The Guard To My Sanctuary - Chapter 47: Chapter 47

Maddox
I woke up for my morning run bright and early like I did almost every weekday. Thursday's meant my Dad was going in late since that was a part of some weird nuanced Silicone Valley, techie office culture ritual that wouldn't be viable for business anywhere but where my dad worked. I kicked my feet over the side of my bed and smiled knowing that since my Dad wouldn't be following me I'd have the chance to run over to Wylder's place and drop off some flower's as a token of my appreciation for her putting up with me and my bullshit. I never let it slip my mind that there was someone out there potentially better than me which meant I would have to work hard to keep her. I got up and walked to my curtains and pulled them open revealing a dark sky with faint streaks of deep ginger, crepe, mulberry, and Azure in the corner of the horizon indicative of a California sunrise. I opened my window letting the early autumn air into the room. Takin in a deep breath before I  walked over to my light switch and illuminated my room with a warm glow. My rooms main theme was green which happened to be my favorite color. It was currently a mess with my gym bag thrown on the ground and the clothes I tried on to wear to school from all week were littered on the ground along with paper plates and plastic forks overflowing the trash can. Mom would kill me if he saw my room in the state that it was in so I made a mental note to clean it when I got home from school.
I pulled my pajama pants off and went to my closet grabbing some compression tights and slipped them on and pulled a pair of black running shorts to conceal my bulge. I searched the ground for my running shoes and found them in the far corner of the small walk-in closet. When I was done I laced them up tight, grabbed my wallet and walked out of my room. Pixie was right outside my door licking her paws and didn't even bother to look up at me. I shooed her off so I could move freely. When she finally moved after hissing at me I made my way down the stairs and went into the kitchen. I looked at my pill organizer and took my vitamins and grabbed a water from the refrigerator and went to get Goliath who was standing in the backyard near the door waiting for me. I grabbed his leash and attached it to his collar before we left out the house disabling the alarm before I opened the door.
I walked outside and did a few stretches to prepare myself for the early morning run. Goliath was looking at a squirrel in the yard like they were prey so I kept a firm grip on his leash. I had to remain lean for soccer which was by far my favorite sport. Dad had us in boxing, track, basketball, football, swimming, tennis, lacrosse, and even hockey. My dream was to play for the Chelsea Football Club in England. I had a few eyes on me since I along with my other team members kept the school at number three in the country and was working hard to be number one by my senior year. When I had stretched enough I started jogging down the street water in hand, the sound of Goliath's paws hitting the ground along with the music playing in my headphones was all that I could focus on. I passed Mrs.Maxwell who was recently widowed and noticed her trying to put a box in her old Buick. I jogged backward and stopped next to her.
"Let me help," I said grabbing for the box which felt way too heavy for her to be trying to lift at 92 years of age.
"Oh thank you, I'm trying to take some of Anatoli's suits and dress clothes to the church for our homeless clothing drive," She said to me.
"No problem," I said and ended up helping her with two more boxes and continued my run. I jogged to the main road outside of the community and waited for the little white man to signal it was appropriate to cross. It took forever but when it finally did we ran across the road and jogged all the way to Publix. I tied Goliath up out front and moved quickly picking up a bouquet of yellow roses because it was her favorite color. I walked to the candy aisle and got her a pack of violet mints that she loved, and a family size bag of Swedish fish. When I was done I made my way to the counter and paid for the items with my prepaid card. I had wisely asked my Mom's brothers for money along with my godfather Corey, Grandpa and Grandma Cindy and Uncle Kunaal and Tyler who all send me enough to equal about five hundred. My family all had good jobs and lived within their means so if any of us kids wanted anything we got it most of the time with no questions asked. The lady swiped my card and handed me my items with a smile that I returned and left the store. Uncle Oscar and Aunt Nia lived in the small community on the other side of the plaza so it wasn't too far of a run for me to get there. It was already 5:49 am and I had to get back and get ready for school quickly since Calloway had to be at school early for BETA club or something so I settled for placing the items on the doormat and shooting Wylder a text to look outside then took off running home.
I was testing the extent of my stamina which was quite high from the years of running to and from each end of soccer fields. I was lucky enough to not have to wait on traffic and sailed into the community I'm an evenly paced jog. When I finally got to the house I walked in the front door. I unhooked Goliath who took off into the living area. He was a good guard dog and knew not to mess with anyone who lived here. Dad had him well trained since Mom didn't want a big dog in the first place. I followed him into the living area and made my way to the kitchen grabbing a new water bottle and drank it down. I then grabbed a breakfast hot pocket and microwaved it the proceeded to take a seat on the counter. Mom would kill me if he saw me all sweaty on the counter but nobody was around. I knew it was early but the house was still too quiet. Quite in the Tafferty household meant that something was going down. We weren't quite people with the exception of mom. Around this time Call and Beo should have been making witty quips about one another, Zi should have been doing his best to sneak out whatever bird he fucked last night out the front door without Mom or Dad noticing. Dad should have been messing with Mom by now while mom pretended to hate it but would have a huge smile on his face. Something was definitely wrong but it didn't involve me so I wasn't going to go looking for trouble. The microwave beeped and I opened it and retrieved my food. I waited a few minutes before eating it so it would have time to cool down. I quickly ate it when it was cool enough to not burn my tongue then made my way upstairs. My room was first so I walked inside but not before hearing muffled voices going at it. I figured it was Call and Beo since they argued like a married couple sometimes. I had a low tolerance for drama and enjoyed just fading to the background.
Beo had been a constant presence in our lives since Call first became friends with him. He spent holidays with us, went on vacations, and my parents loved him almost if not just as much as they loved us. I treated Beo like a little brother. If he needed anything all he had to do was ask and I'd do it. I had gotten into fights for him and vetted boy's that he was talking to. I figured that since his family did everything but officially give him up to us I'd accept him as a part of the family.
"Everyone deserves to have a family."
I looked around my room and noticed the smells of musky balls, grass, and old curry. I knew if I left my room in the manner that I did everything would be on the floor and some things would be thrown away when I got back. Mom was very much the type of parent to give us a long leash but he'd yank the fuck out of it when we reached the limits. A dirty room was one of his limits for us. They didn't make us get jobs because they believed that school was our job was what they said when we asked if we could get jobs. Nor did we even have any real chores so keeping the things that they gave us in order was our way to repay them. I pulled my shirt off and walked it over to my hamper and got to work on my room. It took fifteen minutes of rushing since I was running behind to clean my room but it was presentable and had been hosed down in Hawaiian themed air freshener. When I was satisfied I quickly picked out an outfit deciding that it would be a sweats kind of day. I pulled out my dark gray joggers and a t-shirt then all my undergarments and ran to the bathroom. Once inside I checked my phone while getting undressed. I saw that Wylder had texted me a good hundred heart eyes and had a full paragraph about waking her up so early even if it was for something nice. I smiled at it and sent her a kissy-faced emoji before going to the shower. I turned it on and yelped from the cold water but poured my coffee scented soap directly on my skin and used my loofah to soap my skin up and let the water wash it off. I jumped out just as the water was getting comfortable and turned everything off and rubbed  Shae butter into my skin then put my clothes on. I quickly brushed my teeth and brushed my hair down before leaving out the bathroom. If I would have known that I was walking into World War Tafferty I would have waited in the bathroom. In front of me stood Calloway and Ozias shouting like wild animals at each other about something I was lost on.
"What the hell is going on you know Mom doesn't play with his sleep," I said to them getting their attention. They looked at me for a good while not talking but peered at one another. I looked over noticing Beo standing really close to Ozias almost too close. Then it clicked for me and I knew that this wouldn't be good.
"Zi, are you serious, Beo really," I said not understanding that out of all the ass Zi could have he decided to have sex with Beo, Calloway's best friend and by circumstance our family.
"Man I'll do whatever the fuck I want, with whoever I want," Ozias said getting aggressive with me which automatically made me go into a brief meditative state to not start swinging. I was having a good morning and wanted to keep the peace.
"First off, remember who you're talking to because if you want we can take a trip to the yard. Second, while you're doing whoever whenever you want did you take into account the feelings of others involved in the situation. Beo is Calloway's best friend and basically lives here as one of us...He is one of us, from what I know you don't do relationships and from what you've told me you don't even have romantic feelings for men," I said to him hoping that he wasn't leading Beo on but not even that deep down I knew that he was. Beo looked up at him with this look of adoration that I knew could get him hurt messing with my youngest brother.
"You don't give a fuck about anyone but yourself. Beo is my friend and you two have been going behind my back for god only knows how long. I hope you two weren't as dumb as I think you are and used condoms for all we know Ozias's dick could be a fuck away from falling off," Calloway said venomously. Calloway wasn't a fighter but verbally he could say things that wouldn't normally hurt with so much rage that it seemed worse than getting your ass beat. Beo looked away in shame at Calloway's words and I knew Call would regret making his friend feel that way in two or three hours tops. He wasn't a grudge holder and usually knew right from wrong and would apologize if he believed what he did was wrong.
"Fuck you Call, just because nobody would want to fuck your freak of nature ass doesn't mean that we all shouldn't have sex. You can go to hell," Ozias said and everyone stopped moving. Zi looked like he immediately wanted to take back his words but it was too late they were out and not returnable.
"Call calm down, he didn't mean it," Beo said seeing Call start to cry. He only cried when he was really depressed, really angry, or his period was really kicking his ass. I assumed that it was a mix of all of those factors. Zi had thrown a low blow at Call who had thrown his own but talking about Call and Mom's condition was off limits. In an instant Call went from using his words to launching at Zi and punching him in the jaw. Zi's head whipped to the side from the impact but I doubted it hurt him since he was so used to getting hit on the field.
"Yo, Calloway I'm sorry but if you hit me one more time," Ozias was cut off by a swift punch to the jaw again and he immediately pushed Call into the wall luckily not leaving a dent or a hole since the walls were thick. Beo stood in between them as they tried to get at each other and I ran over pushing Beo out the way before he got hurt and took his place.
"Calm down before you wake Mom and Dad," I said trying to get them to think logically. If either of our parents was woken up a lot of secrets were bound to be exposed.
"I'm going to kill his bitch ass," Calloway said trying to get past me which he was failing at. It was almost comical seeing my short skinny brother doing his damnedest to get at my muscular brother.
"I put it on god, you're going to get knocked out today," Ozias responded as I pushed him back from our smaller brother. Calloway would definitely get his ass beat by my youngest brother who was almost taller than me despite me being 6'5. If Dad found out Ozias had touched Calloway there would be hell to pay. Calloway was like Mom and Dad daughter in a sense. Calloway wasn't a full on a damsel in distress but he was close enough to it and we were always taught to protect him from harm like Ozias and I had done with Steven.
I kept trying to keep them back from each other while Beo tried to talk them both down but it wasn't working. They both had me wedged in between them and had started shoving me into one another. I still tried to get them to calm down went they both started throwing punches at each other. The problem was I caught two of them and had gone from peacekeeper to hell hound. I pushed Ozias's back and he fell backward hitting the floor. I then grabbed Calloway who was looking at me with fear in his eyes and yanked him with me grabbing Beo with my other wrist. I dropped Beo off in the guest/game room and shut the door then took Calloway to his and shut the door. When I was done I walked past Ozias who was getting up and went to my room.
"I SWEAR TO GO YOU TWO GET ON MY FUCKING NERVES, Y'ALL AINT NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF FUCK NIGGAS AND THE NEXT TIME INE OF Y'ALL HIT ME IM GOING TO FUCK YOU UP AND SET YOU BOTH ON FIRE," I shouted and slammed my door. I was over being the one to keep everything in check I always ended up the one getting hit.
"Fuck both of them," I said knowing I'd be over it sooner rather than later which only made me annoyed at myself...