Chapter One

The day started as it usually did. Groggily, Jess leaned over to hit the short sleep clitoris on my warning device clock. He was so tired because he had been doing thirty hours a workweek at work lately and he was n't sleeping well because of his domicile life. Add in school and the homework that came along with it and it was midnight or later by the prison term 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 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 morning"to her before leaving for school. Why he still did, he was n't sure. He had become so aloof, there was no real connection left."Probably just out of habit ”, he told himself. He kissed his mother cheerio 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 petty in usual these days. They had different admirer, Luke being more of a social butterfly stroke ; dissimilar tastes in euphony, Jess listened to more arduous alloy and stone, while Gospel of Luke was more into the pop music scene ; etc ... Once they got to shoal, that was it. The car ride there was the most clock time they spent with each other in a day and whichever one was n't driving that day just stared at their phone the stallion ride.

Everyday he dreaded going to school. High schoolhouse 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 dispirited, his thought sometimes turning to suicide. base life was ... well it was n't a family anymore ...

"Good morning Mr. Knight ”, said his homeroom teacher, Mr. Toer."sunrise ”, Jess replied back. He took his seat and started on the homework he did n't finish lowest night. Math was a particularly toilsome subject for Jess. He was just one bad range away from failing the subject for the semester, but at this head that was the net affair on his idea. Staring at the dummy flat solid of newspaper publisher in forepart of him, his mind started to wander."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 Alexander Bell for the end of home room rang, jolting him back into consciousness."Damn it ”, he thought, realizing he had n't done a 1 problem.

When the gong rang at 3:05, he was already driving away from schoolhouse ( his brother was in ROTC and stayed for after-school activities ), his foot to the floor and the radio blaring. euphony had become Jess'only reprieve from his biography and he was retreating into it more and more, barely paying attending to anything else. euphony made him feel brawny, made him feel like he had a reasonableness to live. It seemed that the lyrics of the Song on the radiocommunication spoke directly to him, lifting him up, making him feel felicitous that mortal, 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, sour brown hair, electrical dreary oculus, was about six foundation tall, and had slim torso. The person staring back at him looked so far away, it looked like him, but it was n't him. The eyes of the somebody in the mirror looked so desolate and empty it was shocking. Sighing to himself, he turned off the light and headed to work.

At piece of 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 base and quietus. Sleep, the one affair and one meter of the day when he did n't feel hollow, lifeless. When did n't finger anything but peace. The following day was Saturday and he did n't have to go to puzzle out or school so he could sleep all through the night and well into the morn.

Opening the doorway to his business firm after work, Jess got a halfhearted"Hi"from his parents. The form 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 room. Turning on his data processor, he checked his electronic mail. As common, it was just a bunch of Spam, but then Jess saw the e-mail. Wesley had responded to him ! Jess read the e-mail, then shut off his calculator and got into bed. Falling asleep, he smiled to himself, feeling some small sense of hope.


Criticism welcome. Like I said, let me acknowledge if I should preserve .