Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the snooze button on my alarm clock. He was so sap because he had been doing XXX hours a week at work lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his home 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 thing anyway ? ”, he thought as he climbed out of bed.

Showered and dressed, he went downstairs to get some breakfast."Hi Jess ”, his brother 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 mother. Jess always went to his mother 's room and said"good dawn"to her before leaving for shoal. Why he still did, he was n't surely. He had become so distant, there was no real connection left."Probably just out of use ”, he told himself. He kissed his mother goodbye 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 Gospel of Luke had very short in vernacular these days. They had different friends, Luke being more of a social butterfly ; different tastes in medicine, Jess listened to more grueling metal and rock'n'roll, while Luke was more into the pop euphony fit ; etc ... Once they got to school, 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 phone the entire ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to schooling. High School had never been"as advertised"to Jess. He was a loner, an outcast. He had not even a fistful 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 life was ... well it was n't a rest home anymore ...

"Good break of day Mr. horse ”, said his home room teacher, Mr. Toer."sunup ”, Jess replied back. He took his seat and started on the preparation he did n't finish last night. Math was a particularly firmly subject for Jess. He was just one bad score away from failing the subject for the semester, but at this point that was the live affair on his mind. Staring at the clean sheet of paper of newspaper publisher in front of him, his idea started to wander."What am I even doing here ? I have no purpose, no desire, no felicity. If I decided to just run away today, will anyone charge ? Will my parents notice if I 'm not there ?"The bell for the end of home room rang, jolting him back into consciousness."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 chum was in ROTC and stayed for after-school activities ), his foot to the storey and the radio receiver cacophony. euphony had become Jess'only reprieve from his life and he was retreating into it more and more, barely paying attending to anything else. Music made him feel powerful, made him finger like he had a reasonableness to live. It seemed that the lyrics of the vocal on the radio 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 way. As he was changing into his oeuvre uniform, he took a look at himself in the mirror. He was 16, had long, sorry browned hair, electric bluing eyes, was about six metrical 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 desolate and empty it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the light and headed to work.

At oeuvre that Nox, he just floated aimlessly through the eventide, barely engaging the client, just wanting the night to end so that he could go home and eternal sleep. Sleep, the one thing and one sentence of the day when he did n't feel hollow, lifeless. When did n't feel anything but pacification. The adjacent day was Saturday and he did n't accept to go to work or schooltime so he could catch some Z's all through the night and well into the morn.

Opening the threshold to his firm 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 information processing system, he checked his e-mail. As usual, it was just a clump of spam, but then Jess saw the email. Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the electronic mail, then shut off his information processing system and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some modest good sense of hope.


Criticism welcome. Like I said, let me love if I should go forward .