Hello wonderful readers, well I have successfully procrastinated on all of my work this weekend but I got this done so that's what counts! Thank you all for the wonderful responses to Chapter 1 they were so encouraging! Please review, they are life giving and help me to keep writing.
I do not own Newsies as I am a poor college student. Enjoy!
Beep-Beep-Beep! Beep-Beep-Beep! Beep-Beep-Beep! Beep-be…
Jack woke to his roommate turning off his alarm. Man he was still tired. Jack checked his phone for the time.
5:30.
A. M.
Jack pulled his covers over his head in an attempt to deny the fact that he was awake. Why. Why would anyone set an alarm for 5 in the morning when there were no scheduled meetings until after lunch!? This kid was not off to a good start and all Jack could hope for was that maybe there would be some normal people on his floor he could hang out with.
Ugh.
Crutchie hated the 5:30 alarm so much. He had started a new set of pain medications last month to help with his leg and they worked well but the first dose was at 5:30 which just wasn't fair.
He swung out of bed, grabbed his crutch, and started to hobble towards his cabinet before he stopped after almost tripping on a bag in front of him.
His roommate was here!
He glanced over to the other bed and noticed his new roommate had curled up beneath his covers. Crutchie felt awful. His first impression with the guy who he hoped would become his best friend was a ridiculously early alarm with no explanation.
Crutchie grabbed his meds out of his cabinet and hopped down the hall towards the bathroom. He had to figure out someway to make it up to his roommate for waking him up so early. He could bake something, no that would come off as creepy. He did have a little bit of chocolate leftover from a party he went to, he could explain himself and then give him some of that, who wouldn't want chocolate?
He hobbled over to the sink, got a class of water, and swallowed his pills. He turned to leave as his crutch was kicked out from under him. Crutchie fell, his head slamming against the floor.
"Oh well sorry there freshman. Here's a tip, stay outta this bathroom before 6."
Crutchie slowly picked himself up. "I'm sorry guys, I don't want trouble I just have to…"
"Well you being here is causing us trouble, we've got our own stuff to do in here. Right Oscar?"
"Right Morris. So we suggest you get out of here before we crush your other leg."
Crutchie struggled to his feet and fled to the door as quickly as he could manage, finding sanctuary in the open air of the hallway. He cringed as he lifted his hand to his head. He did his best to slow the blood coming from his forehead.
He slowly made his way over to the door at the end of the hall. He had planned on going back to bed but he didn't want his new roommate to see him like this. Opening the door he spotted a small strip of woods he had seen out his window the night before. It wasn't too far away and he should be able to manage it without too much effort.
The woods had always been his secret haven. His escape from the hell that was life. Growing up without a family was never easy, but combining that with his one working leg made life seem impossible. Every school he went to in every town he moved to people found a way to make fun of him. For anything. For everything. So he ran to the woods.
He first went into the woods when he was seven. It was his fifth foster home and after only a month in it was already the worst one yet. His foster mom liked to drink. A lot. One night she came home at two in the morning barely holding on to consciousness. She started yelling about a man named Frank who Crutchie figured must have been one of her ex-boyfriends. He had apparently showed up at the bar and wanted to come home with her, she slapped him (not that it would have been out of character for her to have an ex spend the night) and that's when things got ugly. They both went after each other until they kicked him out of the bar and she proceeded to drown her pain in Jack Daniel's.
When she got home she was in a rage. The lamp and the new TV were the first things to go, they always were, it was their third new TV in the month he had been there. Crutchie tried to hobble away but she was too quick. A pile of books nailed him in the back and he lay immobile on the ground.
"I was doing fine before you showed up! Rick actually was thinking about staying for more than a night till he found out I had gotten a cripple. Who's going to pay those medical bills?! Not him and certainly not me. So help me, I will end you!"
She came barreling at Crutchie before her shin collided with the coffee table, sending her tumbling to the floor. Crutchie seized his chance and burst out the back door, working his crutch as fast as he could. He went straight for the trees, looking frantically for somewhere he could disappear. Finally he felt he was deep enough in where he knew she would stop looking for him, not that she would have cared to look anyway except to add another belt mark to his back. He sat down at the base of a sprawling tree and slowly began to sob, not knowing anyone in the world who he could cry with.
That was the beginning. Trees became his refuge from the storms of life. It was the only place he allowed himself to cry. Everyone already saw him as too weak and he didn't want to give them any more reasons to believe that. So now he returned to the woods, his head throbbing while his heart ached.
He sat down by a tree near the middle, hidden from view from the rest of the world. Tears slowly rolling down his cheeks. College was going to be different. He had known it was supposed to get better in college. But of course college was just like everything else in his life, a litany of dashed hopes and crushed dreams.
Jack lifted his hands to the sky and yawned as he checked his phone.
"10 A.M. Now this is when normal human beings wake up," he thought to himself. He glanced over at his roommate's bed to find it empty. "Weirdo."
Swinging his legs out of bed he got dressed and opened the door to find his hallway much more full of life that it had been the night before. He marveled at how quickly forty strangers could become friends.
"What'chu lookin at freshman?"
"Nothing, just looking down the hallway. Didn't know that was going to be a problem."
"Well it won't be if you stick with us and learn the ropes kid. We know the right places, the right parties, and the right ladies. You in?"
"Umm sure, yea I guess."
"Great, what's your name kid?"
"It's Jack."
"Cool Jack, I'm Oscar and this is my brother Morris. You want to head out to see campus?"
"Sure let's do it."