Can You Feel My Heart?

Lover

And despite everything, he still loved her. He finally had a reason to live. But then she was gone.

•••
Eight Days Before
The next day, Jake went to school, his anxiety at its peak. Nothing. He had nothing. He was thinking about her again, and where she could have gone, and if she was still breathing. His mind was pounding with questions, and he didn't pay any attention to his surroundings.
He didn't notice the stares, or the laughs, and he certainly didn't see the pointing.

Then a piece of paper landed at his feet.

"Read it, Jakey." The boy in front of him, Lance, pushed Jake against a locker. Lance's friends appeared behind him, one of them shoving a sheet of paper in Jake's face.
Jake took the paper slowly and Lance let him go, his friends laughing as the group turned a corner.

Jake was shaking. Crumpling the paper, he put it in his pocket and went to class.

•••

The laughing never stopped. Everyone would glance at him, and every now and then he heard someone talking about him.

"I wonder if he's read it."

"Poor Jake."

"Guys, I think he can hear us. Shut up!"

Jake had a feeling what they were talking about. He knew. In his seat, he pulled the paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. He smoothed it over with his hand three times, before he began to read.

Every day he knocks, at strictly six o'clock.

I wait for the first punch, but he never gives a hunch.

I am always bleeding, from my mouth and from my nose.

I can feel the pain, for it spreads to my toes.

He is nothing, but then again, so am I.

So here I am waiting, for myself--and he--to die.

My father is a wicked man, he has no heart.

I keep waiting, and waiting for my world to fall apart.

And I am so afraid, that it might be
happening.

Can someone please help me, please I am begging.

Please, there is no life for me.

And it's not long, before I set
myself free.

Is anyone there, I am pleading, help.

I guess not then, to my grave I will melt.

-Jake

He was already screaming when the teacher dragged him out of the classroom.

"You can get a drink if you'd like," she said. She had a look of sympathy in her eyes, which meant she knew about the poem, and that maybe she expected his reaction.
"No, thank you," Jake cried. His voice cracked.

Slowly, he slid down into an abyss of hatred and fury, not toward the person who exposed his poem, but toward himself.

•••

You think that's it? Oh please, there's more pain to come.
Yours Truly,
Quiet Observer.