Here's somkething! By your freindly neighborhood Spideys Sister!
My name is Nathanial Lee Davis the 2nd. This is the story of my life. These are the thoughts in my head. Nothing has been substituted. Nothing will be changed. This is the story of my life. The only part I think is worth telling.
When I was a senior in high school, I was 16. I was supposed to be a sophmore but the placement test said other wise. I attended Louis Hights High School in the southern part of the Bronx. I lived in the area with junkyards and small trailerparks. I lived with my father and my four other siblings. In order there was: Nathan Davis (oldest, boy, 18), Marie Davis (other oldest, Nathans twin sister, girl, 18), Myself (middle, boy, 16) Al'Lea Davis (Second youngest, girl, 15), and Eddward Davis ( youngest, boy, 14). We all have black hair and evryone but myself has brown eyes. I have dark blue eyes. This is to get the akward intros out of the way.
Now, at school, I was an A+ student to keep my abusive father away from my studies. I had no social life and tried to distance myself from others. I majored in math even though writing is what I always wanted to do. It didn't matter what I was writing about. That was all I ever did. In the middle of class, at lunch, in Gym... but the only time I accutually tried not to write was when this one girl...would sit and try to read over my shoulder. It wasn't that I minded, it was the fact that she wanted a friend. And I was almost positive she knew I didn't.
"Hi."
"What do you want?"
"What're you writing?"
"What do you care?"
"I care. Can I see?"
"Buzz off."
We had engaging conversations like this all the time. Her name was Natilie Owens and she liked me. It wasn't like any of the other girls in school didn't have a crush on me. I just had a way of rejection that I could use without taking to anyone. I had an attitude. Not the assertive kind people like. I had pure bad ass attitude. With everyone. Not just the people who would look over my shoulder, if you asked for directions I'd have an attitude. So the girls left me alone. If I made fun of them and they told their boyfriends, that's cool, cause their boyfriends new better. Everyone knew better than to upset Nathanial Lee. That's what they called me. That's what everyone called me. I had a reputation. It's how I was known. I was sick of everyone calling me the youngest kid in the class. The nerd. The genius. Those titles were not what I was supposed to be known as. I wanted a title. A serious title. But a 16-year-old from the Bronx wasn't gonna get any recognition anytime soon.
So, when it came time for LHHS's annual senior prank, they turned to me.
"The hell do you want me to do?"
"Somethin' new, Nathanial."
"Like...?"
"Well, you could set something on fire or something."
"That's a prank? You guys suck."
"You can come up with something better?"
"Why do you guys want me to do it anyway?"
"Cause... Everyone would know it was you and no one would say somethin'."
I thought about it. Really. I wasn't the type to do favors but a prank...mixed with revenge... It had me thinking. Really thinking. I could take this to a whole nother leval. And they had a point. No one in the Bronx would mess with me. If they would, they'd have to put up with my father. That was the only thing he was useful towards me for. Backup. That and that alone is why I didn't leave with my mother.
Everyone in my neighboorhood would talk about the "Poor Davis Kids." That's how me and my siblings were known. Our dad didn't care who knew what he did to us. No one would do anything about it. If they did, they would become another missing person in our back yard and not a person would be any the wiser. It wasn't like anyone didn't care, people tried to get us out. Social workers would come, and like everyone else on the outside who entered my house, my hillbille trailer park of a house, they'd dissappear. That's what my father was known as. The Bronx' best serial killer. Never caught, never brought to court. No one ever pressed charges or dared to point the finger at him. I'd walk in the back yard once a week and count the I.D.'s left by people. That gave me an accurate count. That week it was 22. 22 I.D.'s. The backyard was all dirt. One section had flowers, but the rest was dirt and graves. Flat as they needed to be. It's how he covered up. Oviously it was good enough...
Then it hit me. I was misirable. It took me that long to figure out everyone else in New York was happier than I was. And it bothered me. Wasn't I capable of being happy? Couldn't I live a decent life? Why wasn't I already living a good life? What was I missing? I sat on my porch and watched people, my neighboors, my classmates, live their lives and wrote everything they did down. They talked to each other, they walked their pets, they did everything I didn't. Everything I dispised by nature. I wasn't about to force myself to do what they did to make a substitute for happiness. Something I couldn't have was feet away and I still sat there with my life inside the house behind me. Why does everyone have to be happy? Why can't they be misirable like me? I could. So could they. I could make them. I could make them understand. What if they couldn't have a best friend? A pet? A mother? If I can't why should they be allowed to? I had the power, the athourity to change lives. And nothing could be done to stop me.
But that insanly crazy girl, who also turned out to be my next door neighboor, wants to see what I'm writing. Again.
"Hi."
"Are you following me?"
"No. Do you want me to?"
"Go home. Now."
"Why don't you call me by my name? I know you know it. I know your name."
I asked her. I strait out asked her. She would know.
"Are you happy?"
"Me? God, no. But I'm cool with that."
"How are you 'okay' with being unhappy?"
"Cause', I am an optimist."
"A what?"
"An optimist. Happy 24/7. I may not be happy but that doesn't mean I can't be happy. An optimist is someone who looks at the positive. Your life can be crap, but you can still wear a smile on your face everyday."
"What's the opisite of an...optimist, was it?"
"A pesimist. Pesimists don't see a bright light in any tunnel."
'You can be happy, without being happy...' It stuck in my mind all the while I was taking notes. Natilie didn't leave. Not even after it was way dark out. We had two street lights in the cul de sac. One in front of Natilies house and another in front of the house I knew that the family was in the backyard. It was dark and getting cold. I saw Natilie shivering a little out of the corner of my eye. I wanted to give her my thermal sweater but a cop car drove down the street towards her house. She got up and sat behind me, like she was hiding. I didn't know it until then, her dad was a cop. I had a cop living next to a serial killer. Mr. Owens stepped out of his car and looked around.
"Nathanial Lee, have you seen my daughter?"
I shook my head even though she was behind me. I could hear her breathing hard behind me. Mr. Owens looked around again before re-addressing me.
"Nathanial Lee if I find out you did something to my daughter--"
"I'll let you know."
His face shifted at me. I waved from my porch. He went in his house and Natilie checked to make sure he was gone.
"Thanks."
"Sure, now go home."
"Can--can I stay with you tonight?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Please, Nathanial Lee?"
"No. Go home. I don't your dad comming to my house."
"Nathanial Lee...please...Let me stay here."
"Why would you want to stay here?"
"I feel safe with you."
I looked at her. I could see in her eyes she didn't want to go home. Something I'd seen numerous time in the mirror of the boys bathroom. Part of me wanted to give her my sweatshirt and tell her she could stay but the other half was completely scared out of his mind of what my father would do if he found out I brought someone in the house without his okay. Natilie could become two things in one night, #23 in a pile of bodies in my backyard and another bad memorie.
"Go home, Natilie. Now."
"Nathan, please!"
She was acctually the first person ever to call me Nathan. Mostly because that was my older brothers name. No one wanted us to get confused. I called nathan Nathan and he called me Nate. Never called me Nathan before. I acctually was about to tell her to come in before someone heard her, but it was too late.
"Natilie Owens! Get in this house this instant!"
She sat stunned she had run out of time, then slowly got up and draged her feet into the tudor. Mr. Owens stared at me and went in after his daughter. I went inside my own home and in my room, tossing the notebook into the piles of others I had finished. Double sided pages of whatever. Nathan walked in my room, a smile on his face.
"What are you smiling about?"
"I donno. It may have something with the fact that tommorow I am officially an adult and am moving out of this rat hole asap."
"Congrats."
"And you're comming with me, little bro.
"What?"
"You heard me, Nathanial Lee."
"What about Al'lea and Eddward?"
"I'm only allowed to take on person with me a week. So...? Why are you still on your butt? Get packing. I leave tommorrow. Early."
theres more but hey...
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