New Days [Completed]

New Days: Prologue

Max

"I'm falling apart, barely breathing

 with a broken heart, that's still beating..."

I'd doubted it before, because by moral standards, it shouldn't be right, but it is - it's true that misery loves company. And while hearing the song over and over again really didn't help better the situation, it gave me some sort of comfort to know that someone, somewhere had felt as I had, and had written that song. Or had seen someone else...whatever.

It was probably more a result of someone getting emotional and exaggerating their pain, but it was more gratifying to think of someone else having suffered, too.

I was in my bedroom, sitting on the floor with my back leaning against the wall; my head resting against the wall as well; earphones plugged in. After probably the fourth or fifth listen, I straightened up and wrapped my knees in my arms, huddling against myself. As I did so, yet another tear rolled down my cheek, adding to the stains on my tear-streaked face.

Indeed.

I had been crying. The once somewhat-hot-shot and captain of the basketball team was in his room like a lowlife crying his eyes out, because he couldn't do anything else. I had nothing then. I was a nobody. People still knew my name, if anything more people knew it, but it was one of those 'popular for the wrong reasons' scenario. As for the people who'd known me before, they didn't want to anymore. I wasn't who they had liked. Not that I wasn't me anymore - because oddly, after everything that had happened, I was closer to being myself than I ever truly had been. 

Sounds all philosophical and deep, doesn't it?

I doubt it makes sense, but then again, at that point in time, not much else did. It didn't make sense how something so small would have such drastic effects. It didn't make sense how years of friendship and brotherhood could be erased in the blink of an eye. It didn't make sense as to how it was possible for people to be so heartless. I could go on with a long list of things, but soon you'd get lost, and this wouldn't make sense either. 

Heck, I still don't know how I used the phrase 'make sense' so many times and-

Forget it. Let's start over.

I'm Max Grey. And I'm gay.