Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the forty winks button on my consternation clock. He was so tired because he had been doing xxx hours a calendar week at study lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his place life. Add in school 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 brother and sis said to him, almost in unison."Hi ”, he replied back. After eating breakfast, he went back upstair to brush his teeth. Then he came downstairs again and went to see his mother. Jess always went to his mother 's room and said"good good morning"to her before leaving for school. Why he still did, he was n't certain. He had become so distant, there was no existent connection left."Probably just out of habit ”, he told himself. He kissed his mother goodbye and then left with his comrade for school.

In the car, he and his comrade did n't speak much. It was n't that they did n't like each early, but Jess and Luke had very short in common these twenty-four hours. They had unlike champion, Luke being Thomas More of a social butterfly ; different tastes in music, Jess listened to more heavy metal and rock, while St. Luke was more into the pop medicine aspect ; etc ... Once they got to schooling, 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 earpiece the full ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to shoal. High school had never been"as advertize"to Jess. He was a lone hand, an Ishmael. He had not even a handful of admirer, everyone knew everyone, but that was about it. Recently he had been feeling More and more low, his sentiment sometimes turning to suicide. habitation life was ... well it was n't a home anymore ...

"Good good morning Mr. Knight ”, said his homeroom instructor, Mr. Toer."morning ”, Jess replied back. He took his seat and started on the homework he did n't polish off lastly night. Math was a particularly hard issue for Jess. He was just one bad grade away from failing the field of study for the semester, but at this point that was the last thing on his nous. Staring at the blank plane of paper in movement of him, his head started to wind."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."tinker's damn it ”, he thought, realizing he had n't done a I problem.

When the doorbell rang at 3:05, he was already driving away from school day ( his sidekick was in ROTC and stayed for after-school activities ), his foot to the floor and the radio cacophony. Music had become Jess'only reprieve from his biography and he was retreating into it more and more, barely paying care to anything else. medicine made him feel powerful, made him feel like he had a reason to live. It seemed that the lyrics of the song on the radio spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him palpate 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 face at himself in the mirror. He was 16, had long, gloomy Brown University hair, electric disconsolate center, was about six foot tall, 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 oculus of the someone in the mirror looked so waste and empty it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the light and headed to work.

At work that Night, he just floated aimlessly through the evening, barely engaging the customer, just wanting the night to end so that he could go home and sleep. Sleep, the one thing and one time of the day when he did n't feel hollow, lifeless. When did n't sense anything but peacefulness. The next day was Saturday and he did n't let to go to work or schooling so he could sleep all through the night and well into the sunup.

Opening the door to his sign after oeuvre, 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 nighttime, and then went to his way. Turning on his figurer, he checked his electronic mail. As usual, it was just a clump of spam, but then Jess saw the e-mail. John Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the electronic mail, then shut off his reckoner and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some minuscule signified of hope.


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