In Our Heads

Chapter 10

*****

Theodore drove into school later than usual, much later than he would have liked. His parents had broken into a drunken screaming match at one in the morning, resulting in William announcing that he was leaving – for what Theodore figured was the 4th time in 6 months.

'Leaving' to William meant disappearing for a couple of days before returning home to have another fight with Theodore's mother about who he had been with during that time.

Usually, Theodore just tried to quieten them down and keep Zion calm or help him fall asleep again. But that morning, William's announcement to leave came with an, 'I'm taking my son with me,' which resulted in him storming into their room to snatch a barely awake Zion out of his bed and attempt to drag the little boy out of the house while Zion screamed and cried that he was getting hurt and did not want to go anywhere.

After unsuccessfully trying to get William to just let go of Zion who he had dragged out of bed, Theodore struck the man in his face. The moment of shock caused William's grip on the child to slip just enough for Zion to break free and he immediately ran back to their room.

As usual, Theodore's mother began fighting him about hitting William while William attacked him. Because Theodore wanted to check on Zion and not waste any time on William, he just knocked him out as hard as he could which resulted in the screaming dying down from William but intensifying from his mother, so he just shoved her out of the way to head to the room.

He had spent the next few hours trying to calm Zion's fright and panic enough to get him back to sleep while his mother pounded the door angrily until she got tired and gave up.

After Zion finally fell asleep again, Theodore did the same but ended up sleeping through his alarm, which meant having to rush to get ready and drop his brother off before driving to school.

He frowned, looking around. The parking lot was already filled with quite a few cars and the school was buzzing as people met up with their friends to talk about what happened the past weekend. Theodore could not decide if he should just have come in after the homeroom bell rang when there were no people outside, or if he was happy he came at the current time because it meant not having to walk into a class full of people.

Catching bits of some of the conversations as he passed by groups of people, it sounded like some huge company had run into some scandalous trouble and one of the more popular kid's parents seemed to have been majorly involved in it.

He didn't know who they were talking about and didn't pay much attention as he headed towards an open parking spot, but as soon as he had parked, there was a tap on his window before he could even turn the car off. He looked up and sighed internally seeing one of the people that insisted on constantly bothering him.

He considered just ignoring the guy but figured that would only lead to more trouble when he tried to get out of his car to head to class. Instead, he rolled the window down slightly and looked at the guy without a word, waiting for him to explain why he had tapped the window a few seconds earlier. Except he did not say anything, just stared at Theodore appearing annoyed until Theodore gave up and decided to break the silence.

"Yes?" he asked.

"You can't park here." His eyes shifted to the front of the car and then to the sides. They were not in the teachers' parking lot. He was pretty sure there was no problem with him parking there.

"It would be best if you parked near the fence, see I'm pretty sure this piece of shit doesn't cost much, but you may have to sell it and drop out to pay to fix a scratch on one of the cars around here so I would not risk it if I were you. Also, you're just making us look bad. I mean what the hell even is this?" The guy kicked his foot out against the bottom of the car looking disgusted.