The Sharp Hint of New Tears
Chapter 1
By: Erynn*Alice
(Prologue)
The bell rang. He'd be late for class again, this time he'd be getting a detention. He didn't care. He needed some time to just sit and think. He unwound the tape from his wrists seeing dark pink marks imprinted on his skin from the tape. He rolled his fingers across the marks, glad that they hadn't gotten him too badly this time. Really, it wasn't the worst beating he had sustained from them. There were worse things they could and have done to him.
He'd never tell anyone, though. He knew they'd likely kill him if he did tell anyone. And even if he did tell, they were star baseball players, people the school needed, they'd never do anything about the beatings because that might mean one less trophy in the front hall. Who really cared if he just faded off the earth? No one.
They were the only guys in the school that were in the same caste system as her, and they knew how much he loved her. Really loved her deep inside. They ragged him about it every day after gym, baseball practice, class, lunch, every moment of every day he got this constant reminder of how he was nothing more than trash and how he could never have her. He knew it. Everyone did. He was a low life, a nothing. He didn't mean anything. Why would she ever care about him? Why would anyone waste a thought on him? They wouldn't. It'd never change, he was sure of it, he'd fade away and no one would know.
His pale skin on his stomach started to turn yellow, blue would darken the middle soon enough and the physical pain, he hoped, would over come this emotional grief that was buried not too far below the surface, slowly punching it's way out and into the open.
Everything in his life was going wrong. Everything. The money was almost gone, his dad was gone, his mom was almost about to shatter, his sister was sick, and his older brother was leaving soon. He worked every day after school into the late hours of the night, just so he could get enough money to buy food or to keep the house. Even the house was going to be stolen from him soon.
The little time he ever got to himself was spent trying to make music, tour, do something for himself. Every little minute he spent doing something for himself, made him feel guilty. Life had become a joke to him, and he started to want a way out of poverty, work, abuse, tears. Everything weighed on him.
The last good thing in his life was his band, and he just prayed that he could hang on just a little longer. Just stay in the race for just a little longer, he could make it, he promised he'd make it through, but everyday got harder, everyday was a new challenge, everyday hurt just a little more.
He bit at the edges around his fingernails while he thought about her. He was missing the only class he had with her. 'What's the use?' he thought, 'It's not like she even knows I'm there, anyway.'
But she did. She was one of the most perceptive people in the school. She was an observer, a writer, and a good one at that. She noticed when he wasn't there, she noticed how his face changed from walking in the room late to class from walking in the room after the teacher yelled at him in the hall.
She knew about his band, she knew about his brother, she knew about his father, his mother, his voice, his crush, him. She knew about him. He was the one guy in the school that she just couldn't date. She could have anyone else, but he was off limits. He was a billion levels below her in the caste system, and while it was okay for her to talk to him or anyone like him, dating him would make her as lonely as he was.
Her friend dated his brother, but she couldn't date him. It was one of those codes of high school that just couldn't be broken. One of those laws that just seemed to be punishable by death of reputation.
Everyone says that reputation isn't everything. Everyone says that, but everything everyone does is to benefit their reputation. At least in high school. In high school, the spotlight is always focused on one person.
Not this time. This time the spotlight was on both of them, as it always had been and always would be.
When you think you've found something worth holding onto
Were reaching for attention, hoping she would notice you
Collecting bottles and thrown-away cans
Like she was returnable One day would fill your hands
ow she loved you, all you imagined Fit so well into you plans
Maybe one day soon It will all come out
How you dream about each other sometimes
With the memory of How you once gave up
But you made it through the troubled times
Pining away every hour in your room
Rolling with the motion, waiting til it's opportune
Sitting there watching time fly past you
Why do tomorrow What you could never do
How she loved you All you imagined
All this shit she put you through
Maybe one day soon It will all come out
How you dream about each other sometimes
With the memory of How you once gave up
But you made it through the troubled times
And it takes a lot of nerve to ask how she is doing
Start with a weak foundation, you will end in ruins
The ways the days and hours pass you'll never understand
Falling like rain through your hands
Maybe one day soon It will all come out
How you dream about each other sometimes
With the memory of How you once gave up
But you made it through the troubled times
("Troubled Times" by Fountains of Wayne)