Lars Crawford was a simple teen. He loved his siblings, loved baseball, loved life until a tragic accident ripped his older brother away along with his left arm.
Now he lives his life serving after school detention from fights he faught for his best...
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Fourth of July was in two weeks and mom was still determined to have the block party. I wanted to go against it but with everything that she’s been going through it didn’t seem fair to make her cancel the one thing she had fun planning after weeks of worrying about us.
I had spent weeks apologizing to Eloise making sure she was okay and had everything she needed even when her friends were there giggling about who knows what. The second week of checking on her before she went to bed Ellie asked me to come in so we could talk, she then proceeded to tell me that nothing was my fault. That she should have listened and not cared about being made fun of because her friends would never do that to her.
My heart almost exploded when she wrapped her arms around me, tears falling on my shirt as she begged me to forgive her for being stupid. I was frozen for a few seconds while my sister cried in my arms but quickly put my arms around her in comfort continuing to tell her it wasn’t her fault until she fell asleep.
After tucking her in I checked on mom finding her in the kitchen looking into nowhere particular.
“Mom?”
“Yes?” She jumped blinking rapidly. “Is everything okay?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.” I said stepping into the kitchen. Tugging at my lip rings I rubbed over my face leaning over the counter. “You look tired.”
“I was going to say the same thing to you.” She looked at me with concern. “I noticed you haven’t left the house much and Ethan or Neema hasn’t come by. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” I lied. Telling my mom that Neema and I were over and I was avoiding Ethan would only make her worry. She would want to know what happened and why I ended things with my two best friends but I couldn’t tell her. She wouldn’t understand. No one would.
“Why don’t you invite them over for dinner this weekend? We can grill and you guys can have the backyard the whole night. I’ll see if Ellie wants to spend the night at her friend’s house. It would be fun.”
“I um - Ethan is actually busy making stuff, you know how he gets and Neema . . . is just busy but I wanted to ask you about something.” I quickly tried to cover up my terrible lie. “Back at the hospital . . . What dad said . . .”
Leaving the sentence hanging I watch mom’s face drop as her eyes fell to the counter. Tears in her eyes she shook her head, “He shouldn’t have said that.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“So it’s true? I’m not . . . I’m not his?”
Her silence confirmed everything. That’s why dad - David tolerated me. I was the kid he never wanted. I was actually the kid her never wanted.
