Synopsis
After Jason comes home to find his uncle hitting his cousin, he runs away. He seeks refuge in a nearby gas station bathroom. Follow him and his thoughts as he escapes him home as well as his uncle.
After Jason comes home to find his uncle hitting his cousin, he runs away. He seeks refuge in a nearby gas station bathroom. Follow him and his thoughts as he escapes him home as well as his uncle.
The walk home was a bad one. Jason switched between kicking random things on the street angrily and thinking about how to get out of this - but there really was no way. He looked down at his report card like it was the spawn of Satan.
He’d hardly passed social studies. Of course he passed health. Everything else was awful. So far, no one was cutting him slack for being from another state, which in his opinion was not fair. ‘You’ll just have to get used it,’ Tom had said. Tom said he wasn't really trying. Thomas said one semester was enough to get used to things. But honestly, Tom said a lot of crap that Jason didn’t listen to.
Jason stomped on a puddle angrily. He held his report card out in the rain in a feeble attempt to ruin it. It didn’t work.
Getting bored with his anger, he tried to think about better things.
He would have his first concert with his band on Friday - if he wasn’t grounded. Jason sighed. He would be grounded. There was no denying that. This made him more angry, so he moved on.
He was supposed to meet Lynn on Sunday. That would also likely not happen. This disappointed Jason. He felt that she was the only adult in his life that was worth trusting, even though he didn’t know her all that well. There was something about her that was… comforting, but he had not yet placed what it was. She was the nicest person he had ever met, but he had met plenty of nice people who were not like Lynn. She was incredibly ordinary, but there was some underlying difference in her. Along with the comfort she brought him, there was also a familiarity to her that was small, but infuriatingly unceasing. He had not placed what that was either.
Jason was now standing at the doorstep. There were no more puddles to angrily stomp on, no more cans to kick, and no more time for thinking. He simply had to ready himself as he unlocked the door. He wiped his shoes on the inside mat, and expected Tom to yell at him to use the one on the outside instead. And then Jason would say okay irritably in repliance. Then Tom would criticize his tone. It had become their daily ritual, though Tom saw it as obnoxious.
Today, however, Tom was not in the living room. Having heard something else, Jason looked around the corner to see Tom and Eric in the kitchen.
Tom was visibly upset, picking up the table and slamming it down, knocking over a chair.
“Take it,” he growled at Eric, pointing to prescription bottle of medication he’d been trying to get him to take for weeks.
Eric shook his head.
And just like that, like his own father had done to him so many times, Tom hit him and Eric fell out of his chair.
Tom was still saying things, but Jason was not registering what they were. A part of him wanted to scream at Tom and hit him with such a force that he would be hospitalized. That part of him wanted to protect Eric, who was incredibly young, and not as screwed up as Jason. There was still time to fix this. To fix him.
But what he saw stirred something in him. This fear that he had not experienced for nearly a year. It brought up many of his memories from the time with his father that he seemed to relive all at once. This part of him made Jason want to run away from Tom and get as far away from him as possible.
Jason dropped his report card accidentally, and the paper slid forward into the room. The movement caught Tom’s eye, and he turned around. The seconds became elongated. Tom stared at him with his cold, blue eyes. The same as his father’s. Tom’s expression was of incredible rage, and as he had experienced so many times before with his own father, he felt that Tom might do something to him.
He would not fight back.
Jason dropped his bag, turned, and ran.
He ran for his life. Out of the driveway, into the road, and away from Tom. He did not know whether Tom was running after him, jumping in his car to chase him, or leaving him be. Jason was not looking behind him.
As he ran, frustration surged through him. He was not sure who in particular he was frustrated with, but all he knew was that what he felt was almost to much to bear.
He had everything from his previous life swept from under him, only for it to be replaced by this. This was nothing better. This was the same. It was his old life wrapped up in a different way. He couldn’t believe he’d restarted, only to be running again like he’d been for years with his father.
He turned out of the neighborhood sharply, his lungs burning. He crossed the road without caution, causing one car to swerve, missing him by inches.
Jason was not only frustrated because of his current situation. He was also incredibly pissed because he was miraculously compelled to pray. The only time he’d ever done that before was around two years ago, in a circumstance were he felt his life was in danger.
That was why he was not fighting back. Fighting back was the reason he had scars on his back, and why he was so adamant on escaping.
What had happened was not happening again.
So like last time, having nothing to do other than exercise his last bit of hope as he ran, he prayed desperately for this to end soon. He prayed for this to be resolved without more pain than necessary, and he prayed that with Tom, he would not acquire more scars like the ones he had already. He prayed to a god that had never answered him before.
He ran up the road, almost at the same speed as the cars that passed. Despite his near hyperventilation, he did not slow down.
He managed to see a gas station in the distance through the thickening rain. He immediately made his way to it, not wasting his time out in the open. Jason walked through the parking lot and into the store, soaking wet and panting harder than he ever had before.
A confused man stood behind the counter, looking at him with understandable curiosity.
“Bathrooms?” Jason panted.
The man pointed to the back of the store. Quickly, Jason walked toward his destination. He flipped the bathroom door open and shut himself in a stall, taking in the awful odor that made his situation that much more unbearable.
He paced momentarily in the stall, feeling like he wouldn’t be able to stop. He ran his hands through his hair angrily. What was he supposed to do? Wait? That was all he could do. But just waiting for Tom to find him was a plan that would inevitably lead to a defeat.
However, this was not about Tom winning anymore. It was about what Tom might do to him.
A cockroach on the wall caught Jason’s eye. He turned away from it, disgusted, for it reminded him of his old house. That house was infested with them.
With one swift kick, the roach fell to the floor, still struggling.
But just then, he felt something surge through him. He knew it was caused by the stress of his current situation; the feeling of hopelessness, the feeling there was no escape.
He wanted to kill this roach. He wanted it to die a painful death and beg for mercy. He wanted to kill it and then kill it again.
So Jason stomped on the helpless roach. Over and over again. Even long after it stopped moving. He imagined it was Tom that he was torturing, or his father, for all of the hell he’d put him through, or his mother, for abandoning him when she knew very well what he would have to go through alone. He even imagined Kent, for acting as if he was wiser than Jason, and therefore superior. At that moment he hated them all with a fiery passion that he almost didn’t feel guilty about, and doing this brought him the pleasurable feeling of power.
But after it was over, he felt different. Exhausted, filthy, and stuck. Killing the poor creature had brought him nowhere, and he was right back to feeling small and insignificant.
Solemnly, he took a wad of toilet paper and flushed the bug. After what he had done to it, he almost felt obligated to give it a proper resting place, but there was no other option.
After disposing it, Jason calmly shuffled to the corner of his stall and leaned against the stained and dingy tile. He pulled his knees up to his chest and closed his eyes. He wanted this to be over. He wanted Tom to calm down. He wanted Eric to take his medication. He wanted to erase all of the memories of his father. And he wished he could get out of this constant power struggle. He was tired of being dominant or dominated. He wanted to be equal.
Jason sighed. That would never happen. There would never be a world without power, because power was what the world needed. Without power to exercise it, there would be no structure, and therefore no civilized world.
Jason’s head hurt. He closed his eyes and let his head fall to his knees at his sudden exhaustion. He wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and never wake up again, but with the negativity of the current situation in his mind, it was difficult to close his eyes and relax enough to do so.
Jason desperately racked his brains for something he could think about, even if it was not real.
He pictured himself walking off of a stage, a crowd of people cheering for his band, for him. These people felt the same as him. They understood him and he did right back. He pictured walking back stage with Elijah, Mark, and Kent. He pictured Kent at that moment not being obnoxious and acting superior, but instead walking there with him as an equal.
Someone ripped open a case of beer and threw him one. Jason cracked it open and sat down with the other members of his band, feeling incredibly exhausted, yet content.
Jason smiled to himself. Though it might not happen this Friday, their first show was bound to happen at some point. And when it did, Jason knew it would be great. He let the feeling of his thoughts sink in. Jason knew that feeling of content would not last, but it lasted long enough for him to drift out of consciousness and into the abyss of sleep.