New Life
Adjusting to his new living arrangement was, to say the least, cruel.
Miles was learning things the hard way each and every time. Everytime Gwen would try to help him he felt like a child being taught about the world for the first time. Check you food before you eat it. Don’t walk around without protection. Keep your head down but stay alert. Be cautious of who you trust. Stick to the safe route provided by yours truly, Gwen. Stay out of very public areas to avoid being found. All of these rules were stuffed into his brain like a overfilled teddy bear, spilling out and being forgotten by him every five seconds. Gwen was stressed out with his difficulty to catch on and she wasn’t hiding it. She’d make him rehearse it like it was the pledge of allegiance and every time he’d forgot any rules she’d grill him on it before making him start over.
“Miles I swear to go if I you forgot another rule I’m gonna smack you,” Gwen growled.
It was late and they had been going over the rules for two hours. Miles had either forgotten a rule each time he went over it or would say some random rule that his brain pulled out of thin air. The younger teen lowered himself in his seat, watching as Gwen fume. He could’ve sworn the older blonde had smoke blowing out her ears. At any minute she’d grow fangs and bite his head off Miles thought. “I’m sorry.” Gwen sighed. “All these rules make my head hurt.” He was never the learn best by being put under tremendous amount of pressure type of kid. That wasn’t the way his brain worked. He was always more of a kinesthetic learner at heart. Or brain in this case.
“It’s okay. Just go over them again.” So Miles did. He recited everything his brain recollected until the sun fell asleep. The two ate scraps Gwen brought back last night from a small Puerto Rican restaurant two blocks down. Luckily his classmate had a connection inside who brought her leftovers that nobody wanted.
On today's menu, half eaten dodgy Pasteles with a side of a sad side of salad. Yum.
Miles scarfed the food down like a vacuum cleaner, cleaning out his take out box. Gwen gave him a disapproving head shake before taking another bite of her own food. “I call taking out trash!” Miles exclaimed eagerly, picking up the trash.
Gwen glared at him suspiciously. “What are you doing?” She asked.
“I’m being nice!”
“What are you up to?” Miles began to feel uneasy under the intense glare. Damn she was observant. Letting out a sigh of defeat, nothing was getting past Gwen so might as well come clean. “I’m gonna meet a friend-”
“Miles-”
“Before you start lecturing me on the rules, this friend is cool! He’s not gonna rat me out! He’s really nice!” Miles stated, trying to wipe the crossed look on his friends face. “Just because somebody's nice to you Miles doesn’t mean they wont rat you out to save their own skin,” Gwen stated bitterly. “Just trust me on this okay! I promise you nothing bad will happen!” Miles swore, crossing his heart. A few seconds of conflicting emotional silence late Gwen said, “ Fine. If you’re not back by the morning then don’t come crying to me that you get caught.” There was no real anger or truth behind her words. Just anger and concern.
Miles fistpumped in victory before picking up the last bit of trash and standing. “I promise you won't regret this!” He exclaimed as he started walking towards their secret exit.
“I already do,” Gwen muttered under her breath as she watched the younger boy leave.
-
Finally being allowed outside without Gwen’s supervision was freeing. He walked through the streets with his hoodie up and head down, secretly smiling to himself as he took a familiar route. He was walking for about thirty minutes when he saw a familiar neon sign in the distance.
“Hey Katrina!” He greeted loudly as he walked inside the Lounge. The waitress looked up from the spot she was cleaning up to the small teen who just waltzed in.
“Hey Miles, he’s in the back waiting for you,” The waitress informed him. Miles smiled before making his way to the back, passing through the velvet curtains and walking straight to the last table, taking a seat.
“Hey if it isn’t Superboy!” Miles rolled his eyes at the nickname he was given. “Haha very funny,” He sarcastically replied. Aaron shrugged with a cocky grin on his face. “How you’ve been little man? Didn’t see you for what? A week? I thought you might of join the olympics or something with your level of skill!”
“Could’ve been better,” Miles sighed as he reminisced on the past week. It left him with a dirty taste in his mouth. “What’s up? You look like somebody ran over your puppy.” Miles didn’t want to tell his friend about all the stuff that went down. He didn’t want Aaron to judge him or hate him. “I just been having a rough time that’s all,” Miles stated vaguely.
“Is that why you look like you got dragged through a trash dump?” Miles snorted. “Is this your way of telling me you don’t like how I look?” Aaron pretended to this about it before nodding.
“C’mon tell your Uncle Aaron what’s wrong.” Miles nose scrunched up at the ‘uncle’ joke. He had a weird sense of dejvu. Like Uncle Aaron seemed right after all Aaron was like the cool uncle he never had.
“I messed up real bad,” Miles sighed.
“What happened?” Aaron’s tone serious.
“I did something really bad and I’m not sure what I can do to make it okay,” Miles confessed, his eyes falling onto his feet under the table. “Yah know Miles,” Aaron sat up and leaned forward, “as life goes on you’ll learn that sometimes you can’t make things right. No matter what you do and no matter how hard you try. Whatever you did will stay with and that shapes up into the person you’re gonna be.”
“I think I’m gonna be a bad person then,” Miles muttered under his breath, picking at his nails trying to distract himself from his rising emotions. “Nah man. The fact you realize you did something wrong and feel bad shows me that you’re gonna be a great man some day. Just give it time.” He let Aaron’s words of wisdom sink in. A great man somebody. Was this just one of those adult lies to make you feel better or did his friend really believe it that he was gonna be a good person? How could somebody who hurts people when they get overwhelmed be a good person? It felt like such a foreign concept he never thought about.
“Miles,” Aaron took a deep breath, “I already know you ran away from home-”
“What?!” Miles sat up in disbelief. “How did you-”
“You’re all over the news man. People are looking for you. Your dad--,” he stated the last part bitterly, “is looking for you. He seems really worried about you.” Miles didn’t know what to say. He spent the week cooped up in an old church eating dodgy food not really up to date with the whole outside world other than Gwen’s word. His dad had reported him missing which means he still cares about him enough to want him to come back. The thought of it felt like he had thousands of knives stabbing into his heart all at once. “You’re lucky you ain’t got a lot of attention on you yet other than a few ‘have you seen me’ posts but the longer you keep running the worse it’s gonna get.”
Miles wasn’t sure what to say. What could he say? “I’m not gonna rat you out, obviously you need some time to cool off or whatever. I just want you to know you can come to me alright? Anything you need. Money, clothes, food, or even a couch to crash on man you name it.” Miles slowly released the tightened the grip he had on the poor seats as he begun to calm down. “But I want you to promise me you’ll think about going back. It ain’t safe out here in the streets.”
“I can take care of myself,” Miles snapped.
“I know you can, I’ve seen the crazy things you can do. Don’t know what crazy workout routines you’ve been doing but for a small guy like you to be able to break a punching bag with one hit is impressive.” Miles cringed at mention of the punching bag incident. It was an accident he’d hope would be forgotten.
“But I’m talking about up here,” Aaron pointed to his head.
“My hairline?”
“Nah your mind. The street changes you in ways I don’t want you to experience.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got a friend helping me out.”
“A friend?” Aaron’s face scrunched up in confusion before he stopped to think for a minute. “What friend?” He asked. “The new girl I told you about! Her name is Gwen, she lives in the streets as well! She’s helping me out.” The name must’ve been familiar by the look that passed on the older adult’s face. His eyes flashing with recognition before being buried away.
“Gwen huh? She nice to you?”
“Yeah! She’s really cool! Me and her are crashing at this old church place down by third,” Miles told him. “That’s cool man, but be cautious okay? Don’t trust everybody you meet-”
“I know. That’s what she told me.” Aaron nodded, looking off into the distance, deep in thought. A minute past of pure heavy silence until Miles caught a glimpse at the time on the clock.
“Hey um...I should get going. I can’t stay out too long,” Miles told the adult. Aaron snapped out of his thoughts, nodding before pulling out his wallet. He pulled out a wad of cash and placed it in front of Miles.
“Aaron I can-”
“Spend it wisely alright,” Aaron said ignoring him, “don’t use it all right away no matter how tempting it is or else you’ll regret it.”
“Thank you,” Miles said, seeing that he won't win if he argues.
“Alright kid, I’ll see you…”
“I don’t know,” Miles told him glumly. Aaron simply nodded. “Well I’ll be waiting kiddo.” Miles cringed at the nickname. It was the same one his dad would use when talking to him. His reaction was luckily overlooked by the adult.
“Goodbye Aaron.”
-
Miles got back late, he managed to make his way to the church without any run ins with anybody. When he made his way inside he saw Gwen was already asleep in her sleeping bag. He sat down on his bag, glancing down at the money in his hand. Two hundred dollars from Aaron to help him get by. ‘First thing I’m getting is a toothbrush’ He told himself. He shoved the money away deep into his pockets before climbing into his sleeping bag. Once he found somewhat of a comfortable position he took a deep breath before closing his eyes, letting the dark consume him.