“Ready, Wes?” Martin asked me as we walked side by side down to the deck by the lake.

“I’m ready,” I said confidently.

Martin, Kyler, and even Mason had been helping me work on building muscle. For a few months, I’d been working out with them after my homework was done and they had been talking about how healthy swimmers were. Turned out that the three of them had a weekly competition during the summer to see which one of them could swim across the lake the quickest.

I’d been building up for the swim across the lake and today was the day.

Mason and Kyler walked ahead of us, and when we reached the deck, we all shed our shirts and shoes. I always tried to avoid looking them in the eye when a lot of my skin was exposed. It always led to questions that I wasn’t ready to answer. I figured that if I didn’t look at them, then they wouldn’t ask. Up to this point, it had worked…except for today.

“Wes, what happened to your back?” Mason asked while I put my shirt with my shoes.

I froze and suddenly couldn’t find my voice.

“Mase, damn, man,” Kyler scolded.

“What? It’s a valid question.” Mason maintained his stance and stared at me.

Martin flung his arm around my shoulder and told Mason to knock it off.

“Mate, we’re getting ready for a big swim. This is his first swim across the lake. Why would you rattle him?” Martin questioned.

I shrugged it off and acted like I was stretching and rolling my shoulders. I kept trying to focus on the land across the body of water.

“Uncle Bram started the swim race with us when we were all little,” Kyler recalled.

I had heard the stories of how their Uncle Bram taught each of them how to swim and raced each of the boys when they were old enough to make the swim across the lake.

“It’s a shame what happened,” Kyler muttered. “He got fucked up on the tablets.”

“Shut up, Ky. You don’t know shit,” Mason countered. “He got himself killed. He didn’t kill himself.”

“Whatever, Mason. Dad and Uncle Dean said he took his own life!” Martin barked.

“I don’t think Uncle Dean believes that at all. I think he went along with Dad so you’d stop your fucking crying that night,” Mason yelled at Martin.

“Fuck you!” Martin shouted and charged at Mason.

The two went down to the ground swearing at one another. Martin and Mason shoved each other as they rolled around.

Stop it!

In my head, I repeated over and over for them to stop as I paced the deck with my hands laced behind my head. I could hear their hands slapping against one another’s skin, and my stomach started to churn.

Stop it!

The voices carried mean words as they continued rolling on the deck. Kyler yelled at both of them to knock it off.

“Stop wasting your energy being assholes to one another. Save it for the swim,” Kyler barked, and he looked over at me.

Kyler frowned when he saw me, and he started to walk over to me. Quickly, I turned away and looked at the shore that was separated by water. I tried to drown out the sound and sight of Martin and Mason fighting. All I could picture was the fight pen at the docks.

Isaac. IA6.

“Wes, are you okay?” Kyler quietly asked as he put his hand on my shoulder.

“Ow! Fuck, Mason!” Martin grunted.

Kyler and I turned to see Mason’s arm retracting from his fist making contact with Martin’s stomach. My hands flew to cover my ears.

“Stop it!” I hollered at the top of my lungs.

Mason climbed off Martin and stood. With his hands on his hips, he glared at me. Martin had propped himself up on the deck with his elbows and Kyler had his arm around my bare shoulders. I shrugged his arm off so he wouldn’t feel me shaking.

“You guys are brothers!” I yelled. “Don’t fight with one another!” I swallowed hard and took a deep breath to get myself under control. “You’re so lucky to have one another,” I murmured.

I could hear footsteps on the decking and looked up when Mason appeared right in front of me.

“What the fuck do you know about brothers…Shadow?” Mason snarled right before he shoved me into the lake.

When I surfaced from under the water, the three of them were arguing and yelling at one another. I couldn’t stand watching them shove or push each other. I moved slightly in the water for a few moments and hoped they’d stop, but they just kept going. I turned and faced the land on the horizon and swam for it.

I swam as hard as I could, and once I got a little past the halfway point, I felt like my lungs were going to give out. My pace had slowed until I had to stop for a moment and catch my breath. As I floated on my back and moved slowly alternating my legs and then arms, I heard voices.

“Don’t give up, Wes!” Kyler’s voice boomed a good distance behind me followed by Martin’s.

“Keep going, Wes!”

I turned, and all three of them were swimming in my direction.

“Backstroke, Shadow! Don’t stop!” Mason called out to me.

I did the backstroke for a while, which gave my legs a chance to get a little rest and then I flipped my body over and finished with the overhand stroke. With shaking legs, I walked up the shore, and once I was partway up the bank, my legs collapsed. I sunk to the ground on my knees and leaned forward with my hands on my burning thighs. I was desperate to fill my lungs with air, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to get enough.

I turned my head slightly at the sound of bodies climbing out of the water; Kyler, Martin, and then Mason. All three of them came over and sat down or crouched beside me. Martin put his hand on my shoulder and left it there. I was too tired and weak to try to knock it off as I still gasped for air.

“You guys almost caught me,” I panted. “You started way after me.”

They laughed, and I noticed their breathing was almost back to normal.

“This was your first big swim, mate. You finished. That’s all you needed to do.” As Martin spoke, he rubbed his hand over my back. I felt his hand glide over my scars and healed gashes. I felt embarrassed and like the street trash that I was.

“You’re just fourteen, Wes. You’re still growing and developing. You’re going to be giving us a run for our money as you get older with the swim races,” Kyler encouraged. “Hell, you’re swimming with older guys.”

I nodded. He was right. Martin was the youngest of the three of them at seventeen. Kyler was nineteen and Mason was already twenty-two. But he was right…I was still growing and would get stronger. Now that I had food every day, I had the energy to work out and build myself up.

Mason reached out and gently patted the side of my head.

“The thing about brothers, Shadow, is that we may argue and yell at one another. And we may even get rough with each other and physically fight. But at the end of the day, it’s all forgotten. We’re brothers and everything to one another,” Mason explained. “When we were little, we’d always rough each other up and then would clean one another up so Dad wouldn’t flip out.” Martin and Kyler laughed and nodded. “We always help one another up, Shadow.”

I guess Mason was nice to me now that we were on this side of the lake. He confused me. One minute he’s reminding me that I came from the streets and the next minute he’s nice to me.

I looked down at the dirt on my knees and nodded. What Mason didn’t know was that I had seen fights where kids didn’t get up from a fight. Though it was so hard to breathe, I kept my jaw clamped tightly shut. My chest started to heave again because I had been trying to take in air calmly through my nose so it appeared that I wasn’t as shaken as I really was.

Mason moved closer to my side and set his hand on my shoulder. I finally opened my mouth to get more air and keep me from shaking as Mason slid his hand around my back. I could feel his fingertips as they ran along the grooves of my gashes. I didn’t like them touching my back but suddenly was terrified to say so.

“How did your back end up like this, Shadow?”

His fingers were getting close to a spot that was still particularly painful, and I prepared myself for the pain. I was thoroughly embarrassed when his fingers found that spot and I yelped out loud. I arched my back as I tried to get away from his hands.

“Easy, Mase,” Kyler whispered.

Mason had set his hand on my shoulder again, and Martin’s hand gripped my other shoulder. Both of them had me. They could do anything to me out here away from the house. I think Kyler, and maybe all of them sensed my nervousness.

“We’re not going to hurt you, Wes,” Kyler confirmed.

“Dad is very quiet about you and your past. We’re just curious, Shadow.” Mason patted the back of my neck at my hairline and then asked again, “What happened to your back?”

I was afraid to tell them and afraid to not tell them. But there were three of them, and they were all older and stronger than me. Everything from the docks came rushing back. I could have said a million things about how each of them occurred. But all I could get out in my ragged breath was, “I was whipped.”

I pictured myself at the whipping post, on my knees, gripping the chains that bound my wrists above my head. I always closed my eyes tightly and tucked my face against the post out of fear that it would catch the end of the whip. Thankfully, my face was never hit.

Mason brushed his thumb over the indentations. His curiosity pulled me from my past and brought me to the present.

“These too? They look different than the scars.”

“No…it was something different…a strap…a leather strap…with the stuff on fences,” I mumbled.

I knew that stuff had a name, but my mind was drawing a blank. I wanted to disappear now though. These guys knew I had been whipped, so they probably knew I was a troublemaker. It would probably get back to Thom that I was a bad seed.

“Barbed wire?” Kyler asked.

That was it! I looked up at him and nodded.

“Shit, Wes,” Martin said and moved to look at my back again.

I wanted to tell them that I wasn’t a terrible kid. But the evidence on my body said otherwise.

“Come on, guys. The sun is going down. Dinner will be ready soon,” Kyler said as he stood.

When Martin stood up, he reached down and took hold of my upper arm and pulled me up. My legs were still shaky, and I felt weak.

“So, what do you say, Shadow; swim or walk back?” Mason posed the question to me.

I looked at the lake and the deck on the opposite side. It looked so far. Then I looked at the wooded area to the left of the lake. It was flat and seemed much more manageable for me right now.

“Um, I think I’ll walk.”

They all nodded, and Kyler motioned toward the wooded area. I was surprised they were walking back with me instead of swimming.

“There’s a path through the woods,” Kyler announced as we began our walk.

“Uncle Bram spent a lot of days one spring setting pavers to make a path. When we were just starting to swim the lake, he knew we were too little still to make the swim back,” Mason explained.

“Yeah, he used to carry us on his back when we were really little. He’d tell us on the way back that he’d make a path so the walk back wouldn’t hurt our feet,” Martin recalled.

I was impressed with the cleared path and pavers that were the color of the ground. The entire way back all three of them talked about their lake memories with Bram. They laughed and spoke fondly of their uncle. It was obvious they loved him a lot, and he helped them during their formative years. I smiled and laughed along with them during the walk back, and I was jealous of them for having so many great memories.