Chapter Text
He sat in the woods behind his house. Early dawn, the soft calling of hungry birds chasing away the nighttime cadence of crickets. It felt like home there. He sat amongst the weeds, the dropped stores of the chipmunks and the squirrels, long forgotten in their hurried rush from predators, and he felt at peace. He thought he knew what that felt like. It wasn’t unlike what he was doing now. Running away from danger. Or rather, the threat of danger. He’d grown so used to it by now that it seemed natural, though he knew in his heart that it wasn’t. Maturity had done that much for him by unveiling the ugly mask that was his family. When he was younger, he had let the love he felt for them cover him like a bandage. Every bruise, every night spent cold and frightened, they were only small inconsistencies in the narrative he’d built for himself. They love me, he would tell himself, I’m just hard to love. If only he could be smarter. If only he could predict what they expected of him before he inevitably failed. If only he could be a better son. He did try.
He heard the unmistakable rumbling of the school bus and hurried to his feet, throwing his backpack over his shoulder, praying his father didn’t see him as he rounded the bend.
“Boy!” the man’s voice boomed across the pebbled driveway, stopping him in his tracks.
He felt the ground shift beneath his feet as he turned to see his father standing in the doorway, his faded flannel hanging loose off his hardened frame. He was wringing his hands with an old dish rag, his eyes narrowed at the sight of his son escaping off to school yet again.
“Get your ass back in here. Your mother needs help today and I won’t be late to work”
Link turned to see the bus headed his direction before looking back towards the house.
“ Now,” his father’s voice left no room for argument. He felt his shoulders fall and his stomach growl as he walked briskly back towards the house, stopping just at the bottom of the porch steps for instruction.
“Your mother’s having another episode and the house is fucking filthy. I expect everything to be taken care of while I’m at work. Do you understand?”
Link looked at his feet.
“Yes, sir”
“Yes, sir,” his father mocked, picking him up by the strap of his backpack and shoving him towards the house, “as if you have any respect for me. Where have you fucking been all morning? Your mother’s been out of her mind and I can’t deal with that bullshit right now”
“I have a test today,” Link replied quietly, “I’ll get in trouble if I miss it”
His father reeled him around before making hard contact across his face with the back of his hand. Link felt himself fall to the ground just in the doorway, reaching out the steady himself on the doorframe before he fell awkwardly to the floor.
“Don’t you dare try and pretend anything you do at the worthless school is better than what you owe me here. I feed you. Clothe you. Put a roof over your head. I work day and night to pay the bills around here and you act holier than thou because you have a test. Boy, they would spit you out before you had a chance to write your name on that paper if they could. They don’t want kids like you. You’ll graduate if you’re lucky and then go back begging at the front steps to clean the floors for the kids that come after you”
Link bit back the tears that welled in his eyes as he stared at the floor. It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like that. He cursed himself for not being immune to it by now, but each word cut deeper into his already wounded heart. He wished he had some of his father’s fortitude. The man was a wall of stone, only ever showing affection in those quiet moments when his mother could drag herself out of bed to remind him why they were still together. Link was more like her in that regard, always swimming in his own head, vulnerable as a child even still though he was nearly eighteen. He was quicker to cry than to fight and his father resented him for it. He was a physical manifestation of their failures. A weakness. A burden. He took every opportunity to remind him of it.
“I’m leaving. Take care of your mother. If I hear you’ve snuck away again, you will regret it”
Link nodded as his father slammed the door closed. He let his backpack fall to the ground and walked down the dark hall to where he knew his mother was, walking around the debris field that served as evidence of an earlier tantrum. She'd started that several years ago. She seemed to hurdle between frenzies of fury and brokenness that would result in her cocooning herself in bed for days before reappearing in a manic state sometime later. She would scrub their house from the floorboards to the ceiling and twirl Link around as she sang his praises before something kicked the cycle into motion again and he became her enemy just like everything else. It was exhausting. For everyone. He creaked the door open and watched the gentle up and down of her breathing from beneath the blankets. More traces of her outburst were scattered around the floor; a book with its pages torn and flipped on its end, a shattered glass, a basket of laundry tipped over. He was glad he’d missed it.
“Hi, mom,” he let his voice enter the room as gently as possible, “Are you okay?”
‘“Come here,” he heard her voice coming muffled from under the covers.
Hesitantly, he knelt at her bedside and put his hand on the edge of the bed. She emerged from under the pile of blankets, her face wet from fresh tears, eyes swollen and heavy, clouded in a haze of stolen medications.
“Did you run away again?”
“No, mom. I just like to sit outside,” he replied quietly and he felt her hand on top of his.
“You like getting away from me,” she choked out, “I don’t blame you. I want to get away from me too”
She ripped her hand away from his and buried herself back in the covers, her small frame shaking from a fresh torrent of tears. She’d always been unpredictable. Link remembered times when he was younger when she would wake him well past midnight, not completely there, offering him an invitation to her manic adventure. He had been too young then to see the truth in her movements. He’d ran and played and laughed with her until the sun rose and so too did the darker side of her mind. She’d turn on him then, scolding him for being out of bed, accusing him of some great tragedy that had suddenly befallen her. He’d spend the rest of the day locked in his room, quietly wondering what he’d done to earn her ire, not realizing it was her own mind she was waging war with. He was simply an easier target.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he turned to clean the broken glass off the floor. He knew it would be a long day.
“Good morning, Mr. Faron!” the lunch lady beamed at him as he walked into the quiet cafeteria. He’d snuck out early enough to take the long walk to school, arriving before most of the students in order to take advantage of the free breakfast they offered. Many of the students opted out of the program, claiming they’d rather starve than survive on the bland cafeteria food, but Link was always hungry, a result of having to earn what he consumed at home.
“Morning,” he replied as he graciously took a breakfast sandwich and a banana from her hands, offering a small smile in thanks. She turned to address her coworker as he made his way down the empty hallway, triggering the motion sensor light to illuminate the long pathway. He knew he had a least thirty minutes before the first teacher staggered in and even longer before other students. He knew this part of the hall was inhabited by the older teachers, unlike the new ones that rushed in with the sun to make last minute adjustments to their lesson plans. He sat heavily on the ground and pulled his feet towards him as he sat in the quiet and ate. He enjoyed the stillness until the sound of jingling keys caught his attention.
“Ah, Link! Good morning! You’re here early,” the principal’s voice carried down the hallway.
Mr. Agus was a cheerful man and always one that seemed a little too interested in Link’s life. Link groaned and quickly wiped his mouth, turning his face so that the bruise on his cheek was less visible. The last thing he needed was another report on his family. His father would rake him over the coals every time the school sent a social worker to check on him at home. He’d been groomed from a young age in the art of lying and working the system. Do you want to be taken away? His father would tell him. Do you want to never see your mother again? They’d told him that children who were taken away had to live in group homes, doing manual labor to earn their keep. Anything would be better than that, he would tell himself. So he had learned to lie away the injuries and the absences in an effort to make himself less visible.
“Good morning,” he replied, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“I didn’t see you yesterday, were you here?” Mr. Agus questioned, looking the boy over.
“No, sir. I was sick”
The man watched his face, seeing the way his brows twitched and he worried his bottom lip with his teeth.
“What happened here?” Mr. Agus questioned him further, eyeing the bruise on his face.
Link lifted a hand unconsciously as if to hide it and simply shook his head.
“I’m fine”
Mr. Agus hummed but didn’t reply as he knelt down.
“You know we’re family here, don’t you?” he asked as Link stared at the graying tile between his feet and nodded.
“And families take care of one another. If you ever need anything, all you have to do is ask, alright?”
Link nodded again and turned his face away, wishing he could somehow melt into the ground beneath him. He didn’t like attention. He didn’t want to be spoken to. He only wanted to show up silently and do his work without prying eyes or hushed whispers between adults as they vaguely pointed his way. He seemed to communicate this through body language and Mr. Agus made to stand, brushing the wrinkles from his pants as he did.
“Alright, I’ll leave you alone. Have a good day, alright?”
Link nodded again as the man walked down the hall to his office. It was about an hour later that he found himself sitting in math class, heart quietly panicking as the teacher walked around to pick up the homework assigned earlier in the week. He shuffled through his backpack as she made her rounds, trying desperately to find the paper he couldn’t remember taking home. It had become increasingly difficult for him to keep up with school and home as home become more suffocating.
“Mr. Faron?” she asked as she stopped at her desk.
He looked up to see the other students staring at him.
“I can’t find it,” he replied as she lifted a brow at him.
“If you came to school more often maybe you’d know what we do around here. We turn in homework every Wednesday. We’ve been in school six weeks, Link. You should know better”
He heard a few of the other boys in class snickering and he felt his face flush.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Blossom. Can I come in at lunch and work on it?”
She looked down at him and sighed.
“You may”
He spent the rest of the class hiding behind his hand with his elbow planted firmly on his desk. After the lecture, the rest of the class worked together to complete the assignment, turning in their chairs to gossip and joke around before the bell rang for the next class. Link sat and absently bounced his leg up and down as he tried to work out the new equations. He must have missed the instruction the day before and was having a hard time figuring out what he was supposed to do.
A few rows ahead of him a group of girls sat huddled together, occasionally looking over their shoulders to giggle.
“Who are you asking to the winter formal?” one of them said. Link recognized her as the captain of the swim team. Mipha. She had her long red hair braided off into two sections behind her back.
“I was hoping he would ask me!” another giggled as her eyes scanned the room, landing on a boy lounging in the back. Grante, they called him. He noticed the girls eyeing him and flipped his slick blonde hair to the side with a flick of his neck, sending them a winning smile, which sent them into a hushed frenzy as they fell together to laugh. Mrs. Blossom chastised them for the noise before continuing to peck away at her computer keys, leaving the class to fend for themselves.
One of the girls in the group looked up from their huddle and noticed that Link was looking at them. She had been smiling along with them as they continued their banter, but hadn’t added too much to the conversation. Link found he didn’t know her name, but he did know her face. It was soft and kind and her eyes reminded him of spring. He had perhaps stared long enough to catch the rest of the girls' attention and they all turned to watch him before he dropped his eyes in a panic, feeling warmth spreading across his cheeks.
“You mean him, Paya?” Mipha offered in jest, to which they covered their mouths to hide their laughter, “Does he even go to dances?”
Link felt as if his face were on fire. Of course he didn’t attend school events. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go, he just never had anyone to go with. He wasn’t allowed to have friends over and even if he did, he just didn’t know how to start a conversation long enough for anyone to befriend him in the first place. He didn’t know what people talked about. He didn’t even have a slate like everyone else. He’d made the mistake of asking for one once and his father had told him he could have a slate when he started paying rent, though he wasn’t even allowed to apply for jobs. It left him rather isolated. There were a few other students at school that were friendly with him, but none that he really called friends.
“Oh, hush Mipha,” the quiet girl said as she turned to look at him properly, “I think he’s cute. Just look at those eyes”
Link wondered if the world had stopped spinning or if he’d simply stopped moving with the world. He buried his face in his hands as they sat stunned for a moment before laughing.
“You’re fucking weird, Zelda. You read too many romance novels,” Mipha laughed before the conversation moved far past him and into their plans for the weekend.
When the bell rang, Link stayed behind in order to avoid the crowd of people at the door. When he stood from his desk Mrs. Blossom motioned for him and he walked to stand before her.
“Are you done with today’s work?” she asked.
“No, ma’am”
“And why not?”
Mrs. Blossom had mastered the art of the teacher's face, steeling her expression just enough to register his fight or flight.
“I...uh...I don’t understand how to do it,” he replied.
She sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms.
“Link you have to start coming to school. You’re a bright kid, but I can’t teach you if you’re never here. Where were you yesterday?”
“I was sick”
She looked him over, her eyes stopping on the bruise painted across his cheek. She nodded at him and gestured for him to leave as she turned to dial a number on her phone.
“Okay, well, I hope you’re feeling better,” she said, her voice changing tones as she watched him turn to leave, “could you shut the door behind you?”
He nodded and did as she was told, shutting the door as he left. When he looked up he could see Zelda standing across the hall, her books in her arms as she watched him. She lifted a hand in greeting as they met eyes.
He swallowed heavily and barely lifted a hand to return the wave before rushing down the corner, almost tripping over his own feet. What had he done to earn that attention? He would think about it the rest of the day.