Add and Shake Well

Prologue

Life is like a drink. Every element has its own part to play in the ultimate creation, each contributing their own little bit to the taste, texture, or anything else. The end result depends on these separate elements, but in the grand scheme of things, it truly matters not. What actually matters is that each element is included, for not even one can be left out. They are all added—and shaken. Shaken well, preferably. In this aspect, everything is like a drink.

That was something imprinted on Alfred F. Jones early in his young life, but as the years passed, he started to doubt its truth. He was the exception to the rule after all, the element left out.

Granted, he did not notice it immediately. Not even after the car accident that altered his entire world in ways he still is not fully aware of today. The ways he did know, however, were that his parents were taken away. His home as well. Everything he knew before, including his brother. He still had a brother, for sure, but the older boy he knew before the accident was gone and even then he knew that there was not a chance to get him back. Still, he was ignorant, though happy. A brother was still a brother, and still his brother, even if not the exact same as before. His parents as well, though gone, were surely in a better place. If nothing else, they felt no more pain. Even better, he got a new parent. One every bit as loving even if he was not the exact same as what Alfred had lost. Even if he dared not call him better, or even "father," Arthur Kirkland was every bit as essential to Alfred's happiness as his actual parents had been.

He only began to notice in his school years. It was only little things at first. Minute differences between himself and others. He was no fool, even then. He knew that everyone was different, but they tended to be different in the same ways as others. For example, in gym class. At a glance nothing would be seen askew. Alfred was neither the fastest or the slowest, not even the most or least energetic. While he could not exactly be counted as average either, just what average was he not? The average of the entire class or the certain groups within the class? There were those good at running and those bad, but they were divided further between friendships, family ties, and a relation that Alfred just could not place. Strangely enough, although he could identify all the other groups, he could not find his own.

These tiny differences even manifested at home. He did not technically live with his older brother at the time, but they were no strangers. Even so, he saw these details namely with Arthur. Alfred could not say there was truly a change in the man, so it must have simply been his awareness. Arthur had different habits, as any person or adult would, such as his preference to dine alone. Alfred could honestly say he never saw the man eat or drink anything, or even sleep for that matter. As odd as Alfred found it, it was far easier to excuse than the other things he noticed. Arthur was different from him. Not just because of his paler skin, hair color, or any superficial details. He had a presence Alfred could never hope to share, something akin to the difference between Alfred and his classmates. He would be lying if he said the realization had not scared him at first, but in the end it truly only made him lonely.

All this is not to say that his relationship with his adoptive parent deteriorated. Not in the least. It grew as much as it could in the passing years, and the same was true with Matthew, his older brother, and adoptive uncle, Francis. Even his friendships with his classmates were not lacking. He was probably the one person that could move from group to group as he pleased, befriending everyone along the way. Yet the line he could never cross persisted. It is no lie to say he resented it for being there, but he was still happy. It may not have been everything he wanted, but it was more than enough. Or at least it was.

Middle school, while an awkward time of misguided feelings and choices for most, was a time of realization for Alfred. The line he had seen in his past between him and others no longer had to be looked for, it could no longer be ignored. He dared not to try and tread on it, even if to those on the outside looking in he was the center of the circle. He still could not name what exactly it was that each group had, the connecting factor. One part of him would have done anything to know while the other would have done anything not to. That same line that stood between him and Arthur seemed bolder and blacker than ever at home. At school, he truly saw the line between him and Matthew for the first time. He had always suspected that it was there, and if not he believed it merely had yet to form. After all, the Matthew he had truly known had been lost long ago and the new Matthew was growing apart from him with each day he stayed in a separate house. Yet the worst thing about it was never the line itself, but the fact of all it encompassed. Matthew had a group. He had that connecting factor that Alfred could not so much as even name. That day, was it envy he felt? Anger? Despair? Or simply loneliness? Maybe even apathy. He cannot remember.

What he does remember is coming to the conclusion that life was not how he had been told by his long deceased parents, where each thing played its own part. He was no such element. If he simply disappeared each group would function on. He had no influence on it whatsoever, no connection like all the others. Why would an element such as himself ever be placed into a drink in the first place if it had no effect? No matter how well it was shook, nothing was changing. The only conclusion he could come to was that he was not meant to be in the drink at all. A mere mistake. Plenty enough seemed to exist in the world. Why could he not be one?

In retrospect, even this was a product of ignorance. Though, as said before, he was no fool, Alfred fell prey to youth's intensity. In later years, maturity tempered his thoughts and perceptions. High school, where he exists now, brought new understandings. The line still persisted. If anything, over the years he felt it grow, but he did not hold it against anyone in particular. He still maintained as many friendships as he could and tried not to cause too much trouble for those around him. However, he stopped pushing. No one really seemed to notice his new aloofness, if it could even be called such, but he embraced the shallow relationships for what they were. After all, he finally figured something out that he had missed long ago: a connection takes two. The line was not a product he created on his own. He may have been the one lacking the essential trait, but he was not the sole obstacle.

So while he very well might have been a mistake in the grand scheme of things, he was no special being. He was not the singular unmixable element, but a singular being in a string of other mistakes. Nothing could make him believe that he was the sole person to have ever gone through such a thing, even if he had seen no others. The thought gave him no real comfort, but a priceless understanding of his situation. He figured out, strangely enough, that he was more similar to the others than he even realized, for he was as mixable as they. He did have an influence over the ultimate drink—He was its bitterness, an irremovable blemish that the drink would have far better been without. He knew that much while still not knowing what it was exactly that he lacked, though now he knew. Now he knew that he was the one and only human at home, in school, and probably even the entire town. His parent was a vampire, his brother a ghost, his uncle a werewolf, and his friends all sorts of other beings in worlds he could never enter.

So life is like a drink, shaken until mixed. That Alfred no longer doubts. Now he knows why his parents never said the end result mattered.