The Story Behind Pink

Her precious son had journaled how excited he was to have helped this lady in distress. He was thrilled to have offered his help and was glad his mother had not messed with the opportunity…

Blah.. Blah.. Blah…

What disturbed her was the entry about another woman who had gotten stuck and how much the boy seemed aroused by it. The choice of words was what she had expected would have been directed to a woman who drew a man’s passion. It sounded like the words his brothers used to describe their girlfriends and all the sexual tension they had for their girlfriends.

Andrew was harboring deeply sexual thoughts for a woman that was not his, but was in complete distress. When a woman was at her most vulnerable, her weakest, her most helpless, her most exposed, this is…

This…

No… not possible.

Mrs Edward lost what little cool she had left. She was going to beat this out of him even if it killed him.

She levied on him all the hate she had ever held in her heart. She beat him with her fist. When that proved to painful, she grabbed the baseball bat that was in the room and unleashed on him.

The boy did not cry. He did not fight back. He did not shed a tear. He only moved enough to prevent his head from getting crushed.

When she grew tired, she took him by his ear and dragged him to the basement. She found the cuffs her husband used on her many times and secured him to the radiator. She needed to go catch her breath. She needed to calm down before she killed him. And she needed to make sure the other kids did not wake up. This would be too traumatic for them to see.

She had to purge this boy of his demonic lean.

No one ever preys on people who are at their most vulnerable. That is despicable. That is inhuman. That is wrong. How did she fail this boy so badly?

This was going to end this very night.

After regaining her strength, Mrs Edward returned to find her son standing defiantly. This unnerved her. She unleashed another salvo of blows.

This pattern repeated itself several times that night.

When she could not find any more energy to punish him with, she asked if he understood his lesson. He just stood there. Defiantly straight. He didn’t move.

Well, if that was the case, this required extreme measures.

She watched closely to see if there was any remorse as she announced that she was getting rid of the pink car. The boy barely registered any surprise. It was there, but barely there. Then, his eyes, which were nearly swollen shut, flickered as if a light had gone out of them.

His head dropped. His shoulders slumped. He mumbled something.

That mumbling boiled her blood. The boy was being flagrantly disrespectful by mumbling.

She smacked him upside the head and demanded her repeat himself clearly.

The slurred speech that responded nearly froze Mrs Edward into a heart attack.

“Do as you must. I get it. I will never be weak again”

There was nothing more to do or say. The voice had trembled and burbled out of a beaten body. Had she gone too far? Had she taught him a lesson or had she broken him?

Another Cup of Tea

Mr Edward knew the look all too well. His wife was having flashbacks to how she had raise her son. She was convinced she had failed Andrew.

Nothing he did could help her see the light. The boy as fine. He was a man. He was normal. He was surprisingly normal actually.

Mr Edward had long wanted to know what had happened the weekend he was way many many years ago. He had left on business and when he came back, the pink car was gone. No explanations. No story. No conversation.

Nothing.

The family had acted weird for a few days. The only thing he knew was that Andrew had went away to spend the week at his uncle’s house. No one ever spoke about that. Ever.

The siblings were curious, they had asked a few questions, but the way everyone was on edge whenever mom was around made it clear that whatever had happened, it was now a family secret he would never sort out.

Despite his best detective efforts, the house did not give him many insight into what had happened. There was this clear smell of bleach and vinegar when he had arrived. The house was spotless. The smell of bleach and vinegar was the strongest in Andrew’s bedroom and the basement.

Andrew’s journal was missing as well as his baseball bat. The boy never played baseball since either. His tools for his pink car vanished a few weeks later. No one knew why. No one had answers. His wife had no idea either. Unlike the weekend of his absence where she just didn’t speak on matters at all.

He had looked for clues in the garage and about the house. All he could find was two sets of deep ruts that were hastily covered over. Whoever had taken the car out was not in a very patient mood. They had put up a massive fight to get the car free. He knew that the only person in the house who knew where the keys were was Andrew and his wife. Neither of them talked about what happened.

The uncle knew nothing of the car either. The uncle was very nervous about what had happened to Andrew. His house was also carrying that smell of bleach and vinegar… albeit very slight by the time Mr Edward got around to investigating.

The part that perplexed Mr Edward the most was how his son had shifted his attitude. The teen had grown distant and calculating. He was less helpful of strangers. He was that much more driven in school. He stopped showing any interest in dating entirely. Unlike before, he became very focused on appearing in total control of his emotions at all times. The teen stopped showing any form of weakness. His level of compassion and empathy seemed to fade some and his patience and tolerance for incompetence nearly vanished.

He never acted out. He just withdrew. Once a person was “black listed” you did not exist to Andrew anymore. He got good at ghosting people who he felt he had to distance himself from. That started to worry Mr Edward.