Jack Knapier had always been the odd one out. Always showing up to school with oddly shaped bruises all over his body and a different story every time someone asked about them.
At recess, he would hang upside down from the monkey bars, not letting anyone else passed and not moving from the spot until the bell rang. The only time a teacher asked why he did that, he simply answered, "I like the feeling of blood rushing to my head. I like blood." And then he laughed.
Kids called him a freak. Weird. Crazy. Jack Knapier was not crazy. People in the funny red jumpsuits were crazy, not Jack. Jack didn't even like the colour red, let alone wearing jumpsuits.
Only one person understood Jack. Only one person truly got him. Sarah Petterson was the only one who could ever relate to Jack. She liked his stories about his bruises, and sometimes joined him on the monkey bars.
She said that she liked blood, too.
Sarah Patterson had CIPA - or congenital insensitivity to pain, but nobody in their grade three class could get passed the word 'congenital.' It meant that she couldn't feel pain. One time, for show and tell, she took out a knife and nearly cut off her arm, showing her classmates her talent.
Nobody liked her talent, other than Jack of course.
In grade five, the bullying really started. Jack didn't even know that people didn't like him until he had to go to the school nurse because one of the other boys had shoved him into a locker.
Sarah got him back by finding a dozen dead mice and putting them in his lunch kit. She met Jack at the nurses and told him what she did.
Nobody was nice to Jack. He had the dark bruises and the broken nose that wouldn't stop drip, drip, dripping with blood to prove it. Sarah was the first. And he would do anything for her.
In seventh grade, when Jack was sitting alone at his table as usual, a pretty girl with long, long hair walked by. He smiled politely, as heat rushed up to his face and she giggled and smiled. Maybe he finally had a chance at some normalcy?
For the next few weeks, Jack smiled at the girl from his spot at his table and he would always smile back. Her name was Eleanor Jameson, locker 484. He knew that because he was the one who sent her love notes everyday, marked as anonymous.
And then one day, copies of the notes were found all over school. But instead of anonymous at the bottom, his name, Jack Knapier, was put in big bold letters. The teasing was horrible. And Eleanor's was the worst.
She never smiled at him at lunch anymore.
The day after, Eleanor's long, long hair was gone, leaving only a bald head in its place. Eleanor told everyone that she donated it to cancer but Jack knew what really happened when Sarah handed him an envelope full of blonde hair.
Sarah Patterson shaved Eleanor's hair off.
Jack thanked her once again, and for the second time, thought that he would do anything for her.
In high school, Jack and Sarah spent their days together, throwing rocks at their neighbours cats or testing the extents of Sarah's CIPA. She really couldn't feel a thing.
In senior year of high school, Jack and Sarah were in their usual spot on Sarah's floor with a knife in her hand as they watched in awe as blood pooled from her thighs and arms and feet. The colour was so red! Like the colour of the crazy people in the red jumpsuits!
Sarah had grown an interest in Glasgow Grins and spent her time looking up images on her slow Internet and marvelling them like they were some trophy instead of a disfigurement.
So anyway, as Sarah and Jack sat in the middle of her room with a knife in their hands, Sarah told Jack all about these Glasgow Grins. She told him how they were cuts from the edges of someone's mouth to their ears.
"I want a Glasgow Grin." Sarah decided. "I always want to smile, even when I'm sad."
Sarah took the knife that she had found in her kitchen and placed it at the edge of her mouth. Jack watched as she started to cut the flesh open until she reached the muscles in her jaw where she couldn't cut anymore. And then, she did it to the other side.
She didn't feel the horrible pain that should have been there. All she felt was blood running like a waterfall down her chin and dripping onto her white shirt, staining it crimson.
"I want you to always be smiling, too." Sarah said, handing Jack the knife.
"I'd do anything for you." Jack agreed before putting the knife on the inside of his mouth as he started to cut.
It hurt. A lot. But Jack kept on cutting until there were two scars on both sides of his face in the shape of a smile. Tears mixed with the blood as Jack set the knife back on the ground.
Jack wanted to call the hospital. To make them fix it and make the horrible, horrible pain go away. But he didn't, because then they might take his smile and Jack would do anything for Sarah.
Eventually, Jack went home and when he got there, his mother screamed and screamed and screamed. She called the ambulance before she screamed and screamed and screamed some more.
The paramedics got there in time and gave Jack a bunch of medicine that made the pain go away. When he woke up in a hospital bed a few days later, his mouth was all seen up.
They told him that the scarring would stay forever. They also told him that his only friend, Sarah Patterson, had bled to death in her bed. So she wouldn't even be able to see Jacks new smile.
The doctors called him crazy and sent him away. They locked him up with a diagnostic of 'totally off his rocker' and didn't think another second of it.
So when Jack Knapier broke out of the insane asylum for the first time, the doctors were the first people he painted his famous smile on. He wanted to keep his smile to himself but he knew that Sarah would want more people to smile.
And he would do anything for Sarah.