{"id":18443,"date":"2023-11-18T13:24:57","date_gmt":"2023-11-18T18:24:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=18443"},"modified":"2023-11-18T13:24:57","modified_gmt":"2023-11-18T18:24:57","slug":"growing-pains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/fiction\/growing-pains\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing Pains"},"content":{"rendered":"

My little brother Bobby is obsessed with Anthony Michael Hall. The nerd he can see himself in. Too much brain, not enough brawn. He\u2019s the geek in Sixteen Candles<\/em>, Gary in Weird Science<\/em>. Mom keeps buying tapes, hoping to give him someone to bond with since he doesn\u2019t have friends. I keep telling him, You know you can\u2019t treat girls like that, right? He nods, eyes taped to the screen, hand reaching for another Cheeto, orange dust clumping into plates on his finger pads.<\/p>\n

Then he catches Edward Scissorhands<\/em> on TV. There\u2019s five years between the nerd Bobby\u2019s used to and the bully of Scissorhands<\/em>. Five years and enough muscle to make him nearly unrecognizable. And one of the worst parts of Breakfast Club<\/em> slices itself into Bobby\u2019s psyche. The criminal gets the princess. The athlete gets the basketcase. But the brain. The brain ends up alone. He\u2019s always alone. The asshole in Scissorhands<\/em> at least gets the girl for a while.<\/p>\n

Bobby drops the Cheetos. Washes his hands. Starts lifting Mom\u2019s hot pink weights. While Mom picks up his inhaler in CVS, Bobby reads Men\u2019s Health<\/em> and Real Fitness Magazine<\/em>. He stops eating junk food.<\/p>\n

The baby fat leaves him first. Then his sweetness. He\u2019s growing up without Dad and somehow he\u2019s still becoming this person. He smiles less. Stops wearing bright colors. He\u2019s becoming someone I don\u2019t recognize. That\u2019s the idea, he says.<\/p>\n

But I like you, I tell him.<\/p>\n

Bobby won\u2019t look at me. A big sister isn\u2019t enough. I tell him there\u2019s no wrong way to be a boy.<\/p>\n

All I want is a chance, he says. A chance at being someone else. A chance at not being alone.<\/p>\n

I stroke the port wine stain on his temple. I remember the day our parents brought him bundled home during a historic cold snap. He was shriveled and small like the sundried tomatoes Mom snuck into all our food. I promised to look after him.<\/p>\n

He shakes off my touch. I want to believe him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I stroke the port wine stain on his temple. I remember the day our parents brought him bundled home during a historic cold snap. He was shriveled and small like the sundried tomatoes Mom snuck into all our food. I promised to look after him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3098,3096,115,3097,3099],"class_list":["post-18443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","tag-anthony-michael-hall","tag-edward-scissorhands","tag-growing-up","tag-the-breakfast-club","tag-weird-science","writer-chelsea-stickle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18443"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19202,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18443\/revisions\/19202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}