Trees

As promised, here is one of the short little pieces of writing I've written as a means to clear my writing block. It's about trees.

They found him leaning against the oak tree with a smile on his face. Was I surprised when I heard? No, not really. That's where I would've looked if I was in their shoes. It was fitting, really. Only place he didn't feel like a freak.
The kid had been dealt a real bad hand. The drunken asshole he had for a stepfather always gave him the kind of grief that left bruises. He deserved what came to him. His mom, well, let's just say she had time for everyone else but him. School was no different. The freaks and geeks, jocks and beauty queens. He was everyone's personal little punching bag. Not even the teachers liked him. He wasn't smart enough for them. And me? Well, he was family. What could I do about that?
I'd find him sitting there on my way home from practice. Always had that coke can box with him. "That's where I keep my orc army and my paints," he would tell me. Bunch of overpriced plastic if you asked me, but I never told him anything. It didn't seem right.
Something was up that day. I had missed the bus that morning, and things just kept going from worse to shit. I didn't see him there. No carton box, no slouched figure with a paint brush in his hand. Didn't think much of it. All I could think of was how coach had run us like dogs.
He was dead when the hounds found him with his late daddy's war pistol in hand. No cuts, no blood, at least none that belonged to him. Nothing. Heart just stopped beating. He used to say the shade protected him. Said he felt nothing could happen to him so long as he didn't step outside of what the leaves covered.