054 - Keep Holding On

054 - Keep Holding On – Avril Lavigne

Sue’s POV

To say that I enjoyed my time with that wolf during that month of recovering would be an understatement. It was insanely difficult and frustrating, both for me and the newcomer. Sometimes he would scream at me and call me rude names, but I only knew that he didn’t know how to control his emotions yet. His father had influenced him by screaming and hitting, and unfortunately he did the same thing to me. At first it hurt real bad, but soon he calmed down, learning how to apologize to others. It wasn’t an easy task for the poor boy.

“I can’t do this!” Gary Wolff roared angrily and pushed the papers off the tables. I sighed, then slowly made my way over to him and slid across from him as he continued ranting. “It’s too hard! I don’t understand any of it!”

“Gary, you have to concentrate.” I soothed him gently. “Of course it’s harder for you, but I know you can handle it. Just take a deep breath and relax.”

“I cant! I keep trying but I can’t get it right!” Gary wailed. A pang in my heart appeared when I realized that he couldn’t understand it because no one taught him how to read. He could speak perfectly fine and understand verbal English, but he didn’t know how to read or write the language. When I looked down, it saddened me when he was filling out an application to work here at Wu’s and it was filled with scribbles and lines. He was trying to write down his answers, even if he didn’t know what they were.

“Gary, I can help you.” I told him gently and took his hands. He looked at me with uncertainty in his only eye, not sure if he could trust me or not. “I’ll teach you how to read and write.”

“I know how to read!” Gary roared and stood up glaring at me. I jumped back, blinking, then sighed. “I can read!”

“Oh yeah?!” I stood up and challenged him. Taking my book, I flipped open a page in the book and shoved it in his hands. “Start reading.”

Gary blinked, then stared at the page. His eye darted on the page, but he didn’t say anything out loud. I couldn’t help but smirk happily with victory when he sighed with defeat.

“I can’t read . . .” Gary whispered, and handed the book back to me. I smiled warmly and took the book.

“Lets start with pronunciation and phonics.” I told him, then led him to the storage room for some privacy. He nervously followed her, and sat down on a crate and looked at her expectantly.

“So, what do we do?” he asked, visibly upset that at fifteen years old he had to learn to read.

“Learn what all the letters mean and such.” I said, then took out a note pad and wrote down all the letters and explained each pronunciation. After pronouncing each letter five times, I wrote down a word and showed it to him.

“Now using the letters, try to pronounce the word. This is called phonics.”

“I cant do it . . .” Gary looked away.

“Try.” I urged him. “I’ll read it with you if you try.”

Gary groaned angrily, then looked at the word nervously. “C . . . ca . . . cat . . .” he blinked, then yelled with excitement, “Cat!”

“Yes!” I cried with joy. “It reads ‘cat’!”

“I can read!” the wolf boy cried happily, but I held a hand on his leg to calm him.

“Not yet, we still have some more to learn.” I told him, then wrote his name, ‘Gary’. “What does this say?”

“Ga . . . ar . . . y . . . gar-y . . . Gary!” his face lit up with joy. “Gary! That’s my name!”

“Yeah!” my eyes started filling with tears. “We’ve only spend an hour on it, and yet you can already pronounce words!”

“Yeah!” Gary grinned, and for the rest of the day we read words, and soon he started putting the words into full sentences. It was such a beautiful sight, but after a few more hours he started getting frustrated at longer words.

“I cant do this anymore!” Gary cried. “It’s so hard!”

“I know, we did enough.” I told him. “You just have to practice. We’ll start writing tomorrow if you want.”

Gary gave her a quick glance, then nodded. He ran up the stairs and out the door before I could even ask him what was going on. Sighing, I walked up the stairs and sat down in the booth to hopefully finish my book.

It was about an hour later when Gary returned. He was smiling and holding a piece of paper, but one of his hands was behind his back. I looked up at him and smiled.

“Oh your back; where’d you go?”

“I got you flowers.” he revealed a handful of dead weeds. At first I was going to ask why he was giving me weeds, then stopped myself. He was still so confused since leaving his father’s. He had asked me what a hot dog was, what a bike was, and so many other things. Someone must have fooled him into thinking that weeds were flowers.

“Oh thank you Gary.” I smiled and took the weeds from him. As I looked at him, his smile was more beautiful than any flower anyone could give me. He then handed me the paper.

“I-I tried writing on my own.” he blushed and looked away nervously. “My hand writing is atrocious.”

“It’s okay.” I smiled and tried to read it. I soon was able to manage it, though every word was misspelled and it looked like a four year old wrote it. But it was still beautiful, and at least he tried. It read, without all the spelling mistakes, ‘Dear Sue, thank you for holding onto me and not giving up on me like everyone else. You are all that I have. Thank you. I don’t know what else to say to you, but thank you. Gary.’

“Sue? Are you okay?” Gary looked at me and pushed his bangs out of his only eye. “You’re crying.”

“Thank you Gary.” I whispered, then gave him a warm hug. “You are so brilliant.”

“What are you talking about?” Gary looked at me.

“For getting me flowers, attempting to write before I could teach you, thank you. You are such a good learner.”

“But I get frustrated easily.”

“Everyone does. Don’t worry.” I smiled again and hugged him tightly.

END

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blarg i didn't like the way this came out....oh well hope you guys like it.

Hey nice one! This was very sweet and touching.

Hey, you used the line that I wrote in our posting party on chat. XD

yes, thats' where I got most of this one shot from, lol xD

YES. XD Love Garue! This one was so sweet!!! XD

Wow! this was really good! I loved it! And you used the weed idea! lol. But yeah, I loved it!

-hasn'tactuallysubmittedarevieweventhoughIspazzedaboutthisinthechat-

Hehehehe...
You may not think so, but I find Gary learning to read quite adorable. :] It fits the title of the song really well, since he keeps getting so frustrated over it, and Sue keeps saying to just calm down and keep trying.

I like how you brougt up the flower issue Gary was having the other day. XD And also the hot dogs, bwahaha.
But not robots filled with hot dogs. That's another conversation entirely.

Just be careful, because there's a few times you reverted into third person and referred to Sue as "she". It seems like you're not quite used to writing in first person, so just remember to check over for those sorts of errors when you write from this point of view. :]

Oh why thank you!

lawl hot dogs xD Gary would eat Raiko and Kyoki if that were true.

Yeah, I'm not that famaliar with first person, so this was practice.

I thought her teaching him how to read was kinda boring and childish which was why I wasn't crazy about this one shot.

At least you guys liked it. :/

WolfieStar wrote:Oh why thank you!
lawl hot dogs xD Gary would eat Raiko and Kyoki if that were true.
At least you guys liked it. :/

Raiko and Kyoki would kill him with awesome magic robot powers. Yeah, this was really good!