Power Plays: MM Stories of Sin City by Tricia Owens

Author:Tricia Owens [Owens, Tricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tricia Owens
Published: 2018-05-13T16:00:00+00:00

Adolescent Minefield

“I hate him. I hate his guts and I wish he would die.”

Tim punched one hand into the palm of the other, his eyes blazing. Ethan, seated across from him at Shake Shack, sighed.

“I understand that you’re angry, Tim. But wishing death on him is childish. You’re fifteen. You’re pretty close to being an adult.”

“I bet you still wish the people you hated would die,” Tim retorted as he stabbed French fries into his puddle of ketchup. “Like politicians, maybe.”

Ethan hid a smile. “If you’re going off what people write on the internet, I’d warn you that anonymity grants people the license to act braver—and stupider—than they are in real life. No one really wants anyone to die unless they’re a sociopath. Are you a sociopath?”

“I dunno. I could be. Against Greg.”

Greg was the bully Tim was having trouble with at school. Greg was the topic of nearly every conversation that Tim and Ethan had had since they’d been paired together for this high school mentorship program. Ethan didn’t want children of his own, but he liked being able to provide support to a kid if one was in need. Tim didn’t have a troubled home life or come from a disadvantaged situation, but he was stressed all the same.

“If you murdered Greg then you’d go to jail for life and Greg would ultimately win because you’d be the one suffering,” Ethan pointed out, simplifying the deeper consequences. “Don’t let Greg win.”

“He called me a pussy again.” Tim winced and threw Ethan an apologetic look. “Sorry.”

“What happened when he called you that?”

Tim slumped. “I told him he was a gaping anus and I might have said some other stuff.”

Ethan sat back and regarded him. “You realize what you did didn’t help, right?”

“Yeah. I let him get to me and I reacted. I gave the bully the fuel to keep bullying me.”

“It’s easy for me to say ignore him, Tim. I get that. I’m not the one who has to deal with him every day. But when I was your age and kids were giving me a hard time, my dad gave me this same advice.”

Tim frowned. “And you did like he said and everything was fine?”

“Actually, no. The two guys that were bothering me stuffed my locker full of horse manure.” Ethan laughed at the memory.

Tim’s eyes bulged. “No shit! Er, I mean, wow. So then what? What’d you do to retaliate?”

“I didn’t.” Ethan shrugged when Tim slumped again, disappointed. “It’d be a cool story to say I devised some clever scheme to get back at them, but the truth is I cleaned out my locker and pretended it never happened. I didn’t show them that I was upset or that it was disgusting. I acted like it was no big deal and it had no effect on me. I was boring, Tim. Bullies only have fun when their victims react. It’s like they’re putting on a play and hoping to get cheers and claps. But if no one does and the audience is silent, the bullies get bored and move on to something else.

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