Edgar: Perfection
He was never perfect.
Sure, he was popular, but not because he was friendly or kind or handsome. He was popular because of his strength; or, more accurately, the fame and victories that strength was bringing to the school. He was the captain of the wrestling team, the state champion: the unstoppable Bull.
Besides, popularity didn't necessarily mean friends.
Just because he was on a team with the other members didn't mean they were friends. They had been for a while; at least, they had liked each other. But apparently, it had been for the same reason that he was popular. And people always need something to laugh at, someone to taunt and make themselves feel bigger.
They started laughing when he started painting.
What kind of wrestler paints? they would taunt. He would ignore them, focus on the easel, the blank canvas, the paint…
Painting brought him peace. It brought him friends; other kids in the art club, other misunderstood but kind kids who he could really connect with.
Of course, that didn't make the taunting better. It didn't change the fact that he was nothing more than a title-winner for people who didn't care about him.
He grew jaded, depressed. Even painting held no more joy for him. He was just about ready to fade into the background and let the cruel world pass by without him.
And then he met her- Lana.
Beautiful. Sweet. Talented.
Perfect.
And she wanted him. Him, the imperfect one. Somebody perfect wanted him.
Finally, finally, his world was perfect. He was brought to life anew. He fought harder, painted better. He lived every day with a smile on his face, because somebody perfect wanted him. Somebody perfect loved him.
And then he found out.
He found one of the locker room doors ajar after a wrestling match, and as he went to close it, he saw her- Lana, his vision of beauty and perfection, the one who had brought love and meaning back into his life- in the arms of another.
It all fell apart again.
Lana had left him. He was a wreck. He stopped winning wrestling matches. The school, his teammates turned on him.
But the one thing that suffered worse than his spirit was his painting. He tried and tried, but in the end, every painting was the same: the Bull, the embodiment of every foul thing that had plagued him in life, charging towards him, bearing down on him with fiery eyes…
He cast the painting aside in frustration and cried himself to sleep. When he awoke, he was in a room- a still, silent, colorless room, with nothing but the furious countenance of the charging Bull, and the pain of his own imperfection.