Makes sense. Problem is, I kinda lack ... what’s it called... ‘fashion sense’. How would...”

“Oh, I can help with that!” she interrupted me with her eyes sparkling. Apparently, that was just what she wanted to hear. “No Sparring today. Let’s go shopping!”

She grabbed my arm and basically dragged me out of the building. For some reason, everyone we walked past gave me a slightly unsettling smile. Tess took me to what she called a ‘haberdasher’. As it turned out, I needed everything! After spending roughly twelve hours each week in the gym for nine full months, while simultaneously radically reducing my junk food intake, I had successfully shed forty pounds of fat off my body, and started to fill out quite nicely with muscles instead. At 5’10’’, and 196 pounds, I wasn’t exactly small anymore either. I wasn’t a big fan of starvation, so my torso would never get even close to that desirable V-shape, though I did get broad shoulders and was even slowly developing abs. Painstakingly slowly, that is.

I didn’t have anyone to impress, though, so I had stopped caring about my appearance quite a while ago. As long as my clothes covered what needed to be covered, I was contented with them. So, I only got new stuff when the old stuff fell apart. I decided then and there to simply let Tess take the reins and do as I was told.

I got a bunch of T-shirts, button-up shirts, a black m-65 jacket, cargo pants, dress pants, two of those belts without holes, socks without holes, underwear without holes, shoes that didn’t talk, and Tess made me model everything for her. Even the underwear, for some reason. Then came the grooming products and toiletries. Hair Gel, specific deodorants and aftershaves, she even insisted on a pricey cologne that I could only describe as a musky cedarwood smell.

In the end, I even had to get a suit. I let Tess choose a plain black, slim fit three piece, with a collection of gray ties, and then we had them adjust it for me. It almost looked like it was tailored for me. Although Bill would later laugh me out of the conference room the first time he saw it, telling me to lose the vest and tie unless I wanted to start a career as a banker and get strangled.

When the clerk asked me the famous “Left or Right” question, I had absolutely no idea what he was asking, and the confusion showed on my face. When Tess answered him by shouting “LEFT!” through the curtain, the confusion was showing on the clerk’s face, and he fixed me with a calculating look before the exact same small smirk spread across his face I had seen on the guys in the firm. He finally explained the meaning to me, and I, for the life of me, couldn’t figure out how the hell Tess knew where I let my balls hang when I didn’t even know myself.

By the time we were done, my bank account was another $2,800 lighter. I was glad this wasn’t something I had to do every month. Luckily, I could afford it all.

I basically had no friends left to go out with, abandoned all hobbies that could require money, and I also never had a girlfriend I could spend on. Basically, I spent my entire time either in school or working, so I really didn’t have time for anything else even if I had friends to go out with. I worked roughly twenty-six hours a week on the firm’s projects alone. At thirty-five dollars an hour, that makes roughly $3,600 a month. Tess had helped me figure out my taxes in January, and I now knew that I netted about $2,800 a month after taxes. My only expenses were the three-hundred dollars per month I paid Aaron in rent, another two-hundred dollars per month I spent for food, and $480 per month I was going to pay in car insurance from then on (which I got cheap thanks to the safety course from Bill!).

So, from my regular income alone, I had made about $1,800 a month that simply went to my bank account and sat there mostly unused. But in addition to that, I still maintained my old projects from home. I had a nice little revenue stream from my Apps, in addition to the side projects I had picked up from Craigslist and fiverr. That was possible because I got lucky by ignoring european data protection laws. I had learned through Bill that a friend of his, who worked security in Germany, needed an app for his bouncers to check vaccination statuses. So, I pulled the specifications for the EU-Vaccination-Certificates, created an app, and published it. About two months later, the EU required all clubs, bars, discos and restaurants to only allow people with booster-shots to enter their establishments, but their own official App couldn’t differentiate between a vaccination and a booster shot. Mine could, because I didn’t hide that information from the bouncers like the official App did, and soon my app was used all across Europe.