Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the doze push on my alarm clock. He was so tired because he had been doing thirty hour a week at work lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his family life. Add in schooltime and the preparation that came along with it and it was midnight or later by the sentence 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 babe said to him, almost in unison."Hi ”, he replied back. After eating breakfast, he went back upstairs to brush his dentition. Then he came downstairs again and went to see his female parent. Jess always went to his mother 's room and said"sound sunup"to her before leaving for schooltime. Why he still did, he was n't for certain. He had become so distant, there was no veridical connector 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 pal did n't speak much. It was n't that they did n't like each former, but Jess and Luke had very little in unwashed these days. They had different acquaintance, Gospel of Luke being more of a social butterfly ; unlike tastes in euphony, Jess listened to more grueling metal and John Rock, while Luke was more into the pop music picture ; etc ... Once they got to schooling, that was it. The car ride there was the most metre they spent with each other in a day and whichever one was n't driving that day just stared at their sound the entire ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to school. High schooling had never been"as advertised"to Jess. He was a loner, an outcast. He had not even a smattering of friends, everyone knew everyone, but that was about it. Recently he had been feeling more and more depressed, his thought process sometimes turning to suicide. Home life was ... well it was n't a abode anymore ...

"Good morning 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 land up last night. Math was a particularly hard case for Jess. He was just one bad rank away from failing the topic for the semester, but at this point that was the last thing on his mind. Staring at the blank sheet of paper in nominal head of him, his mind started to rove."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 ? will my parents notice if I 'm not there ?"The bell for the end of homeroom rang, jolting him back into consciousness."Damn it ”, he thought, realizing he had n't done a unity problem.

When the Vanessa Stephen rang at 3:05, he was already driving away from schooling ( his brother was in ROTC and stayed for after-school activities ), his foot to the floor and the radio din. euphony 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 sinewy, made him find like he had a reason to go. It seemed that the lyric poem of the birdsong on the radio set spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him experience happy that someone, 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 look at himself in the mirror. He was 16, had long, dark brown hair, electric blue eyes, was about six animal 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 oculus of the person in the mirror looked so abandon and empty it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the light and headed to work.

At study that nighttime, he just floated aimlessly through the evening, barely engaging the customers, just wanting the night to end so that he could go family and quietus. Sleep, the one thing and one time of the day when he did n't feel dig, lifeless. When did n't feel anything but public security. The next day was Saturday and he did n't have to go to work or school day so he could log Z's all through the nighttime 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 politeness, not because you actually meant it. He replied back, asked if anyone had made dinner that night, and then went to his way. Turning on his estimator, he checked his e-mail. As usual, it was just a clump of spam, but then Jess saw the email. John Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the email, then shut off his data processor and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some lowly sense of hope.


Criticism welcome. Like I said, let me jazz if I should extend .