Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the short sleep button on my alarm clock. He was so sap because he had been doing 30 minute a week at piece of work lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his home life history. Add in school and the prep 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 blood brother and babe 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 female parent. Jess always went to his female parent 's room and said"good cockcrow"to her before leaving for school. Why he still did, he was n't sure. He had become so aloof, there was no existent connection left."Probably just out of wont ”, he told himself. He kissed his mother bye-bye and then left with his comrade for school.

In the car, he and his brother did n't spill much. It was n't that they did n't like each other, but Jess and Luke had very petty in common these day. They had different champion, Luke being Sir Thomas More of a sociable butterfly ; dissimilar gustatory sensation in medicine, Jess listened to more heavy alloy and rock, while Saint Luke was more into the pop music scene ; etc ... Once they got to school, that was it. The car ride there was the most sentence 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. in high spirits School had never been"as push"to Jess. He was a lone wolf, an outcast. He had not even a handful of ally, everyone knew everyone, but that was about it. Recently he had been feeling more and more depressed, his idea sometimes turning to suicide. Home life story was ... well it was n't a family anymore ...

"good first light Mr. knight ”, said his homeroom teacher, Mr. Toer."morn ”, Jess replied back. He took his seat and started on the homework he did n't fetch up finis night. Math was a particularly hard study for Jess. He was just one bad grade away from failing the guinea pig for the semester, but at this point that was the last matter on his nous. Staring at the blank sheet of theme in front of him, his idea started to weave."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 bell for the end of homeroom rang, jolting him back into consciousness."hoot it ”, he thought, realizing he had n't done a single problem.

When the chime rang at 3:05, he was already driving away from school ( his brother was in ROTC and stayed for after-school activities ), his ft to the storey and the receiving set blare. euphony had become Jess'only reprieve from his animation and he was retreating into it more and more, barely paying attention to anything else. music made him find powerful, made him feel like he had a ground to be. It seemed that the lyric poem of the song on the radio spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him finger happy that person, 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, colored dark-brown pilus, electric blue eye, was about six base marvelous, and had slim body. The soul 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 desolate and empty it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the ignitor and headed to work.

At work that night, he just floated aimlessly through the evening, barely engaging the customers, just wanting the night to end so that he could go home and sleep. Sleep, the one matter and one time of the day when he did n't feel hollow, lifeless. When did n't feel anything but peace. The next day was Sat and he did n't sustain to go to work or school so he could slumber all through the night and well into the morning time.

Opening the door to his menage 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 party that night, and then went to his room. Turning on his computer, he checked his e-mail. As common, it was just a gang of spam, but then Jess saw the e-mail. Charles Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the e-mail, then shut off his estimator and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some small sense of hope.


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