Alex's Tears chapter 4
An: Sorry this took awhile but I find this one a little difficult to write. Thanks for all who have reviewed! Enjoy.
He stared at mirror and saw a killer.
Not that the mirror would tell.
He tried again.
He looked at the mirror and saw crook, a fugitive, not running from the law but from justice of his own conscience, running from the blood on his hands.
(Not that ever got to read Macbeth with the rest of his classmates).
No, he shook his head.
He gazed at the mirror at the virtual image, an impeccable fake of an normal teenage boy who didn't really exist.
(Or that's what the physics lessons he never got to attend didn't tell him).
He blinked. He tried to see what others saw.
He admired the mirror and contemplated the attractive lie it told.
A teenage boy, blond hair slightly disheveled suggesting a roguish, popular character never lacking friends or easy companionship.
A slightly too low tie knot implies that he is stylish but not rebellious.
An winning smile suggests he has a bright future full of opportunities ahead of him.
He avoids looking into his own eyes, knowing he will recognize his true nature hiding inside.
The scars: carefully hidden by long sleeves and a little of Smither's special cover-up that he quietly gave to Alex after he got out the hospital after the kid-
No! He told himself as the mirror's image started to blur, the façade of that happy young man breaking up. Don't think about that blood covered, gore filled, pain saturated time. Don't recall the way you were lost in the darkness and for the first time truly gave up. Don't call to mind those nightmares that are all to ready to attack and tear your mind apart. Don't.
But it's too late.
Alex leaves the room not the schoolboy he wishes to be, but the hopeless druggie his peers paint him as.
He doesn't see the reflection in the mirror that tells the truth; a soldier at his breaking point, deserted by his allies, failed by his superiors, covered with not the gallons of blood he envisage but by the regrets and mistakes of others, his face shining with beautiful tears.
But they aren't beautiful, not really.
He won't ever heal completely, not really.
He isn't a murderer, not really.
He isn't a tool forged in battle, not really.
His life isn't over, not really.
He's a human being, not a monster – but only just.
(He wonders how long in will be before he relishes taking a life. He doesn't like this own answer. Not long.)