Find Her, Keep Her

Kyle awoke to the sound of knocking on his door.

“Get up, boy!” Ed said loudly from behind the door. “I want you at the table in five minutes.”

Kyle groaned silently. He looked over at his alarm clock to see that the time was 8:30 AM. Typically, he would stay up until about 2:00 AM, and sleep until 10:00 AM, being the night-owl that he was. This was mainly because nighttime was the only time when he was free to have some peace of mind without anything to bother or pester him... but early-bird Edward Richardson had other things to say about it.

But it's my day off from work... and I have school later today! Kyle thought.

He regretted being up late to submit his online homework at midnight, just barely meeting the deadline due to procrastination.

Regardless, Kyle strained himself to stand from the bed, and put his clothes on. He trudged downstairs to find Ed and Danny already at the table. It seemed that Danny had the day off from school today, because otherwise, he would have been gone by now.

“Can I have some more turkey bacon?” Danny asked.

“It's up at the counter.” Ed said, just before turning to Kyle and shoving an empty mug towards him. “And you, bring me some more coffee!”

“Okay...” Kyle said, calmly.

He trudged over to the coffee maker and began to make Ed's coffee, when Danny nudged him hard.

“Hand me some bacon.” Danny said.

Kyle glared. “Get it yourself!” he said, firmly.

Ed set his newspaper down in less than a heartbeat, and had an angry look on his face after hearing what Kyle said.

Oh, shit... I've just lit his short fuse. Kyle thought, swallowing.

“Listen here, boy!” Ed shouted. “When someone asks you for something, you shut the hell up and do it! You don't be a whiny little bitch about it!”

“Okay, okay! I can hear you just fine when you speak normally!” Kyle responded.

But this only made Ed angrier. “DON'T TALK BACK TO ME, YOUNG MAN!” he said.

Once again, Kyle was forced to swallow his pride, and just accept what came to him, even if he did not deserve it. He did not like it, but also did not want the situation to get needlessly worse.

Kyle gave Ed his coffee, and fixed himself a breakfast of over-easy eggs and turkey bacon. He wished they could have regular bacon, because turkey bacon tasted awful to him, but Ed bought it simply because it was healthier, and Danny needed to stay in shape for his wrestling. Overall, most of the food in the house was fairly unappetizing, and Kyle never knew what to eat. He would head out and eat something at a local food joint if he could, but he was struggling to save enough money as it was.

In any case, he spent the next hour walking around outside. It was a nice, sunny day, the sky with minimal clouds. Being adventurous as he was, he liked to explore several different areas of the neighborhood. He has been doing it for the past couple of years, though, and he never liked to head out too far, so it's become basically the same thing over and over. Even so, he figured he would try to make the best of it.

After getting enough of a walk in, Kyle got ready to head for school. He would only be there for about three hours, having only two physical classes, while his remaining three were online. Just before heading out the door, he pulled something out of his nightstand drawer... something that was one of his most prized possessions.

It was a silver, analog wristwatch with a rectangular bezel. At first glance, it might just seem like any other watch that could be bought in any Walmart... but this one was special to Kyle, because it was given to him by his mother. It had been one of her final gifts to him before she disappeared. He stared at the watch for a few moments, before slipping it onto his left-hand wrist and locking the clasp into place.

At some points, the watch would end up becoming too tight for him as he was growing, but adjusting the pins in the clasp helped to fix this problem, as they were on the smallest setting position when the watch bought seven years ago.

Returning to reality, Kyle grabbed his backpack full of school materials and the keys to Ed's old car, and soon enough, was off to school.
Upon his arrival, he had the same semi-dreadful feeling that he got whenever he came to school. He was still fairly bored with school, and anxious due to the amount of homework he was given each week.

He put his mobile phone on vibrate, entered the room, and set his backpack against the leg of the table he was sitting at. At that moment, someone took a seat next to him.

“Hey, Kyle! How's it going?” The guy said.

“Hey, Jeremy.” Kyle responded.

Jeremy leaned a bit closer. “So, whatcha been up to lately?” he asked.

Kyle shrugged. “Same old, I guess.” he said, disappointed.

“Yeah?” Jeremy said. “Guess what happened this weekend?”

Kyle said nothing.

“I got to go to a friend's party at Dave & Buster's! It was AWESOME! They rented the whole place out! We had the arcade to ourselves!” Jeremy said.

“Sounds pretty great...” Kyle said, envious due to the fact that the weekends were when he had to work the most.

As strange as it sounded, Monday was when Kyle's “weekend” began, lasting through Wednesday. He had school on Monday and Wednesday, but it was MUCH better to sit bored in a classroom than it was to work a bullshit retail job with rude customers and uptight managers. He requested to have Tuesdays off, claiming that he had school on those days, when in reality, he just needed to get away.

“What did you do this weekend?” Jeremy asked.

“Worked... as usual.” Kyle responded.

“Aw, that sucks!” Jeremy said. “Don't you ever get weekends off?”

Kyle shook his head. “...When you work retail, weekends are when they work you the most.”

It goes without saying, but it seemed like Kyle worked so much that he hardly had any time to himself. And in the small instances that he did have some free reign, he did not have the energy to bring himself to do anything fun. Plus, with his working for minimum wage and most of it going toward his tuition, he could not necessarily afford to go to Dave & Buster's, despite how fun he remembered it being when he last visited years ago.

“Okay, class has begun!” The instructor said from the front of the room. “Everyone in your seats!”

After sitting through two hour-and-a-quarter classes, with a break in between the two, Kyle decided to head back home, where he collapsed on his bed, fired up his laptop, and logged onto the internet. He figured he would just surf to try and find anything interesting... but then, something else decides to step in...

Ed barged right into the bedroom without bothering to knock.

“Kyle, come on upstairs.” Ed commanded. “I've got some work for you.”

Of course, I should've known... Kyle thought. ...time to myself is taboo, right?

Ed then forced Kyle to defrost some porkchops, roast them on the smoker outside, season them, cut up some vegetables and toss them for a salad, and prepare plates for all three of the house's inhabitants.

Kyle could not help but feel out of place; though he was good at cooking, he didn't like to do it for two lazy pricks who did not even bother with so much as a “Thank you!”. Plus, after dinner, guess who had to clean all the dishes and scrape the smoker? You guessed it: Kyle. Ed was, of course, watching the NFL, and Danny was playing video games in his room.

Having put up with more than enough for one day, Kyle decided to escape from the house before Ed could call him up from his bedroom for anything else. He figured that he would head off to the woods, to his little sanctuary. The one place where, to the best possible extent, he could not be bothered by anything else...