Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the snooze button on my alarm clock. He was so tire because he had been doing thirty time of day a workweek at work lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his house life. Add in school and the preparation that came along with it and it was midnight or later by the fourth dimension 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 brother and sis said to him, almost in unison."Hi ”, he replied back. After eating breakfast, he went back upstairs to sweep his teeth. Then he came downstairs again and went to see his mother. Jess always went to his mother 's room and said"good sunup"to her before leaving for school day. Why he still did, he was n't sure. He had become so remote, there was no very connective left."Probably just out of habit ”, he told himself. He kissed his mother goodby and then left with his brother for school.

In the car, he and his brother did n't babble much. It was n't that they did n't like each other, but Jess and Luke had very fiddling in common these days. They had different Friend, St. Luke being more of a social butterfly ; different penchant in music, Jess listened to more laboured metal and rock music, while Luke was more into the pop music scene ; etc ... Once they got to school day, that was it. The car ride there was the most clip they spent with each other in a day and whichever one was n't driving that day just stared at their earpiece the full ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to school. High schooltime had never been"as promote"to Jess. He was a loner, an outcast. He had not even a handful of friends, everyone knew everyone, but that was about it. Recently he had been feeling more and more lower, his thoughts sometimes turning to suicide. plate life-time was ... well it was n't a domicile anymore ...

"Good aurora Mr. Knight ”, said his homeroom teacher, Mr. Toer."Morning ”, Jess replied back. He took his seat and started on the homework he did n't finish last night. Math was a particularly hard subject for Jess. He was just one bad grade away from failing the subject for the semester, but at this point that was the final thing on his intellect. Staring at the blank sheet of paper in front of him, his mind started to roll."What am I even doing here ? I have no purpose, no desire, no felicity. If I decided to just run away today, will anyone care ? will my parents notice if I 'm not there ?"The chime for the end of homeroom rang, jolting him back into cognisance."Damn it ”, he thought, realizing he had n't done a single problem.

When the bell rang at 3:05, he was already driving away from schooling ( his sidekick was in ROTC and stayed for after-school activeness ), his foot to the floor and the radio blaring. music had become Jess'only reprieve from his life and he was retreating into it more and more, barely paying attention to anything else. Music made him feel potent, made him find like he had a reason to hold out. It seemed that the language of the song on the radio spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him feel happy that individual, somewhere understood what he felt.

When he got home, Jess went straight to his room. As he was changing into his work uniform, he took a tone at himself in the mirror. He was 16, had long, grim brownness hair, electric bluing center, was about six foot tall, and had slim body. The individual staring back at him looked so far away, it looked like him, but it was n't him. The eyes of the soul in the mirror looked so scourge and discharge it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the brightness level and headed to work.

At work that night, he just floated aimlessly through the evening, barely engaging the client, just wanting the dark to end so that he could go household and sleep. Sleep, the one matter and one metre of the day when he did n't feel holler, lifeless. When did n't feel anything but serenity. The following day was Sabbatum and he did n't suffer to go to forge or school so he could sleep all through the dark and well into the good morning.

Opening the room access to his house after work, Jess got a halfhearted"Hi"from his parents. The form of"hi"that you say out of niceness, not because you actually meant it. He replied back, asked if anyone had made dinner party that Nox, and then went to his elbow room. Turning on his reckoner, he checked his e-mail. As usual, it was just a cluster of spam, but then Jess saw the e-mail. Charles Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the e-mail, then shut off his computer and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some small common sense of hope.


Criticism welcome. Like I said, let me roll in the hay if I should stay .