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dizzygraceful) wrote2007-02-19 06:41 pm
Writing Exercise #4
Prompt: There once was a chance I didn’t take
There were plenty of chances that Hadrian didn’t take. He never really regretted any of them. There was only one chance he hadn’t taken that he wished he had. It was hard for him to think about it and even harder to talk about. Yet, he had managed to tell his friends their freshman year of high school. He had known and been friends with them since fourth grade, but he had never told them before.
Hadrian didn’t come from a good home. His father was an abusive alcoholic and his mother was a pushover. She never once stood up to him, not once. She never even asked him to stop. Not even when it was her son on the receiving end of the violence.
Hadrian had gone home early with a stomach ache in third grade. He had walked home himself because the school hadn’t been able to get a hold of his parents to come pick him up. Hadrian didn’t care because he was used to it. He was used to being alone more than he was used to being with people.
His dad turned on him. He raised the knife and lashed out at Hadrian, but Hadrian had been able to finally move. The knife caught his right arm and dragged down almost the entire length of it. Hadrian ran as fast and as far as he could. He didn’t go to the police or find someone who let him use their phone to call for help. Hadrian ran.
Hadrian still hated to think about that day and how cowardly he had acted. He tried to blame it on self-preservation, but he wasn’t sure he could. He could have saved his mother’s life had he just gone next door and called for an ambulance instead of running halfway across town in fear.
After that he was taken in by his maternal grandmother. She was nice enough, but he was never close to her. He hated staying at home and often disappeared. She gave up calling the cops after the fifth time.
He made friends, not by choice, but he had made them. Maya was a godsend to him. If it hadn’t been for her he wasn’t sure he would still be alive. He probably would have tried to escape the same way that Tristram had. Maya was the only one who never questioned the reason for the long sleeve he always wore on his right arm. It covered the scar he had and even if he was wearing a tank top his right arm was completely covered. He didn’t want the others to know what he had been through. He didn’t want their sympathy.
Maya was the first one who had seen him without his sleeve, had seen the scar. She had run her finger along the scar making him shiver before she smiled and said that she was glad he was still alive. After that he had allowed his other friends to see his arm and they had made him feel more comfortable about living with the constant reminder. He still didn’t let people see it, but it wasn’t so hard anymore.
He regretted that he hadn’t done more to help his mother, but he knew that he had made the right choice. If his mother had lived she would have gone back to his father and he never would have escaped that home. He felt guilty about thinking like that, but he didn’t feel guilty at the same time. She had never once tried to help him when his father had turned his rage on Hadrian. She had always turned a blind eye and hadn’t even bothered to help him clean his wounds when the beating was over.
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Excellent reason for him to be so haunted!
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