I'm avoiding doing work by writing. Because YOLO!

Funny someone commented wanting more, just as I started to write the next chapter.


It's been a week after I saw Golden Boy get hit by the truck. I think that's what happened. I can picture him, there one moment and gone the next. I'm not even sure anymore. Maybe he just ran away when the truck came by and I missed it? I don't know. When Matt got home that day he told me I imagined it.

"But he was there!" I shouted, exasperated and trying to get him to believe me, "I saw him!"

"It's not real! It's all in your head!" Matt shouted back. He gripped my shoulders and shook me a bit with each word of his next sentence. "He does not exist!" I opened my mouth to say something else, but he cut me off, shouting, "Shut up! Just stop talking about him!" He wouldn't even look at me. His eyes were always focused on something behind me, like I wasn't worth his attention. It pissed me off more than anything. We're supposed to be brothers. He's supposed to have my back, even when I don't always have his. He's supposed to trust me and believe me when I start talking about the possible existence of supernatural beings that may or may not be haunting me. Is that too much to ask?

I hid in my room the rest of the day, and we didn't speak much after that little spat. Matt would try to start conversations, but I would ignore him, eventually he stopped trying. We went through our daily routines basically ignoring each other. Even at lunch during school, we wouldn't sit next to each other and we would only say the bare minimum.

Antonio and Francis started to give us worried glances.

I'm sure they talked about us when we left.

Matt wouldn't tell me if he'd be working on chemistry after school or not. He would just either be there silently waiting at the main doors to walk home with me, or I wouldn't see him until it was dark out.

"Who studies chemistry until its seven at night?" I asked him one day when he walked in the door.

"People who are going to get an A on the final." He replied without looking at me.

I roll my eyes, finals don't start for another four weeks. He's such a loser.

Today was one of the days where I walk home alone while Matt studies with his tutor or something. A little part of me wanted to go when the light was green for the cars. A little part of me wanted to step out in front of the traffic. A little part of me just wanted to prove Matt wrong. A little part of me wanted to see Golden Boy again.

But I didn't.

Because if Matt was right, and I was wrong, then I'd be deader than a doornail. Which would really suck.

With Golden Boy around, or not around, or in my head, or whatever. I've become more conscious of the world around me. And I don't mean, I suddenly recognize cars that pass me daily, or I appreciate the smell of the trees, or that I suddenly want to be friends with everyone.

No.

I mean I'm more conscious of the 'what if' moments. Like, I notice things and then my mind automatically thinks, 'What if that was Golden Boy?'

The shadows dancing across a wall in an empty room. The words that you can just barely hear in the distance, but can't make out. The figure that appeared just barely in your eye line and yet, when you glance to look, isn't there. The cold shiver running down your back on a hot day.

Suddenly anything could be because of Golden Boy.

Suddenly I feel like I need to be in a hospital.

Because he can't be real. Right?

Everything I've been 'noticing' is just my mind. Just my imagination. They don't mean anything and neither does he. I'm just being… subconsciously expressive.

Or that's what Matt keeps telling me.

And I'm starting to believe him.

Because why shouldn't I? I'm just going crazy.

I wait up for him every night. Just to make sure he gets home okay. Even if we're fighting –we still haven't said anything to each other since I last told him of Golden Boy- he still is my brother and I wouldn't be able to live without him.

So when it started to get to be around 9:38, I start to panic a little.

He should be home.

Where is he?

Just as I head downstairs to check to see if he maybe came home and I just didn't hear him? The front door opens before I'm even halfway down the stairs.

"I told you to be quiet!" Matt's voice whispers.

Someone's with him? I watch from the stairs as he walks in. But there's no one there. Maybe he's just on the phone or something. Yeah.

"I know, but he might." Matt says, laughter obvious in his tone.

Slowly, I walk the rest of the way down the stairs. Matthew still hasn't noticed me, and he keeps talking to nothing. Chuckling, he says, "Oh, don't be mean. You're not that great yourself." Then he rolls his eyes as he sets down his bag and mutters, "Right, I forgot."

In a matter of seconds, everything happens so fast; I walk up behind him, he turns, our eyes lock, he looks horrified.

"Matt?"

"Al."

"Who're you talking to?"

"…Myself."

"Yourself?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

His eyes dart around the room and he fidgets in his spot. Without really ever looking back at me, he says, "Because, I'm… uh, yeah, yeah, rehearsing. For, um, the play, right." He says, then weakly adds at the end, "For, for church."

"Church." I say. Blinking at him in slight surprise and confusion.

He nods, still fidgeting like a toddler in time-out, awaiting his escape.

"Matt." He glances up at me before looking away. I say the next words slowly, so he can understand why his claim doesn't make sense. "We don't go to church."

He glares hard at his immediate right. "I know." He says, obviously thinking fast, "But I volunteered, for like, community service, and they said I can help in the play. So I was practicing my lines, just now."

I cross my arms, "What's the play about?"

"Cain and Abel." He says immediately.

My mind draws a blank. He knows more bible stuff than I do. I play it off as me still questioning his sanity. "Which is…?"

"They're brothers. One of them kills the other." He says as he starts to walk around me and up the stairs to his room. I let him go, because I'm still trying to connect how whatever he was saying could have been used in a play, and when he would've gone to a church anyway.

It sounded like he was having a conversation. He really could have been talking to himself. It's not really uncommon. Antonio's friend, Lovino, talks to himself all the time. But Matt doesn't like unnecessary noise. If he wanted to talk to himself, he'd do it in his head. Not out loud.

I shake my head and begin to turn off the lights, lock the doors, and get ready for bed. By the time I make my way back upstairs, Matt's light is still on. Its bright glow seeps out from under the closed door. I can hear him still talking to himself. "Rehearsing his lines" or whatever. When I pass his door, it just sounds like a lot of giggling to me.

Maybe Matt's the crazy one.

What if this is all Matt's dream? And I'm a part of it? And I became self-aware? That'd be cool. But I'd rather enjoy waking up now.

But not right now. Right now, I just want to curl up and sleep and hopefully forget about Golden Boy and Matt's weirdness.


I've been writing this all day and I've changed it twice and I still don't know how I feel about it.

Tell me what you think.