Ojos blancos

I met Alex in middle school. He was always really shy. He usually sat by himself, at least a seat away from anyone else. After a few days of class I decided to sit by him. He looked discouraged, it seemed he had forgotten his book for that class. I proceeded to hand him mine. 'Here,' I said, 'I don't need it anyway.' Alex looked at the book for a moment, hesitated, and then reached out, like a cautious animal and took the book slowly. 'Thanks.' he said dully. 'I'm Daniel.' I said, extending my hand. 'Alex.' He replied. Looking at my hand like it was diseased or something. I sat down, feeling a bit defeated, but that didn't stop me. Something about this kid was different, but he seemed alright, there was something, something good in him. Now I know the cause of it, as will be explained later in the story. His energy was good, that'll explain it well enough for now. I kept talking to him as days went by. I always sat beside him. I would just talk small talk, random things usually found interesting by middle school boys. Things like girls I liked, video games I had played, or movies I had seen. He would mostly just listen at first, occasionally giving small, usually single syllable answers or comments, but as time went by he loosened up a bit and began talking. We found that we had a lot in common and quickly became great friends. This was a big deal for me. I had moved around a lot in elementary school. I was always the new kid, and never had many friends, in fact, being small and kind of geeky, I was often picked on. This didn't change in middle school, except, we had lived in that town long enough that the bullies actually knew my name instead of just calling me 'new kid.' Alex was a bigger kid, not big as in chubby, but big as in strong. I was telling him about this one day when he said to my surprise, 'I have the same problem.' I asked him what he meant. 'My brother, he bullies me a lot. He's a lot older than I am. He does things that I don't really like, and when I tell him so he beats me up.' he explained. He made a kind of confused face, then sighed. 'But he's always there for me. He's alright, I guess.' We walked outside for the end of the school day, when one of my usual bullies approached us. 'What's up Danny boy?' the bully jeered. He looked over to Alex and made a face of mocking surprise. 'Oh, and the silent kid! Knew you'd end up hangin' out with a dork like Danny.' The bully, named Kevin, laughed loudly. I looked to Alex, who was looking up above Kevin's head. I looked to see what he was looking at, and that was the first time I saw Alex's brother, Jacob. Jacob was a full head taller than Kevin. His eyes full of anger. Kevin saw us looking behind him and smiled. 'Let me guess, you're trying to trick me into thinking there's a teacher or something behind me, aren't you losers?' he said. We both shook our heads slowly, still looking up at Jacob. I was honestly scared. The look on Jacob's face was truly terrifying, and Kevin finally turned around to see him and scoffed. 'Who the hell are you?' Kevin said, looking at Jacob like a piece of rotten food. Jacob reached down and grabbed the front of Kevin's shirt with one hand and lifted him into the air. Kevin was then silent as he stared into Jacob's hateful eyes. 'Jacob!' Alex yelled, and Jacob blinked, dropping Kevin hard onto the ground. Kevin crab walked away quickly then got himself up and began to run away. Jacob looked at Alex, still angry. He tilted his head to me. 'Who's this?' he asked. His voice was low, and emotionless. 'He's my friend Jacob. Leave him be.' Alex explained. 'We need to go.' Jacob said, as he looked at me, turned, and began walking away. Alex looked to me before following him. 'Here, you should come over and hang out, I have some things I want to show you.' he said and handed me a slip of paper with his address on it. I nodded and he followed Jacob. I stood there for a moment. Before they had left, Jacob had looked at me, looked me straight in the eyes. I felt as if I couldn't look away, and I felt all of Jacob's hatred burning within me.