John wakes up to his usual beeping alarm and reluctantly gets out of bed, slogging to the kitchen to eat. He never brushes his teeth in the morning, even though he forgot to brush yesterday night.
He reaches up to the top shelf of the pantry for the corn flakes. His fingers brush the side of the box. He stands taller on his toes, jumping slightly, to grab the box. More than once he has knocked the cereal all over himself. Luckily today wasn't one where this occurred.
Still half asleep, the boy goes through the normal 10-minute ritual of the morning. He finishes his cereal, throwing the bowl and spoon in the sink. He hurries to the door, grabs his backpack from the floor, and runs out and down the street, zipping up his bag as he goes.
As usual, John makes the bus by a mere few seconds. Breathing heavily, he finds his seat taken by a 11th grader, so he picks a random seat next to his neighbor, Sarah.
She ignores him, staring out the window with her earbuds in.
He sighs heavily, fumbling in his jacket pocket for his cheap mp3 player, replacing his confiscated iPod. Sticking the buds in his ears, he clicks the button to start his favorite song by his favorite band. Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons. He has many favorites by them.
He closes his eyes, leaning back in his seat and getting lost in the music.
Before long, a kick to the ankle snaps him back to reality.
"Hey, get off the damn bus. We're at school," Sarah says angrily.
John stands up and waits in the line filing off the bus. When he steps off, the cold air sends shivers down his spine.
He walks through the front doors and heads downstairs to meet Willy on the stairwell. Willy always arrives minutes before the bell rings so the black-haired boy has 15 minutes to burn.
John sits against the wall in the corner of the landing, starting on his daily indulgence in his nail biting habit. He waits for his friend for what feels like hours and when the bell rings, he determines the boy had stayed home.
Why does he get to stay home and I have to come to this Hellhole. I should take a day off some time- Wait no because then they'll need a note from a parent or doctor. They'd know I'm living alone.
He reluctantly picks himself up and pushes through the crowd to his first class, Biology. He listens to the teacher's introduction to the review sheet on cell division while doodling on the side of the paper. He always gets an A or a B on the test while only mildly paying attention. This angered most of his teachers but that's okay with him because everyone hates him anyway.
Why why why why why why why.
John's morning classes crawl by at a snail's pace, finally bringing him to the Lunch bell. He swings his bag over one shoulder and exits the school rather than going to the usual lunch spot. He doesn't like hanging around by himself.
He walks through the wet grass of the rear field and comes to his secret spot, located behind the sports shed. Okay, not that secret but still, his solitary sanctuary of sorts.
Rummaging through his bag, he finds his stash of peanut butter crackers. They're somewhat smashed, but that doesn't change anything. He opens the package and shakes the crumbs into his hand, then pours them into his mouth.
John watches the little pieces slide around in the plastic, taking one every few minutes.
Why am I so alone. What can I do. How can people be so care-free like Willy. Maybe I'm just the black sheep. What did I do that makes me so different?
Digging his mp3 out of his pocket, he sticks the buds in his ears, drowning out the world with Radioactive. He closes his one downside of using Imagine Dragons as earplugs is that you don't hear the football players messing around in the shed, and you don't hear when they find you sitting in their territory.
A football to the head snaps John out of his trance with full force. A bulky football player looms over him, laughing with the other players, joining him.
John scrambles up, collecting his things and preparing to abscond.
"Where ya going, don't wanna play?" The first one sneers, laughing stupidly with the others.
"Even pussies can play football, look," Another says loudly, throwing another ball that narrowly misses the small boy's face.
Adrenaline surges through him as the players close in on him. He makes one last attempt to escape through the small opening between the two largest guys, but it was quickly blocked off. He's trapped.
"Don't be scared, little faggot, we just wanna hang out," One says, pushing John into the to the ground.
He protects his face as best he can with his arms and brings is knees up to cover his stomach. Kicks from all directions shoot pain through him. He squeezes his eyes shut, begging in his head for it to end.
"Come on let's go," John hears one of them say and the kicks slow down.
One last hard kick to the head leaves him fighting for consciousness. He listens to the grass rustle as the bullies walk away. He doesn't move for minutes until he realizes they might come back if he doesn't leave.
He shakily picks himself up and collects his things as fast as he can, which isn't considerably fast, then stumbles back toward the school.
Everything aches and his head is throbbing. Dizziness doesn't help support his weak legs as he hesitates before opening the door.
I can't go to class and I can't skip. I seriously don't want to go to the nurse but I don't want to start any worse trouble.
He pulls the door open with some effort and staggers to the nurse's office as inconspicuously as possible.
The nurse is sitting at her desk, talking on the phone. "Yes, that's right. Just do that until the swelling goes down."
She catches sight of John a few seconds after he stops in the doorway.
"I'm going to have to call you back later," She says hanging up the gray phone. "What happened to you, sweetie? What's your name?"
"John," He said, avoiding the first question.
She cocked an eyebrow. "Last name?"
"Egbert," He shuffled up to the desk, seeing the nurse's name on the plaque, Ms. Valarie Daniels.
"Well John, you can call me Ms. Valarie. Or Ms. Daniels, whichever you like." She said, taking out a thin binder and leafing through a few pages. "Maybe after you lie down, you'll tell me what happened to you, hm?"
She writes something in, closes the binder, and stands up. She helps the tenuous boy to one of the green cots where he lies down, paper cover loudly crunching, and closes his eyes.
"Now why don't you tell me at least something about what happened," Ms. Valarie says softly, standing nearby.
Not opening his eyes, John slowly shakes his head.
Ms. Valarie sighs. "Well considering how shaky you were and all those bruises, I think you should go home. Do you want to call your mom or dad?"
John's eyes shoot open. "No, I can stay, I'm fine."
She's taken aback. "I don't think that would be a good idea, sweetie. Why don't you want to go home?"
"I like school," John says hesitantly.
Ms. Valarie looks at him skeptically. "Not many kids I know like school."
"I know, I'm just weird like that. I'm really weird." He says, looking anywhere but at the school nurse.
"You aren't weird just because you enjoy something," She said sweetly. "Whatever happened, it's okay. I won't make you go home, but we'll wait for you to go back to class. I can't just let you stay in here the whole time."
She looked sideways, crossing her arms and speaking in an annoyed tone. "I already let someone do that much too often. I might get fired eventually."
John didn't spare a glance as the nurse returned to her desk. He worked to clear his mind of any thoughts and maybe get to sleep, but a quiet voice came from the front of the room.
Opening one eye, John sees Ms. Valarie stand up and make her way over to the short boy dressed in all black. His hair is long, black and dry-looking, hanging so you could barely see his eyes. He wore a black jacket over a plain black T-shirt with grey jeans. Chains hung from his pockets and jingled as he ignored the angry-looking nurse, striding towards John.
The bespectacled boy quickly closes his eye again and pretends to sleep as Ms. Valarie attempts to shoo the unfamiliar classmate out of the room.
"I told you a million times, Tyler, don't come here without a reason ever! You come here all the time and it's not okay! If I let you stay here all the time, missing class, I could be fired," The woman hisses, gently pushing the new dark-haired boy back towards the door.
"It's lunchtime anyway, you're lucky I'm coming here now. Why can't I just hang out here, I won't bother you," Tyler says in his seemingly usual quiet and bored tone.
"Kids who are actually sick have to come here, and they could get you sick too," She reasoned.
"I seriously don't care. I just want to fucking sit here, God," He snaps.
"Will you watch your mouth at least at school! Haven't I told you that? I'll take away that precious iPod of yours," She threatens.
"If you take it away you know what will happen," He said nonchalantly, traipsing over to the cot across from John and sitting down.
John hears the paper crinkle loudly and gives up on resting. He stares at the speckled ceiling, listening to the two as they bicker.
For God's sake, what the fuck.
"I'm your mother and you will do as I say, now get going before I refer you to the office," Ms. Valarie said authoritively, pointing a finger to the door.
The small boy laughed. "Don't you think you're all high and mighty today. Let me tell you that's not going to work. Ever. You don't control me like that. Maybe if you weren't such an idiot I would listen a bit more."
She speaks again, now in a loud, angry and offended tone. "Well maybe if you were less of a brat all the time I would be nicer and possibly let you stay here at lunch, but no you decide to waltz right in here and bother me at work! Look, I have someone to take care of and we are disturbing him, at least be considerate of others! Isn't that what you want from everyone else? You don't realise you are the problem too."
Tyler ignores her and lies down, popping his earbuds in.
The nurse lets out a frusterated breath and grumbles to herself as she sits back at her desk in a huff.
John rolls over facing the back wall coming after the other row of beds. He stares blankly at it, thinking about what to do.
What if I go back to class, would that be okay? I mean my head hurts, well actually everything hurts, but that's okay, I'm not gonna die right?
A tap on the shoe alerts John of the other boy's presense.
"What the fuck happened to you," He whispers, barely audible over the clacking key strokes of Ms. Valarie's vigorous typing. She's facing her computer with her back to the two boys.
John sighs then answers quietly. "Nothing."
"Look, I've gotten beaten up before it's not like you have to hide it," Tyler says in a hushed tone, rolling his eyes.
"That's not really what happened, and anyway I don't even care," John says fixing his gaze on the back wall.
"Oh really, well ya' know what I do when I don't give a shit? When nobody gives a shit?" The dark clothed boy asked in a whisper. "You do this."
He pulls up a thick sleave revealing scars halfway up to his elbow. "It works fucking wonders."
John stares at the lines until Tyler recovers the wounds. The blue-eyed boy slowly looks up at the one standing over him. He looks like a shadow. A painless, care-free shadow. He pauses then speaks softly. "Really?"
"Yeah," Tyler creeps to the cot directly next to John's. "Just take anything sharp and-" He takes his index finger and sharply flicks it over his wrist.
"What if someone finds out," John says dubiously.
Tyler shrugs. "They don't. Nobody does, that would suck and they didn't care in the first place so-" He shrugs again.
"I guess," John says, sitting up slowly and adjusting his rectangular glasses. His body protests, making his muscles ache and reminding him painfully of his throbbing headache. He slides back, resting his back on the side wall.
The other boy goes back to listening to music leaving John to drown in his thoughts once again.
I updated this one twice in a row so y'all who like this one better be happyyyyyy! Nyeh! To the others wellllll I'm so sorry bros :[ I'll go as fast as I can 3
Also, if you hadn't caught on, the italics are John's thoughts :P
So thanks for reading again, as always leave comments, suggestions, etc. in the reviews or PM me. I love reviews guys, I do a looooot! Thank you byeeeeeeeeee! :D
EDIT: OMG I cannot believe I didn't even correct that jumble of shit sooner :| I'm so sorry, I was apparently trying to edit my word choice and stuff and then just stopped in the middle so it ended up not making any sense at all, if you already read the chapter before the edit, you know what paragraph I'm talking about! Anyway, sorry and update coming ASAP, just gotta update my first fic before this.