Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the nap button on my consternation clock. He was so tired because he had been doing thirty hours a week at oeuvre lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his family animation. Add in schoolhouse and the homework that came along with it and it was midnight or later by the time he got to bed."Who invented these things anyway ? ”, he thought as he climbed out of bed.

Showered and dressed, he went downstairs to get some breakfast."Hi Jess ”, his sidekick and sister said to him, almost in unison."Hi ”, he replied back. After eating breakfast, he went back upstairs to brush his teeth. Then he came downstairs again and went to see his mother. Jess always went to his mother 's room and said"proficient sunup"to her before leaving for schooling. Why he still did, he was n't sure as shooting. He had become so aloof, there was no real connection left."Probably just out of habit ”, he told himself. He kissed his mother goodby and then left with his sidekick for school.

In the car, he and his buddy did n't talk much. It was n't that they did n't like each other, but Jess and Gospel According to Luke had very minuscule in common these days. They had dissimilar booster, Luke being more of a social butterfly stroke ; different tastes in music, Jess listened to more dense metal and rock, while Luke was more into the pop medicine picture ; etc ... Once they got to schooling, that was it. The car ride there was the most sentence they spent with each early in a day and whichever one was n't driving that day just stared at their telephone the entire ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to school. high school School had never been"as push"to Jess. He was a loner, an outcast. He had not even a handful of booster, everyone knew everyone, but that was about it. Recently he had been feeling more and more dispirit, his view sometimes turning to suicide. Home spirit was ... well it was n't a home anymore ...

"trade good morning Mr. knight ”, said his homeroom teacher, Mr. Toer."dawn ”, Jess replied back. He took his seat and started on the homework he did n't eat up finale nighttime. Math was a particularly hard discipline for Jess. He was just one bad grade away from failing the case for the semester, but at this percentage point that was the endure affair on his mind. Staring at the blank sheet of paper of newspaper publisher in front line of him, his judgement started to cuckold."What am I even doing here ? I have no purpose, no desire, no happiness. If I decided to just run away today, will anyone care ? testament my parents notice if I 'm not there ?"The bell for the end of homeroom rang, jolting him back into awareness."damn it ”, he thought, realizing he had n't done a I problem.

When the toll rang at 3:05, he was already driving away from school ( his sidekick was in ROTC and stayed for after-school bodily process ), his pes to the story and the radio blaring. medicine had become Jess'only reprieve from his life sentence and he was retreating into it more and more, barely paying care to anything else. Music made him find brawny, made him feel like he had a reason to survive. It seemed that the lyrics of the song on the radio spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him feel happy that somebody, somewhere understood what he felt.

When he got home, Jess went straight to his room. As he was changing into his employment uniform, he took a look at himself in the mirror. He was 16, had long, dark brownness hair, galvanizing blueness eyes, was about six feet magniloquent, and had slim body. The person staring back at him looked so far away, it looked like him, but it was n't him. The eyes of the person in the mirror looked so desolate and empty it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the illumination and headed to work.

At work that nighttime, he just floated aimlessly through the eve, barely engaging the customers, just wanting the night to end so that he could go home and sleep. Sleep, the one thing and one time of the day when he did n't feel excavate, lifeless. When did n't find anything but peace. The next day was Saturday and he did n't have to go to work or schooltime so he could sleep all through the night and well into the morning.

Opening the door to his planetary house after work, Jess got a halfhearted"Hi"from his parents. The kind of"hi"that you say out of civility, not because you actually meant it. He replied back, asked if anyone had made dinner that Night, and then went to his room. Turning on his computer, he checked his electronic mail. As common, it was just a bunch of junk e-mail, but then Jess saw the electronic mail. John Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the email, then shut off his reckoner and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some small sense of hope.


Criticism welcome. Like I said, let me know if I should continue .