Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the snooze release on my alarm clock. He was so tired because he had been doing 30 hours a week at work lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his home life. 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 crony and sister said to him, almost in unison."Hi ”, he replied back. After eating breakfast, he went back upstairs to brush his tooth. Then he came downstairs again and went to see his female parent. Jess always went to his mother 's room and said"unspoilt first light"to her before leaving for schooling. Why he still did, he was n't sure. He had become so distant, there was no real joining left."Probably just out of habit ”, he told himself. He kissed his mother goodbye and then left with his brother for school.

In the car, he and his chum did n't spill the beans much. It was n't that they did n't like each early, but Jess and Luke had very picayune in common these twenty-four hour period. They had dissimilar friends, Luke being more of a sociable butterfly stroke ; different tastes in music, Jess listened to more heavy metal and rock, while St. Luke was more into the pop euphony vista ; etc ... Once they got to school day, that was it. The car ride there was the most time they spent with each other in a day and whichever one was n't driving that day just stared at their telephone set the entire ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to schooltime. high up schooltime had never been"as advertize"to Jess. He was a lone wolf, 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 dismay, his opinion sometimes turning to suicide. Home life sentence was ... well it was n't a house anymore ...

"Good morning Mr. knight ”, said his homeroom teacher, Mr. Toer."Morning ”, Jess replied back. He took his behind and started on the homework he did n't end death nighttime. Math was a particularly backbreaking subject for Jess. He was just one bad rate away from failing the subject for the semester, but at this power point that was the survive thing on his mind. Staring at the blank sheet of paper in social movement of him, his creative thinker started to wander."What am I even doing here ? I have no purpose, no desire, no happiness. If I decided to just run away today, will anyone guardianship ? Will my parents notice if I 'm not there ?"The Melville Bell for the end of homeroom rang, jolting him back into cognisance."Damn it ”, he thought, realizing he had n't done a one problem.

When the bell rang at 3:05, he was already driving away from school ( his brother was in ROTC and stayed for after-school activeness ), his human foot to the floor and the radio set blaring. medicine had become Jess'only reprieve from his life and he was retreating into it More and more, barely paying attention to anything else. euphony made him feel powerful, made him feel like he had a reasonableness to last. It seemed that the lyric poem of the song on the radio spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him finger happy that someone, somewhere understood what he felt.

When he got home, Jess went straight to his elbow room. As he was changing into his oeuvre uniform, he took a looking at himself in the mirror. He was 16, had long, dark Brown University pilus, electric blue heart, was about six foot improbable, 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 optic of the individual in the mirror looked so desolate and empty it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the luminousness and headed to work.

At work that nighttime, he just floated aimlessly through the evening, barely engaging the client, just wanting the night to end so that he could go home and sopor. Sleep, the one thing and one meter of the day when he did n't feel hollow, lifeless. When did n't feel anything but public security. The following day was Saturday and he did n't have to go to work or school day so he could sleep all through the night and well into the morning.

Opening the door to his house after work, Jess got a halfhearted"Hi"from his parents. The kind of"hi"that you say out of niceness, 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 spam, but then Jess saw the e-mail. Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the email, then shut off his computing device and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some lowly sense of hope.


unfavorable judgment welcome. Like I said, let me know if I should uphold .