(My response for this week's writing prompt.)
"Write About a Physical Limitation"
Riley had Arthur cornered. There would be no escaping this time.
"You gave us a hell of a chase," Riley said to him between heavy breaths, slowly walking towards the other teen. "But it's over now."
Arthur looked around quickly. His back was against the seawall that lined the beach. The nearest set of stairs leading to the road above the seawall was at least ten meters away, and Riley's six other friends had already planted themselves either in front of those same steps or in a loose semi-circle around Arthur.
Arthur winced as he sucked in his deep breaths and felt his right arm. One of Riley's friends had thrown him against one of the many logs lining the beach. He had fallen badly, and his attempt to brace his fall had only served to hyper-extend his arm upon impact. Arthur didn't know if his arm was broken or not, but it now hung uselessly at his side with trails of blood climbing down its hairs.
"Are you calling this a fair response?" Arthur spat back. "I talk to Heather for a couple minutes outside and that leads to a seven-man chase?"
"You didn't just talk to her!" Riley said. "What about the part where you had your tongue down my girlfriend's throat?!"
"Okay! I kissed your girl! I'm sorry, it just happened!"
"Like hell you are!" Riley kicked sand up at Arthur, who flinched back and shut his eyes.
In that split moment, Riley dashed forward and grabbed Arthur by his torn clothing. With a fistful of shirt in his left, he swung his right hard at Arthur's face. Arthur grunted, lifting his left arm up to block the blow as well as the following strikes.
"Make... a fool... of me, will ya?!" Riley shouted, throwing his fist down into Arthur's hand and forearm with each word.
Arthur tried desperately to swing a knee up into Riley's sides, but found himself lacking the energy to land with any true power; being held off-balance against the concrete seawall seemed to hurt his current position more than his disabled arm. Still, he was not the only one tired at the moment and Riley's blows were not nearly as strong as they might have been ten minutes ago.
Cursing, Riley pulled back and switched his hands, re-grasping Arthur's shirt with his right and pulling back his left into a tight fist. Arthur instinctively tried to raise his right arm into a guard and felt a sharp jolt of fear go through him, realising his unresponsive arm would be of no use to him. He felt his head snap back against the seawall as Riley's first punch landed against his cheek. The blows continued to rain down on his unguarded right while he pulled his head over to cover as best he could behind his only good arm. Still, Riley's looping hooks continued to impact against his ear and temple.
Arthur found some badly needed luck when his left hand caught Riley's arm as it came down against his face. He held it fast as Riley reactively tried to pull back.
"Get... the hell off of me!" he shouted, finally bracing himself fully against the seawall and planting a foot against Riley's hip. He kicked down hard, using the support of the wall against his back to twist Riley off his centre of balance while at the same time yanking Riley's arm across to the right. Riley dropped down to a kneeling position and dug his free hand hard into Arthur's shirt to keep from falling.
With Riley's head now at Arthur's mid-level, Arthur swung his knee out, springing off the seawall and hammering the other teen just above his ear.
Both men fell to the sand, Riley on his side and Arthur on his face. Arthur grunted in pain as his right arm flopped across the ground, sand sticking against the drying blood. Pulling it back against his body took everything his shoulder had while his groans blew up grains of sand underneath his face. Riley on the other hand remained fairly still, clutching his head with both hands and swearing constantly.
The other six people all started rushing in while he and Arthur remained sprawled in the sand.
"Back the hell up!" Riley shouted in a generally upward direction as he heard the shuffling feet. His friends all stopped immediately and glanced hesitantly around at each other. "Do it!"
Riley's friends pulled back to their previous positions. A moment later, Arthur and Riley started to rise; their eyes never broke contact as the two of them got up.
"Alright, asshole," Arthur said, "whatever you have with Heather, you two are gonna have to talk about that." He backed himself back up against the seawall for stability and sucked in some more slow breaths. "Whatever's going on with you two, that was all there long before I was with her tonight. You can blame me if you want, but that'll just lead us back to this same bull all over again."
Also panting, Riley stood back up.
"So you're saying you're not interested in her?" he asked.
"Maybe I am," Arthur answered, "but that still won't be why you two are in the pits right now..."
"Oh you son of a..." Riley, wobbly, ran back towards the other teen. Again, Arthur propped himself against the seawall and raised his foot up to catch his attacker. Riley would have none of it, though, and swung his arm down, sweeping Arthur's leg over and re-exposing his battered arm.
This time, Riley made no pretence and dug his fingers down into Arthur's right arm. Arthur howled as Riley squeezed, tore and torqued his arm back and forth violently. Riley just screamed as continued his assault on Arthur's arm while pinning him against the wall with his body weight.
Arthur was almost to the point of passing out from the pain in his arm. Strained gasps forced their way through his clenched jaw as he once again tried to bring his knees and feet up to push Riley away; the other teen was just pressed up far too close this time. Every tug felt like a saw tearing at his shoulder; every slam against the wall behind him grated his forearm and elbow red and raw.
Barely conscious, Arthur shot his left hand up and jabbed his thumb as hard as he could into Riley's armpit. The sudden jolt to his nerves pulled Riley's right arm off Arthur's throat; it also lifted half of Riley's weight off of Arthur's chest.
Seeing the opportunity, Arthur jammed his elbow against the seawall, lifting his back out of the concrete. He then quickly linked his good arm around Riley's right while throwing the rest of his torso to the left. Arthur was falling back to the beach below, but he was also pulling Riley down with him.
Arthur hit the sand flat across his shoulders, breaking the most of his fall but more importantly keeping his legs free as Riley continued to drop. Still with Riley's arm in his control, Arthur kicked his legs up and around the trapped arm, pinning Riley's shoulder between his thighs, Riley's torso under his calves.
Still with his one good hand, Arthur yanked back hard on the armbar he had locked in as Riley began howling himself. As Riley fought back with his free hand, Arthur would just yank back even harder; he had him. Riley's friends started charging in again and were again stopped by a shout - this time, it was Arthur's.
"Don't move or I'll break his god-damned arm!" he screamed hoarsely. Arthur clamped his legs tighter around Riley's arm and pulled back again, convincing everyone else to slowly back up.
"You're dead!" Riley said, his voice slightly muffled by the leg somewhat cutting across his throat.
"No," Arthur said back. "We're done." He kept a stern hold while Riley struggled vainly. "Again, all of this crap with Heather, that's between us and Heather. But this crap between us here - you, me, them - that ends now." Riley continued struggling, but remained silent. "We've known each other for how many years? How many of those did we spend actually giving a damn about each other's lives? None! How many more months until graduation and until we pretty much never see each other ever again for the rest of our lives? Two. Two god-damned months!"
Arthur inadvertently cinched back on the armbar as he said that, garnering new sounds from the boy beneath him.
"Two more months," he repeated. "You... all of you, leave me the hell alone, and I'll leave you the hell alone. Can we do that?" Riley grunted and turned his head to the side so he could speak.
"As long as you stay the hell away from Heather..." he said. Arthur swore out loud in response.
"Okay, you know what? She's your girlfriend. Fine. But next week when she sees how messed up we both are - including my damn arm - that's gonna lead to something new and different." Riley snorted, but again remained silent; he knew Arthur was right.
"While she's still your girlfriend, I won't touch her," he said. "When she's not... then you piss off." Time stood still as they stared each other down.
Arthur eased up on his grip, slowly gauging Riley's response; Riley didn't fight back. Taking another deep breath, he slowly released the hold and lifted his legs up and back, putting his knees under his own chin. Riley rose slowly with Arthur, both of them favouring their right arms.
"I never want to see your damn face ever again," Riley said.
"No more than I ever want to," Arthur replied. Arthur's arm had since numbed over and he could barely feel it as was. "So we're done." Riley nodded slightly.
"We're done."
Taking a few slow steps backwards, keeping his eye on the other boy staring back at him, Arthur finally turned around as he neared Riley's friends on that side of them. He made no eye contact with them and just kept walking down the beach, breathing and stepping slowly, heavily. At this point he felt fairly certain that his arm was at least heavily sprained if not fractured outright.
As he softly tapped it with his other hand, he could not decide if it was all worth it or not.
