The Grunge Kid

*Note-- I apologize for this being very long(I've never written such a long chapter before!) but I hope you enjoy it... Unfortunately I only have this chapter and part of the second.  I have lost ALL motivation to continue so maybe if I get good reviews and ratings, I'll consider to keep doing it**

Chapter 1  (Part 1)

He couldn't see the amount of blood but he could definately taste it.  The metallic gustation was one he recognized quite intimately.  He vowed himself that this year would be different.  Just as he was used to, it was simpley another shattered promise and it did not really suprise him.

There he was, helpless little Rusty Morrow unintentionally acting as a punching bag to Jesse Dain and Bruce Miller.  They were the two seniors to openly physically fight with him.  They, as well as every other student who attented Rockford High and every citizen occupying the small town of Taylor's Bend, seemed to feed off of his tears and blood drops.  At the moment, the two popular seniors were doing quite a prodigious achievement at fulfilling that masked hunger. 

Pain claimed its every place in Rusty's body, clawing at his skin and bones, revealing blood and bruises for all to view.  He didn't waste an effort to scream.  He dared not to fight back.  Over the manifold of years, he has discovered that Jesse, Bruce, and everyone else are dominant.  He is the weakest.

Emotions flooded his brain, as they always did.  Anger, hatred, defeat, depression, and even happiness.  He was happy that the torture would soon cease.  At least, the physical torture.

At his small home in the trailer, when he first got home from school and his parents were at work, the timing would always provoke tearjerking thoughts and questions.  Ever since he was a young child, he has always mustered anything he could that would effect his feelings for the worse, yet no apparent reason as to why.  Unfortunately, his sadness has slowly been increasing and cannot get help because his mother only takes notice of him when he makes mistakes and his father is scarcely ever home due to his occupation(not that he would want him home anyway) and the rest of his family doesn't see him often.

BAM!  WHIP!!!  The strong, hard, swift acts of violence leaked the echoes of hurtful and ruthless screeches right off of the hands and feet used to punch, slap, and stomp, and also poured from Rusty's body and into the starving ears of the massive crowd surrounding the scene.  Rusty was off of his feet now, trying to shield himself as he cowered in the paper-white painted, brick corner, but to no avail it seemed.  He was weak as it was and it drained him even more to hold his arms up only to fail at an attempt to protect his face.  He wondered if it was even worth it.  Hell, it drained him to even gasp for air and he was now nearly on the edge of hyperventilating. 

To everyone's suprise, mostly Rusty's, both Jesse and Bruce backed off and in the blink of an eye, the adoring audience disappeared to their classes.  Rusty was left helpless lying in the corner, bleeding, battered, and uncontrollabley weeping.  The salty flow of tears burnt like a wild fire as they streamed down his scratched face.

With a groan and a hurting facial expression,Rusty summoned enough strength to pull himself up onto his feet with alot of support from the chilled wall.  He was still gasping for air and making a genuine effort to gather his books and papers that have been scattered literally all through the hallway.    By some miracle he gathered them up into a smile, cluttered pile but unlucky was unable to pick it up.  After the fight, he wasn't strong enough to hold even a feather. 

He tried again.  A sharp sting swam through his hands and arms and shoulders. 

"Aaaghhh..."  he muttered in severe agony, almost too much for him to bear.  Although, he had a gut-feeling that his mental sufferring would be far worse. 

Rusty, realizing his failure, quit trying to lift his stack of things, and in a fit of roaring anger spit upon the frustrating pile of of school material which was now covered in little drops of blood that seeped from his wounds.  Not only did he spit on it, he got so baffled that he punted it, making his entire foot and leg feel like thousands of nails just penetrated through.  The pile shot in various directions just as everything had been before he had done the best he could to organize it.  Tears were still dripping freshly and in large amounts from his gigantic brown eyes.  Tears of helplessness.  Tears of rage.  They made his eyes seem like muddy water, at least more than they usually appeared.  His expression was one that revealed his utter solitude, his sadness.  His chocolate-colored hair clung to his face in small, messy clumps.  It shielded half of the fiery redness that claimed his cheeks and blocked the vision of his dripping nose and there was nobody near with the heart, or mind, to assist Rusty and the scene.

A few wasted moments went by and his crying ended.  His light blue faded jeans had slits in the knees which gave him a view of the damage.  He knelt down in the middle of the eerily silenced hallway and gazed at the gaping gashes, the streams of blood, many drops that got absorbed by his jeans, the purplish bruises that blanketed his knee-caps, and the few visible sections of scraped white skin.  If that was how his legs looked, he could not even begin to imagine how haggard his face was.

Oblivious to the prior sounds, he was now staring down at a pair of polished, shimmering, black dress-shoes. 

"Rusty, what exactly are you doing out here?  You should be in class!"  The man beamed at him.  It was the voice of the Rockford High principal, a scratchy, deep voice that Rusty Morrow knew all too well.  He uplifted his head in a slow, aching motion, staring, burning into the copper eyes of the old man. 

"I...can't move..."  heaved Rusty in his innocent, scratchy, medium-pitched voice.

"Rusty, may I say one thing?"  Mr. Whinston questioned but wasn't intending him to answer.  "Your name really seems to suit you.  You're "rusty" in so many categories, your social status by a long shot, with your academic activities, definately your manhood...  Hell kid, you're "rusty" with your whole life..."  he bickered.  Rusty gave him a gloomy look, their eyes still glued together, although a bit of a distance apart.  "You're no man!  You're too weak to be a man!  Just look at you, a piece of garbage lying on floor!  You're too weak to even be considered a woman!  A coward...  A coward with no friends and a worthless, poor, broken family."  Rusty hung his head low, now glaring at the carpeted floor, a giant gleam of bitterness clutching his eyes in it's forceful grip.

'Shut up.'  thought Rusty.  He didn't speak it aloud.  It was not his nature, he was a passive type of person.  Mr. Whinston gently bumped Rusty's knee with the tip of his shoe, causing him to flinch.

"Little punk...  Get to class!  NOW!!" he shouted.  Before he stomped away, Mr. Whinston grabbed Rusty's hand and yanked him to his feet.  "Don't bother getting the stuff all over the floor, I'll get the janitors to do it, just get to class."  Rusty was barely balanced and somehow managed to stammer his way into class which was a few minutes away from being at an end for that specific period.

"Rusty, why are you so late?  Where have you been?"  asked the math teacher in her soft femanine tone.

"I was in the hall."  he spoke swiftly but softly as he strode past her, not even mildly acknowledging her.  He got to his seat and plopped down lazily, curling up, exposing his gruesome knees to everyone.  The tears in his jeans seemed to expand even more than when he would normally wear them.

"....Oh..."  the teacher gasped under her breath.  He eyes got unnoticabley wider, as if she were shocked, which she shouldn't be.  Things like this were nothing new.  It has been happening for quite awhile, almost an uncountable amount of time. 

Rusty darted his eyes around the room, taking note of the students whispers and soft, sheepish laughter.  He was careful not to move his head an inch from its current position.  His hair hung over his face, allowing him to peer out through the small gaps yet keeping him safe from the others vision.  He still felt a tiny break was keeping him from a full sense of security.  Almost as if everyone could see straight through him.  As he pondered his state of mind for the time being, a silent tear crept along its trail sliding down his face. 

About a minute or two later, the bell rang shrilly, piercings the ears of all the school's inhabitants like a dagger.  It indicated that they needed to head to the final class of the day.  Stressfully enough for Rusty, it was Literature.  He despised readong aloud in the presence of people.  And it didn't help that nobody liked him, including Mrs. Beaman.  Of all the teachers that mistreated Rusty, she was the worst. 

All of the High School students stood up and gleefully made their way to their next class.  Rusty was always the last to venture out of any classroom.  The teacher didn't give the slightest indication of concern.  Simply because she most likely had none.  If she did, it was expertly hidden away.

The second he set foot into the hall, a blizzard of embarressment came tumbling into him as the school was openly mocking and taunting him with their selfish, degrading, exiling laughter, words, pointing, and thoughts as they stood in front of the mess made by the previous battle.  The janitors were grumbling with agitation.  They hated their jobs and wished to do the least amount of work as possible, but with Rusty Morrow around, there was bound to be major cleaning due afterwards.

He didn't try to hide himself, he knew there was no easy way out and that it was pointless to try and escape the inevitable.  He passed everyone by, turning and ducking through the tight crowd, blocking out their jokes and comments to the best of his ability.  He realized he was the ultimate outsider.  A misfit banned from the other misfits.  He was below everyone else.  He was his own minority, his own lonesome posse.  Everyone labeled him as "The Grunge Kid."  The one name Rusty didn't mind.  That's what he stereotyped himself anyway.  But the name he unintentionally inherited was "The Garbage Dump."  People accused him of being less worthy of respect than a piece of rotted trash.  The other students enjoyed The Seattle Sound, Grunge, deeply disliked Rusty.  And for no apparent reason. 

The late-bell tolled it's final warning and for once, Rusty was on time.  In fact, he was a minute early.  Mrs. Beaman was astounded and bewildered.  As soon as he walked in, he knew it was a mistake.  He convinced himself that Mrs. Beaman was positively going to bring attention to him today.  More than the needed or desired amount as if to punish him for being good for once. 

He glanced around the room, his daily nervous habit.  Everyone kept taking little eye contact with him on their own free-will, assuming Rusty would not even know it.

"Students, open up your books to Chapter 3.  When I call on you to read, please come up here in front of the class and read a page aloud."  spoke the horrid teacher.  Rusty's heart seemed to leap out of his chest, into his mouth, and lodged itself into his throat, unwilling to cooperate in the normallcy in which it should have.  His gut wrenched in a fit of anxiety.

"...Maria.  Come up here and read please."  Rusty let out a sigh of relief, although it was far from being over.  Maria read ebulliently and skillfully and was soon back in her seat, waiting patiently for someone else to resume the story.

'No, no, no.  Not me!  PLEASE don't be me!'  Rusty supplicated in his mind.  His unlucky fate shifted and somehow  Mrs. Beaman mustered the momentary decency to call upon a different student other than he to read.  They accomplished the task speedily, only making a few mistakes here and there, but seemed oblivious of doing so.

"....Rusty.  Would you so kindly come up here and read?"  Mrs. Beaman quizzed with a wicked glint in her eyes.  Rusty sighed in an irritated tone, saying multiple profanities within the confinement of his head.  He rose up from the hard, uncomfortable school chair, his hair masking his face.  He took his time walking up in front of the white-board, the Literature book weighing like a million tons in one hand, his other hand hiding away in his zippered, baggy, navy-green sweater.

Out of nowhere, another student's foot snuck out like a serpent in front of his own black and white, faded and worn out pair of Converse shoes.  He stumbled wildly, as if in slow-motion.  He slammed his palms on two desks standing before him, making a moderately loud thump with the impact.  He flailed about like an untamed animal while his obnoxious classmates chuckled and giggled at him.  But, Rusty managed to regain his balance without falling completely onto the ground, which to him, was a mesmerizing thing.

"Just get up here!" complained the teacher with a rolling of her eyes.  Rusty grumbled and stomped his way to the front, glaring hatefully behind his hair.  He opened his book to the correct page and mumbled the first sentence carelessly.

"Come on Grunge Kid, READ!  Unless you're as stupid as we all think..." protested a student at the top of his lungs.  The rest of the class urged it on with their maniacal laughter.

"Yeah, come on, you filthy garbage dump!"  yelled another person.  Rusty shook his head, getting portions of his hair out of his face, showing the shock in his boyish facial features.  His eyes began to water and the corners of his mouth twitched.  He was briefly stunned but in one second found himself drop-kicking his Literature book across the room, missing the heads and shoulders of multiple students by a few inches.  The book clashed heavily against the stone wall of the room. 

"Go to Hell!" he barked in raging fury.  He rushed hysterically out of the class, down the hallway, and exited the very building, and fell on top of the silky green blades of grass.  He shielded his face with his arms, clenched his fists tightly, and he softly wept.

The second time today.  He knew that there were plenty more tears just waiting eagerly to stroll down his cheeks as if they were on a red carpet in Hollywood.  But, he would save it for his own personal solitude.

The fresh set  of tears did not burn his cuts as bad this time, but still stung a little.  Mostly, they were just being trapped on the sleeves of his sweater that still protected his head.

"Rusty!  You have one minute to get back in this building and into your class.  If you choose not to cooperate, we'll be forced to suspend you.  There's just no other way for you to learn."  spoke Mr. Whinston who stood near the double-doors, deliberately allowing the other young adults to gawk at the event.  He ignored all of them.  "Rusty, get in here.  Your minute is almost up.  It's now or never."  the principal informed.

"Leave me alone!"  Rusty retaliated.  He stood on his feet and ran.  He did not know where he was headed but he couldn't care less.  He just knew that he needed to get away, needed to escape.


**Note**  Once again, I apologize for this chapter being so long.  Which is why I'm posting it in parts...  This is the longest part, I promise.  But thank you SO much for your time.  Please rate and review.  Then maybe I'll have the motivation I need to continue this..