<center>![swing-set-667949_1280.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRvZKL2YKdzvvLUh4TsoaAtmbhUMuMf6KkuWzwQsgYUTx/swing-set-667949_1280.jpg)</center>

<center>Scuffed</center>

“Most likely to kill someone,” Brody reads. Flinches. He unfurls his fists, stares at the words: shiny, in Caren’s glittery purple pen. Caren watches him from under the halo of golden hair, cat-eyes unblinking, hard.

The chair clatters to the floor as he stands and he runs. Doors open and shut, kids–laughing, screaming, in motion–a blur around him. He keeps his eyes on the scuffed blue concrete. Finally, Brody is outside, but he can’t stop running. He runs until he can’t get enough air into his lungs. 

He is at an old playground, the one he used to come to with Max when they were both small. When they lived in that concrete box around the corner. When his father was tall and handsome in jeans and a henley. Before the prison uniform made him small and cowered. Smaller even than he’d been when mother left.

He swallows, thinks of Caren’s eyes on him as she watched him read the words, as if to make sure it hurt. It did. He remembers the way Max looked at Caren that first time he’d brought her over. How his eyes got round and big, his face turning so red his freckles looked painted on. How he stammered saying his name…. “M…Mmmmma… Mmmmmax.” Brody laughed then. Caren did not.

He walks over to the old swing, the wooden plank stained, askew. He pushes it and watches as it tilts, off balance. He swallows, a ghost of Max on that very swing, his too-long pants swishing through the dust below. Brody stops the swing, plops down onto the plank–small, narrow. He sits still for a long time. "Most likely to kill someone. Most likely to..." He hears the words in her voice–high, sure of itself. The truth of it a punch to the gut.

He shouldn’t have left him that night, but he was so sick of babysitting. Sick of the stammering, the blushing, the embarrassment. He just wanted a chance at kissing a girl he liked….  

Max didn’t cry when he’d told him he couldn’t come, but Max never really cried anyway. Not when he'd shoved him against the wall when his patience ran dry. Not when he'd screamed at him and called him names. Max didn't cry.

Brody stands and looks at the sign for Precinct 23 plastered onto a brownstone just across the street. He walks the few dozen steps slowly, as if in a daze, breathing through his nose to calm himself. The sergeant at the window looks him over, nods, a question in his eyes.

“I need to report a…” Brody starts. Stops, shakes his head, eyes darting to his shoes. Scratched. Old. Dirty with the dust of the playground. He forces himself to look the sergeant in the eye. Dark stains under his eyes. The tiredness of someone who’d seen too much. Brody swallows, clears his throat. “I need to turn myself in. I killed my little brother.”

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This post is an entry for a contest hosted by @rhondak
Here is the prompt:
Write a 500-word story about a character whose flaws make them a less-than-ideal protagonist, yet they go on to achieve some form of greatness despite being “written off” by everyone who knows them. This is a complex theme, and word count is minimal, so this is quite a challenge. I will be looking for someone who can bring this theme across effectively and efficiently.
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With many thanks to the fantastic folks at the writers block fiction workshop. You can find your way there  by clicking below: <center><a href="http://www.mspfictionworkshop.com/how-to-join-the-workshop/"><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmR9QdSnJv9J78uutRCJa5XA9BzvBsso2ZJeSATrPhbKCY/writers-block-gif.gif"/></a></center>
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img: creative commons lic via @pixabay