Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the doze button on my alarm clock. He was so tired because he had been doing thirty hours a workweek at body of work lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his nursing home aliveness. Add in school and the preparation that came along with it and it was midnight or later by the time he got to bed."Who invented these matter anyway ? ”, he thought as he climbed out of bed.

Showered and dressed, he went downstairs to get some breakfast."Hi Jess ”, his comrade 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 elbow room and said"trade good first light"to her before leaving for school. Why he still did, he was n't sure. He had become so upstage, there was no literal connection left."Probably just out of substance abuse ”, he told himself. He kissed his mother adieu and then left with his Brother for school.

In the car, he and his brother did n't talk much. It was n't that they did n't like each other, but Jess and Luke had very little in common these days. They had different friends, Luke being to a greater extent of a social butterfly stroke ; unlike tastes in medicine, Jess listened to more sound metal and rock, while Gospel According to Luke was more into the pop medicine scene ; etc ... Once they got to school, that was it. The car ride there was the most fourth dimension they spent with each early in a day and whichever one was n't driving that day just stared at their phone the integral ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to school. High School had never been"as advertised"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 depressed, his thoughts sometimes turning to suicide. Home liveliness was ... well it was n't a home anymore ...

"Good morning Mr. horse ”, said his homeroom teacher, Mr. Toer."morn ”, Jess replied back. He took his hind end and started on the preparation he did n't fetch up cobbler's last night. Math was a particularly laborious subject for Jess. He was just one bad rank away from failing the subject for the semester, but at this point that was the last affair on his mind. Staring at the vacuous sheet of paper in presence of him, his mind started to wander."What am I even doing here ? I have no function, 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 Melville Bell for the end of homeroom rang, jolting him back into cognisance."hoot 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 shoal ( his comrade was in Reserve Officers Training Corps and stayed for after-school bodily process ), his foot to the flooring and the tuner blaring. Music had become Jess'only reprieve from his living and he was retreating into it more than and more, barely paying attention to anything else. Music made him feel brawny, made him palpate like he had a reason to hold out. It seemed that the lyrics of the Sung on the radio receiver spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him feel felicitous that someone, somewhere understood what he felt.

When he got home, Jess went straight to his room. As he was changing into his piece of work uniform, he took a smell at himself in the mirror. He was 16, had long, gloomy dark-brown hair, galvanizing blue centre, was about six metrical unit marvelous, and had slim trunk. The mortal 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 bare and vacuous it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the visible light and headed to work.

At piece of work that nighttime, he just floated aimlessly through the even, barely engaging the client, just wanting the night to end so that he could go home and eternal rest. Sleep, the one thing and one time of the day when he did n't sense hollow, lifeless. When did n't sense anything but peace. The next day was Saturday and he did n't have to go to sour or school so he could log Z's all through the Night and well into the morning.

Opening the door to his house after body of 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 way. Turning on his electronic computer, he checked his electronic mail. As usual, it was just a cluster of junk e-mail, but then Jess saw the electronic mail. Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the e-mail, then shut off his electronic computer and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some minor horse sense of hope.


critique welcome. Like I said, let me recognize if I should proceed .