Echoes of the Heart

by Casey, L. A.

  I saw Owen’s feet move closer to me and when I looked up I was knocked flat onto my back when his massive, meaty fist swung down and cracked me square in the jaw. For a second, I heard ringing in my ears and black dots skewed my vision. I shook my head and moaned in pain as fierce throbbing spread like wildfire over my jaw. I lifted my hands to my face and willed myself not to cry. I made a point to never cry in front of Owen or Freda, his wife, just so they would have no clue how much they broke me down.

  “Get yer miserable hide to school.”

  I swallowed down the metallic tang of blood.

  “Yes, sir.”

  My bedroom door was slammed shut and all of two seconds passed by before the tears started. Angrily, I wiped my face with the sleeve of my uniform jumper. I hated crying, I hated that Owen and Freda could hurt me enough to reduce me to tears. I pushed myself to my feet, grabbed my school bag and hooked the straps over my shoulders. I left my bedroom and went into the bathroom so I could gargle some water in my mouth. It tasted like I swallowed a litre of blood, but only a trickle came out when I spit into the sink.

  I stuck my finger into my mouth and felt along the inside of my aching cheek. I hissed as the tip of my finger ran over a tiny, torn piece of flesh. When Owen punched me, the contact caused a tooth to slightly cut my cheek. It stung but it didn’t hurt anywhere close to how much my jaw pained me. I removed my finger then turned on the tap, bent down and filled my mouth up with water. I swished it around then spat it out.

  I wiped my hands down on a hand towel, folded it neatly back in place and made sure all of the blood was gone from the sink before I turned the tap off. If I left a mess, the Days would tear my arse up. Those two were so full of anger and misery I always did what I could to avoid being a target but there were days, like today, that I couldn’t avoid their wrath. I didn’t get them. I mean, I knew why they fostered kids, for the money. I just didn’t get why they even bothered because it was as obvious as the day was long that they hated it. They hated me and they always had. I had known since I came to the Day household that I was never going to be part of their family. I had to refer to Owen and Freda by their names and never Mum and Dad. The first time I tried this, when I was five, I got my arse walloped until I could barely walk from the pain.

  I made sure to never make that mistake ever again.

  I was the first placement Owen and Freda ever had and I was the only foster kid to come into their household who was never adopted by a family. I was a long-term placement, not short-term like the kids who passed through. I had visits with families who seemed like they were too good to be true, happy and loving but not willing to take in a boy who couldn’t express joy like that. I always figured part of me was broken and wasn’t good enough to be with a real family, so I accepted the only one I would ever know would be with the Days.

  I left the Day household on Trinity Street without a sound and made my way towards Cumberland Road, where May Acton, my best friend, lived. My other mate, Hayes Hurley, lived on Stradbroke Road and we always met up with one another at Cumberland Road to wait at the school bus stop. I made it to the stop five minutes earlier than usual. I adjusted my uniform so it didn’t look creased or out of place. I was listening to my headphones, like always. Music was my solace, my haven, my idea of what heaven was like because when I listened to it, I felt the lyrics, the riffs, the kick and snares of the drums. I felt them all.

  I loved music.

  I sighed and switched off my MP3 player, wrapped my headphones around it and put it into my bag so I could think. I quickly devised a story in my head about how I was getting a pan from the top cupboard in the kitchen and it fell and hit me in the face. It sucked not telling my friends the truth, but I knew if I did they would tell their parents who would call the police who would contact my caseworker. I hated the Days, I didn’t want to be within a hundred metres of them, but leaving their house meant leaving Southwold to be placed with another family and I didn’t want that. The thought of moving away from the only place I’ve ever known on top of leaving my only friends made me feel sick.

  I just had to stick it out for four years, three-hundred and sixty-four days more.

  “Then I’ll be eighteen and free,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Risk! Orrite, boy?”

  I snorted as May jogged up the road and bumped his fist against mine when he reached my side. May was the happiest lad I had ever known, he always had a smile on his chubby face. He paused next to me and tried to catch his breath. He was breathing pretty heavily. May was overweight by a few stone and he wasn’t all that fit so the littlest of exertions left him breathless. I waited, as I always did, for him to be comfortable before we started talking.

  “Mate,” he said, shaking his head and placing his hands on his wide hips. “I need to shift a few stone. My mum joined Slimming World last week and some of the dishes she made are super healthy and tasty as fuck. She said I can follow along with her plan too. I don’t even care if you or Hayes rip me a new one.”

  This made me happy and not because I wanted to take the piss out of him.

  “Good for you, mate. Soon you’ll be able to come running with me.”

  “Ha!” May barked. “You run in the morning and at night like a fitness junkie, no thanks.”

  I wasn’t a fitness junkie, not by a long stretch. I couldn’t afford to lose any weight, but I still went running twice a day just so I could get out of the Days’ house. They didn’t starve me, but they only fed me three meals a day because that was all the human body needed, Owen said. Most of the time, I didn’t even jog when I went out. I just wandered around until it was close to my curfew so I could go back to the house I lived in and go straight to sleep.

  “We can walk too,” I pointed out to May. “That’s still good exercise.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re ri— boy! What the fuck happened to your ugly mug?”

  I lifted my hand to my sore face, forced a laugh and told him the story I had rehearsed in my head and by the time I finished, May was cracking up. Hayes showed up at that moment and May rehashed everything I just told him and soon, they were both laughing at me. I laughed too and pretended that the story I made up was real because it beat the alternative.

  “Lad,” Hayes winced. “It’s all swollen and black and blue, you’d take less damage from a punch.”

  “Yeah,” I snorted. “I probably would.”

  We talked about football, comic books and music as we boarded our bus to school and pulled up at Sir John Leman High School. I made it through the entire day without too many questions about my face until the last period of the day – History. Our teacher took ill over the lunch break and there was no substitute to look after us so we had a free period. We had to keep quiet; the teacher in the classroom next door left the door open and she would frequently pop in to make sure we weren’t acting up.

  One of my classmates asked me what happened and the whole bloody room stopped what they were doing and listened as I repeated my story. By the time I had finished, I was grinning because of how much everyone was laughing but I couldn’t help but feel like a complete and total fraud. I looked around the room at the smiling faces and stopped at one who wasn’t so much as grinning my way, she looked proper pissed off if I was being honest with myself.

  Frankie Fulton was a classmate and most definitely the best-looking girl in my year, or at least I thought she was. She had auburn hair, big green eyes and skin so fair she looked like she glowed. I had fancied her for as long as I could remember, but did nothing about it because I didn’t know what to do about it. I tried to give her a smile, but she was looking at me so intently that I couldn’t hold the contact and looked down at my workbook. I felt her gaze on me throughout the whole period and when class was over, she stopped by my desk before I could escape the room.

  “Risk.”

  I looked up at her and froze because she was looking at me like she knew my deepest, darkest secret.

  “Hey.” My voice cracke
d so I quickly cleared my throat. “Hey, Frankie.”

  She blinked. “You get off the bus at Cumberland Road, right?”

  May and Hayes stopped behind Frankie when they realised she was talking to me and they both widened their eyes and looked at me like I was some sort of bird magnet, but the reality was, I had no clue why Frankie was talking to me. She hardly ever spoke to anyone, let alone me. She listened to her headphones the majority of the time and liked to keep to herself. I was as stunned as my friends that she was interacting me with me at all.

  “Uh.” I blinked up at her. “Yeah. Yeah, I get off at that stop.”

  “Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll get off there today and you can walk me home.”

  She didn’t ask permission, she was telling me what I was going to do and I wasn’t about to disagree with her so I bobbed my head and said, “Okay.”

  She nodded then turned and left the classroom along with the rest of our classmates. May and Hayes both smacked me at different points on my body as I grabbed my stuff and shoved it into my bag at rapid speed.

  “Mate!” May practically squeaked. “Why does she want you to walk her home?”

  “Dumb arse,” Hayes shoved May. “She’s into him, why else would she ask?”

  “Maybe to make sure he’s not in danger of any flying pans on the way home?”

  Hayes cracked up at May’s teasing, but I barely heard them.

  I grabbed my bag and bucked it out of the room after Frankie so I wouldn’t miss the bus. I had no idea if Hayes was right and that Frankie liked me, but there was no way in hell that I was going to miss the chance to find out. My friends were trailing behind me as we left the school grounds. Frankie waited to board the bus until she saw me. She sat up at the front like she usually did and I had no clue whether or not I was supposed to sit next to her so I just sat a couple of rows behind her like I normally did.

  It was a mild day not hot or cold, but I was sweating.

  Quicker than I anticipated, the bus rolled to a stop at Cumberland Road. I stood up with my friends and some other students and we got off the bus. I glanced over my shoulder when I saw Frankie hop down from the steps onto the pavement and my heart thrummed in my chest. This was actually happening. She really wanted me to walk her home. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember how to walk and looked to my friends for help. Hayes’s dark brown skin looked flushed on my behalf and May was smiling like normal, but his smile was a little too big.

  I cleared my throat when Frankie came to a stop at my side. I wasn’t massively tall, but I was taller than everyone else in my year and even taller than some of the older kids a few years ahead of me. I was five foot eight inches and, looking down at Frankie, I wondered if she topped off at four foot eleven. I had never realised how short she was until she stood next to me. She was seriously tiny.

  “Uh.” Hayes coughed. “Hey, Frankie. Me and May were just about to go to his house, which is this way,” he pointed over his shoulder. “So we’ll see you both later.”

  Hayes all but dragged May along as they walked away. I knew he thought he was doing me a favour by leaving me alone with Frankie, but he did the complete opposite. He threw me right into the deep end with no armbands because I had no bloody idea what I was supposed to do, or say, to a girl that I liked. I hardly knew what to say to a girl who I didn’t like. My mind couldn’t handle the stress of it.

  “I live on Dulwich Road,” she said, breaking the silence. “Where d’you live?”

  I knew she lived on Dulwich Road, her stop was three stops before Cumberland Road.

  “Uh, on Trinity Street.”

  Frankie nodded and turned and began walking away from Cumberland Road in a direction that would cut through a few streets and eventually lead to Dulwich Road. I snapped out of whatever the hell was wrong with me and hurried to catch up with her. When I reached her side, I had to take much smaller strides because hers were half what mine were. I glanced down at her and saw she was wearing a necklace with a pendant I had never seen before.

  “I’ve never seen a necklace like that.”

  She lifted her hand to the pendant and brushed her thumb over it before dropping her arm back to her side. “It’s a medical I.D.,” she explained. “I have severe asthma so I have to wear one for medical purposes.”

  Right. Duh. I knew she had asthma. At the start of every school year for as long as I could remember we were reminded of her illness as well as a kid who had a peanut allergy. We knew what we had to do if either of them had one of their respective attacks. Get help immediately.

  “So,” I said, shoving my hands into my pocket. “Why’d you want me to walk you home?”

  “So I could talk to you.”

  “Right.”

  Talk to me about bloody what? My head was about to explode with the confusion of what was happening. Frankie looked as cool as a cucumber while I was as jittery as a squirrel.

  “I’m going to talk,” Frankie began. “And you’re going to listen, okay?”

  I was going to shit myself is what I was going to do.

  “Okay.”

  “Right,” she said. “So, I know you’re lying about how you got that bruise on your face.”

  Of all the things I expected her to say, that was not it.

  “What d’you mean?” I looked down at her, feeling my body tense as I walked. “I’m not lying.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  I stopped walking and so did Frankie, she turned to face me. She looked up at me with her big green eyes and she almost narrowed them as if to challenge me. I shifted, looking down at my feet.

  “I’m not lying, Frankie.”

  “It’s okay,” she comforted. “You don’t have to be scared.”

  I felt like I was suddenly in a tiny, dark, confined room.

  “I . . . Look, I don’t think I can walk you home.” I blurted, taking a step back. “I forgot I have something to—”

  “Risk, I’m going to tell Mr Jones what I think is happening to you.”

  I felt my jaw drop as surprise, and anger, filled me when she brought the school’s counsellor into the conversation.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I said, dumbfounded. “Nothing is happening to me.”

  “Yes, it is,” she pressed. “You come into school with more bruises and injuries than anyone I know. At first, I thought you were clumsy, but no one is this clumsy. Also, don’t insult me. I’m not stupid, no poxy frying pan left your face that bruised and swollen.”

  I shifted my gaze and stared down at this girl who I had known since reception, but never really knew. I couldn’t believe how she could see through the cloud of lies that not even my best mates questioned. I suddenly felt panicked. She said she was going to tell Mr Jones. He was probably the nicest man to walk the earth and he was the obvious choice for a student to go to when they needed help.

  “Frankie.” I wiped my forehead. “Listen to me—”

  “Don’t lie to me and I will.”

  I couldn’t believe she was talking to me like this when we had never really talked before. Didn’t she realise how out of order she was?

  “You’ve got some neck, y’know?” I frowned. “You can’t just go and say shit like this to people.”

  “Shit like what?”

  “Like saying I’m being abused!”

  “But I didn’t say that.” She raised a brow. “I said I was going to tell Mr Jones what I thought was happening to you. You said the word abuse, not me.”

  She was confusing me.

  “Stop.” I scowled. “I knew what you meant and you did too.”

  “Well, answer me this. Are you being abused?”

  My heart hurt with how blunt her question was.

  “I . . . I . . . No, I’m not!” I lied. “It’s fucking creepy of you to think you know me when you fucking don’t. I thought you were cool, but you’re clearly a psycho bitch who—”

  “You’re not hurting my feelings.” She interrupted as she folded her arms across her
flat chest. “You’re lashing out because you’re scared and upset and I get it.”

  “What is your problem?” I snapped. “Why’re you acting like you’re an adult? You’re no older than thirteen!”

  “I’m actually twelve, thirteen next week, but just because I’m not older I’m supposed to not see what’s right in front of me?” she demanded. “I can’t just pretend I don’t see that you’re hurting, Risk.”

  “Why not?” I shouted at her. “Why the fuck not? Nobody else sees what they do to me, why do you? Why d’you even care?”

  “Because I’m not heartless, wazzock. That’s why!”

  I couldn’t believe she called me an idiot, I couldn’t believe she was doing this to me at all. I was breathing heavily and I stumbled back when I realised I just confirmed her suspicions. I imagined her telling Mr Jones everything and then the police coming and taking me away. Everything flashed before my eyes and it prompted me to say what I’d been holding on to for so long.

  “Please don’t tell,” I begged. “They’ll take me away if you do. I won’t get to go to school here anymore, or see May and Hayes every day or even you. Please, Frankie. Don’t tell.”

  Her lips parted and sadness filled her lustrous green eyes, sadness for me.

  “They’re hurting you though, Risk. You’re always so beat up coming to school and it kills me to see you like that. They’re your foster parents, they’re supposed to take care of you, not hurt you.”

  “They don’t hurt me all of the time,” I assured her. “Owen only does it when he’s mad, Freda just shouts sometimes. She only smacks my head when she gets goin’, she doesn’t do anything worse.”

  “Risk.” Frankie’s eyes glazed over with tears. “One smack is enough for it to be worse.”

  “Please,” I pleaded. “Don’t tell. I don’t want to leave Southwold. Please.”