Chapter 1

"Well it all started..."

"Not too far away from here," The handsome man had been interrupted by a weedy man leaning against the doorway. His hair was curly and unbelievably messy; it was like a mini afro. The two knew each other, I could tell from the way the handsome man glared at the newcomer. At first I was worried about hostility, but the newcomer just laughed it off. "Sorry mate couldn't help it," He laughed as he sat next to the blue eyed beauty; I would refer to him as that until I found out his name. Beauty.

"You never can," Beauty replied. He flashed a crooked smile at the newcomer, it was the first time his eyes had left mine, but it was only for a moment and soon they were back to their original place.

"You really shouldn't start like that all the time, jazz it up a little, be DIFFERENT! I thought it would be boring enough repeating the same story over and over again, never mind reciting it word for word!" I felt guilty then. So this man had spoken to me before, about the same thing and every time he told me I must have forgotten. I was boring him. I couldn't bore Beauty, it felt cruel.

"It's not boring, it's never boring." Said Beauty softly, still staring into my eyes. That really made my heart skip, I had to know him, I just had to.

"So we're telling the story again. I'll stay with you, but I'm not keeping along with your usual monotone dribble. If it's not boring for you, it's probably boring for her and it is defiantly boring for me." The newcomer seemed almost triumphant, though he hadn't won anything as far as I could tell.

"Whatever Seth, but don't annoy me." Seth, so that was the newcomer's name, even as he said this Beauty still stared at me. "He's one annoying bugger that one," It was the first time since newcomer, I mean Seth, walked in that either seemed to acknowledge me. Before then they'd been speaking as if I wasn't in the room.

"Oh I am," Seth said. It was clear to me that these two teased each other, but it seemed playful. Almost like brothers. A lady walked into the room then, she was brunette and rather small. She sat down next to Seth, not gracefully like I would have expected her to, she just plonked herself down. "That's one of the reasons my wife and I are perfect. We share personality traits!" Seth directed his comment at me, he made me laugh. He seemed like a funny guy this Seth. The girl hit him around the head when he said it though, but it was a playful hit.

"OWWW, woman! You don't even know what we were talking about!" Seth replied indignantly to the smack.

"I know it's something to do with your sarcastic humour, Cohen, and that's never good when my name's mentioned." She replied, pretending to be angry. She wasn't a very good actress.

"But I didn't even mention your name, my lovely,"

"Wife?"

"Ok, but that isn't actually your name." She raised her hand playfully at this comment and he pretend to shy away before giving her a peck on the lips.

Beauty still stared into my eyes, and I stared back into his. I saw how tortured he was, he didn't look like he'd slept in days. His eyes gave away everything he was trying to hide. He looked scared, worried and most of all alone. He looked lonely, even among these two people who I knew must be his friends.

The lady reached over to Beauty and put her hand on his knee.

"Are you ok?" she inquired, she seemed worried about him.

"Yeah, I'm fine Sum. I was about to tell Marissa here a...erm...story." His last word seemed to be hard to say.

"It's not a story," The lady said to me, "It's not a story because it's true, all of it. People really did this stuff. Some of it sounds a little crazy but people did it. They had feelings and thoughts about everything that happened. There really are people out there who experienced all that he's going to tell you, felt it all, people who really felt the things he's going to tell you, people who remember it all. And don't regret a single minute of it. Because it made them who they are now, all those experiences and feelings played a part in making them. What they felt for each other, that was real too." And halfway through her speech I got the feeling she was no longer telling me something, rather convincing herself, Seth and Beauty of something.

Beauty looked at her, "Thank you, Sum" he said. I wasn't sure if he was saying thank you for the knowledge I now had about this 'story' or for what she was trying to secretly say to him.

"Come on then, let's get started." Seth said, trying to lighten the mood. He put his arm around Sum and she buried her head in his chest. Was she crying? I wondered what Sum was short for. I couldn't think of anything.

"I'm not really sure where the whole thing begins. I suppose it really began when they met, but there was so much...stuff that happened because of events before that." Beauty's eyes looked even more tortured as he said this, I felt guilty. It seemed to be my fault. "Well, they met..."

"They, being a girl and boy. And well he was a newcomer to town, it was a rich town, Newport it was called. She was the princess, rich kid, lived there all her life with Queen Mummy and King Daddy and her little princess sister." Seth interrupted again, he smiled at me. I liked Seth, but not how I liked Beauty. Beauty look at Seth, he seemed upset with the way Seth had described these two people.

"Thanks, Seth. Well he'd been recently adopted by a family who lived in Newport, next door to this girl. His home before had been...broken. He lived in a bad neighbourhood, in a bad town. His elder brother got into all sorts of trouble, though what would you expect when their father had been put away for 20 years when he was only 5. He was the good boy of the family. His mum was drunk all the time, occasionally high. She had a tendency to get bad boyfriends. One was particularly bad, he moved in with them. He hated him, he hit his mother and if he tried to protect her, he hit him too... "

"Look, dude, give them names, even if it isn't their real names because this is going to get so confusing. Even for me and I've heard this a thousand times over." Seth interrupted Beauty again. I was glad he did, I was beginning to get confused as to which 'he' or 'she' Beauty was referring to.

"Oh, yeah, sorry." This all seemed like a difficult subject for Beauty to talk about. "Well the boy, call him James and the girl Emily. The mother can be called..."

"Kat, as a reference to Catwoman, then the brother can be called...Owen. The boyfriend guy is an asshole and pretty fucked up in the head so let's call him Joker." Seth had interrupted again; he seemed to like choosing names for these people. I remembered what Sum had said, that it was real, that it wasn't a story. Maybe they knew who was in the story; maybe they were in it themselves. They may have been changing their own names; mine was probably in their somewhere too. I learnt something new or possibly I was remembering it, but Seth, he seemed to like comics.

"Yeah, those are the same as yesterday, what happened to being DIFFERENT?" Beauty emphasised the word just as Seth had done earlier.

"Hey, dude, I didn't want to totally confuse you."

"Whatever. So to cut it short James got kicked out of his home, Kat couldn't cope so he got adopted by the Ascher family. The adults of the family, Tom and Lilly had one son, Josh. Josh was the same age as James, they became best friends, like brothers. James and Emily fell in love, but it was never gunna work out." It looked like it hurt Beauty to say these words; he seemed to be rushing through everything. "It seemed better for them to be friends, but they weren't even that in the end. And..." At that point Beauty looked like he was about to cry, his voice just stopped. And he stood up, letting go of my hand for the first time. I felt cold without him sat there. "I'm sorry, I just...I...I...it hurts." He look at Seth and Sum apologetically, then he turned to me and his soft eyes looked into mine. He tried to hide it; he quickly turned his head away and walked out of the white room.

There had been a tear in his eye.