Bronies, Unite!

For a while, he was getting beat by his step-dad, who we couldn’t do anything about. He ended in hospital once because of it. He couldn’t take it anymore, especially what happened that night. He hasn’t told any of us yet, but it threw him over the edge, and he ended up in hospital for it.

Matthew has always been interested in engineering, he loves to know how things work, get behind them in a sense, take them apart, and put them back together again. Just knowing how something ticks sets his mind ease; it’s like an endless passion, thriving on that feeling of just learning something.

The only weird thing about him though, that doesn’t seem to fit at all, is that he wants to open a bakery. He is very gifted and talented in engineering, yet he wants to open up a bakery for some reason. I for one have tasted his cooking and it’s amazing, but it just doesn’t seem to fit with him. Even if he is very, very clumsy in the kitchen, he still does make a fine roast dinner, even if he won’t take the compliment.

Most of the time, I will race Matthew on the running tracks, down near the park, which is kind of close to school. He has a fairly good endurance, and is agile, but he can’t match my stamina yet, which is why he runs with me. He wants to enter competitions with me at some point and then we can see who really is the better runner, it’s an on-going kind of competition that we have. It’s all in good fun, but sometimes I think we take it way too seriously. For instance, we were running along, coming right up to the finish. We were almost neck and neck, I was slightly in front and just about to prepare for a sprint past the finishing line and he grabbed my shirt, pulling me back. He then bolted past me and won. I forgave him for it, but it will always stick with me that he had to cheat to win; I won’t hold it against him, because I’m not like that, but I will always remember.

Lucy has been my friend ever since I was in junior school. I really don’t know what I would’ve done if I didn’t grow up with her. She’s the one and only person, and a female at that that I can share my secrets with. Someone I can confide in and not feel judged. She’s like an angel. She has the voice of one, too. No matter what genre she will be singing, she is very talented. I only know this because I accidentally heard her singing in the shower. I didn’t know she was in there. I just opened the door to hear her, beaming with joy. Being caught up in the moment of her beautiful voice, I stood there for a few minutes, not for the obvious reasons, but because her voice was just so… well, beautiful. After about a minute of two of me listening, she noticed me there- I can only assume that she felt the breeze come in from the open door. She turned her head and glared at me, signifying I better run. I shot out of the bathroom like a speeding bullet, landing on my bed. We always had sleepovers, where we would lay in bed, watching movies on my TV. She would always fall asleep half way through them, with her arm over my shoulder. When I turned the TV off, I would just lay there in the darkness, knowing I was safe. It’s just a shame she drools in her sleep, or else it would have been bliss.

She has an excellent taste in music, too. She loves all music genres, but is more about some other ones. She mainly likes alternative, techno, ambient, blues, country, jazz, pop, death metal, screamo, and rock. The list is literally almost endless. I think that it’s good to have a wide range of tastes. That way, you can talk to a lot of people about your interests, and they can relate back. Reminds me of how we usually come home. Since she is mostly at my house, we put the stereo on and just lay there, on my bed, relaxing.

Of course, we all have our downfalls, though. Lucy can go into depression really, really easily. The slightest thing can tick her off, and she storms away crying. She almost always comes around, knocking on my door, asking for someone to talk to. I drop everything for her because she’s a good friend, and I wouldn’t ever want to lose her.

Blake, he’s the first one on my right, had a rough childhood, too. It turns out his own mother died when he was only seven years old, and then some guy had to go and say something about her. None of us knew better, but that day, something snapped inside of him. Usually, he would just brisk it off and carry on with life, but when the guy said something, it’s like someone else had taken over. Some sort of demon, the complete opposite of our friend. Here’s how it went.

*****

3 Years prior.

“Hey faggot! I’m talking to you!” The bully bellows. Blake, like always, just brisks it off again, ignoring him like he usually has to. “What? You too chicken to fight back, kid?!” He turns, and laughs at his associates. Feeling cocky, he walks up to Blake, placing a hand on his shoulder, spinning him around “What, didn’t your momma ever teach you about respect?!”

At that moment, Blake’s eyes widened, like he was viewing his mother’s killer in the very eye. Out of nowhere, his arm snapped up, grabbing the guy by the neck. The man was is so much shock, he just stood there, slowly letting go of Blake’s neck. Blake was never known for his strength. More along the lines of his intellect, which never ceased to amuse us, as it was never actually needed, but the strength that he showed stunned us all. As he grabbed the guy by his neck, he seemed to squeeze him tighter and then he started to lift if off of the ground, charging him into the wall. Upon collision with the wall, he brought the guy down onto his knees, and their faces now deep in each other’s thoughts. Blake nears his face and whispered something into his ear. Something we don’t even know to this very day, but whatever it was, it sure scared the guy away because he left school, never to return.

*****

Since then, we always started to look at Blake differently. Not as an outcast, but more along the lines of, well, a hero. He is the one and only person that has stood up to a bully in school, as we all look up to him for that, which we can tell is something he likes.

Something that throws him off though, is his abnormal fear for spiders. The sheer sight of them sends him, arms flailing, across the room. He describes them at ‘Beings from hell, whom only seek out pain and death’; we all just laugh at him when he says that, because they’re only spiders.

Blake and I have something in common, though. We were both reading in class one day, and we happened to be reading about the same thing. It started from that, and I brought him into the group, everyone likes him too. We sometimes collaborate on writing a story. It never gets finished because we always get side-tracked, but it has some good ideas going.

I always count on Blake, as he is very determined, he will always try his hardest when it comes to work Even if he doesn’t like the job in the slightest, it’s an amazing quality, I must say. We were all playing on the decking once at Jero’s house and he accidentally broke it. Usually someone would either chicken out or run away, trying not to face the consequences, except with Blake. He stayed calm and went into Jero’s cellar, brought up some of the spare wood that Jero had, and brought up the toolbox, too. He set to work immediately, fixing the decking. It wasn’t completely bad work, heck I would say it was almost perfect, but he did confront Jero’s mum and told her everything, but she thought it was very noble of him and asked to see his work. He showed her it and at first, she didn’t actually notice anything, until she got really close to it. She was so impressed she actually gave him some money, which be bought us all ice creams with; Blake’s a cool guy at heart.

Jeronimo is pretty much the only one who really had a good family; he was brought up on the wealthy estate, but his parents are strict with him, as to make sure he doesn’t grow up like a snob who thinks they can get anything with a snap of their fingers. His family treats him from time to time, so he does get stuff he wants, but not all the time.

He likes to walk around at night. It’s cool and all, but when it’s freezing outside, he still likes to go out, and sometimes just lay under a tree. It’s really weird, but we still accept him for it. After all, we’re all weird in our own way.

He has taken a class which is going to help him get a job with a vet’s hospital when he grows up. He really loves animals, all alike. He sometimes brings sick or injured animals he finds on the streets back home so that he can nurse them back to health. He has such a caring quality about him, but he is a very defensive person when it comes to protecting his friends.

Jero was always picked on for hobbies of his, he enjoyed gardening, and the school even had a club for it after a couple months of begging. Only a few people turn up to it, about three to four I would say. A lot more people enjoy it, but they won’t admit it and join the club, more than likely afraid of the bullies, as are we all.

The only thing that didn’t really fit with Jero was that he wanted to leave. No matter where he was, he would want to leave and go onto a new adventure sort of thing. Say if we were playing football, about thirty minutes in, he would want to go for a walk across town, he would want to go shopping, it’s like he just can’t stay in one place at any one time or something.

I’m slightly different to the others, but I fit in well with them. I am currently in pre-training for the Army and go to the gym a couple times a week. I also go to Jiujitsu a few times each week, too. The thing that I have always lived by though is that I should never fight unless I am in a dire emergency or if I was close to death, because I would only be as bad as the person who was beating me. Many of the bullies know that, and decide to take advantage beating me mercilessly, but I always stand my ground. I’ve had to cope with a lot for a while now, including my mum contracting cancer, which sent me through the roof. She raised me on her own with very little money and help, and turned me into the man I am today. If only I could look her in the eyes and tell her, every time I try I just cry too much, and she tells me that everything will be okay, even though I know it won’t. Other times, she is always asleep because of the medication that she’s on. I’ve grown up not being able to always have the fancy stuff, things like iPod’s, touch phones, and laptops alike, but I put up with it, because I have always had my friends.

Because of my anger, I took up Jiujitsu a few years back. It helped me learn self-control and how to fight when needed. Even if I don’t use it, it’s a good way to stay in shape and also let off a ton of steam, which I have to do regularly (mainly because of the bullies), but every night I come home, I think of my mum and the unbelievable pain she has to go through on a day to day basis and all I can do is cry. I can’t help her, and sometimes I even cry myself to sleep at night because she is crying out in pain, begging for it to stop, and I can’t do anything to help her at all.

I’ve always been a shy person. It really didn’t bother me until recently, when a lot more girls randomly started showing up in town, but luckily I’ve always had Lucy to talk to. I’ve known her for about six years or so, and she is the only female friend I actually have, besides my mum, but she’s the only girl I really talk to because I trust her. It’s actually really funny how we met.

6 years prior.

“Come on mum! Throw it as far as you can throw!”

“Alright Mark, just hang on a second.”

My mum stood up off of the bench and picked up the Frisbee, throwing it as far as she could throw; it looked like it went for miles! I then turned my attention to our dog, Scruffy, who was running after the Frisbee. I kept up with him and we both jumped in the air catching it simultaneously, we fell to the ground and started rolling around, trying to take it off of one another. Of course the dog would win; his teeth were latched on pretty tight. As we were rolling over we were growing closer to the pond, we both slipped in and got totally drenched from head to toe, or head to paw in my dogs terms. My mum came running over to see if we were okay. She saw that I was smiling brightly, and started smiling back too. She then lifted me out of the pond and placed me on the grass, followed by Scruffy.

Thankfully, today was the middle of the summer holidays and the sun was high in the sky, warming up the grass. The smell of dew in the air filling everyone’s noses, I laid there, my arms stretched wide and my eyes closed, taking in the sun. Then as I opened my eyes a couple minutes later, I saw a brown haired girl standing above me. She looked to be around the same age and she was blocking the sun, so I opened my eyes fully. She held out a hand, offering me a way up. I happily took it, and hoisted myself up. I didn’t really know what to stay, except perform bubbles from my mouth, which caused her to giggle at me.

“Hi, my name is Lucy, what’s yours?”

“U-Uh-mm…” I sputter out a couple bubbles around my mouth.

“Are you shy?” She asked me, in a really prolonged tone.

“No!” I tried to act tough, which really didn’t work. “I’m not shy! I’m just… uh…”

“Haha, you’re shy!”

I still don’t understand what I did next, but it was really funny; I pushed her into the pond, getting her shorts and pink vest all soaked. Her face was one of shock at first, but soon turned into one of giggles and laughter, which caused her to fall back and laugh some more, almost dunking her head in the process, My mother, who has been watching the entire time, started to burst out in laughter. I closely joined her, then jumped back into the pond followed my dog, Scruffy, who jumped onto my head, lost his balance and dunked head first into the pond; I too, fell over backwards in laughter.

Sooner or later, I knew it would have to end, but we didn’t leave without getting an ice cream each, and our parents talking. I can only assume that they exchanged phone numbers, because every time we went to the park for the rest of summer holidays, Lucy was there. Eventually, I actually started to talk with her more, and it turned out she goes to my school, and I just haven’t noticed her at all.

After a while, summer had finished, but I started to look forward to school, just to start seeing her again. The first girl that I could actually talk to, the only girl I could talk to.

*****

I miss those times, being a care free child, not having to worry about anything, just having fun. Much unlike now, where I have to look around every single corner before I do anything, having to hide from the bullies all because I like a program and they don’t.

I am an athletic person; I compete in school competitions, mostly winning them. My teachers sometimes tell me that I should enter a better competition, but I always say no, because I don’t like the idea of them. They get confused and eventually give up, the only big competition I have done is Jiujitsu, and I don’t want to do any more.