Blue Breeze

Prologue

Ike slammed Torin down onto the cold, stone floor, hitting the ground with a sharp crack and sending a jolt of excruciating pain through Torin's entire head. Blood began pouring out onto the floor from the freshly opened wound on Torin's head.

"That'll fucking teach you. God, why the fuck do you have to be so fucking weird?" Ike yelled as he kicked Torin in the side once more, causing his body to jolt.

"Holy shit, man! He hit the ground hard!" Arion, Ike's lackey cheered from the corner. Ike began to walk away from the scene, with Arion following behind. Ike's black sneakers, coated in Torin's blood, left the scene, leaving Torin bloody and bruised on the bathroom floor. Torin's blood loss caused him to eventually lose consciousness.

Torin woke up a few hours later in the hospital. The doctors explained that he had lost a lot of blood, that they had stitched his head up, and that the wound would heal in several days. Torin, not mentally present, signed the papers they wanted, finally being allowed out of the hospital. He walked out of the hospital, seeing that it was already dark outside and looked for his car, before suddenly remembering he was brought in an ambulance.
"Fuck-" Torin muttered to himself, realizing how much money the ambulance ride would cost him. He looked through the contacts on his phone, trying to find someone that both had a car and could legally drive him to his house, until he stopped on the face he had thought about on many lonely nights. Cecil Norwood. Torin was polite acquaintances with Cecil, but Cecil also seemed to be polite acquaintances with everyone. Even though Torin barely knew Cecil and just had his number from a group project a month or two back, he was Torin's best chance of getting a reliable ride. Torin opened the contact and called him, the phone ringing twice before a gentle voice rang through the speakers.
"Hey, Torin, what's up?" Cecil asked politely, with a hint of nervousness as to why Torin was calling him that late at night. Torin took a shallow breath before speaking.

"I need to ask a favor of you," Torin asked, crossing his fingers that weren't holding the phone. Cecil, the caring person he was, responded almost immediately.

"Sure, what do you need?" Torin paused for another moment before speaking.

"I need a ride from the hospital. Long story short, I got into an... accident, and I had to get an ambulance here."

"I'll grab my keys and be there in about ten minutes. Where will you be standing?" Classic Cecil, jumping into action immediately. Cecil was known to never pry into someone's personal business, which calmed Torin's nerves immensely. Torin thanked Cecil, promised to repay him sometime soon, hung up, and took a seat on a nearby bench. Ten minutes passed and, true to his word, Cecil was out in the parking lot, smiling and waving. Torin looked at Cecil's face, with his adorable, infectious smile, and couldn't help but flash one back. Torin hopped into the passenger's seat and buckled his seatbelt as Cecil began to pull out of the parking lot.

"So, if it's okay for me to ask, what happened?" Cecil spoke, breaking the silence in the car. Torin had already brainstormed his alibi before Cecil had gotten there.

"I stumbled going down those long steps in the science building. Split part of my head open, but otherwise, pretty minor damage." Torin hated lying, especially to someone as kind as Cecil. However, this was one of the times that he absolutely had to lie, or else there'd be a bunch of legal action involved, and Torin absolutely did not want to deal with all of that.

"Fuck, man, that must've been a hard fall. You sure you feel okay?"

"Yeah," Torin answered. Another lie. He felt a throbbing pain every few minutes, and more if he put pressure on the wound.

"Alright. You sure you'll be fine at your place?"

"Yeah, I'll be perfectly fine." A third lie. Why couldn't he just tell Cecil the truth? What would Cecil do if he knew about what was really going on?

The silence in the car resumed, with Torin staring out the car's window. He was just overthinking this. It didn't matter if Cecil knew he was lying. Torin only saw him once every few months, anyway. He'd never even know.
"Torin? You asleep?" Cecil asked, as Torin jumped to attention. Outside the window of the car was his dorm.
"Oh, sorry... thanks for coming all the way out here to drop me off," Torin spoke softly, as Cecil beamed a bright smile.
"Stay safe!" Cecil shouted, before driving off. Suddenly, Cecil was gone again, and the smile that had been residing on Torin's face slowly drifted away. Torin swiped his keycard, went up the 3 flights of stairs to his room, and walked down the seemingly endless hallway to his dorm. Unlocking his door, he slowly stepped inside, locking the door again. As he took the key out of the hole, he looked up to see the message written in large black block letters on the door:

Fag.

Torin set down his bag, collapsed into his bed, and began to cry. Crying about how nobody liked him. Crying about how the one person that liked him just got lied to three times. Crying about how unfair the world was. Suddenly, a bright flash outside his window caught his attention. Wiping away his tears in order to see better, Torin picked himself up off his slightly damp bed sheets and strode towards the window, looking to see what the source of the distraction was. Up in the sky, framed by all of the twinkling stars, was a meteor.

Torin was not superstitious, not in the slightest. But he was weak and desperate. So he decided to make a wish, kneeling down and crossing his fingers.

"Please, for fuck's sake, give me a life I want to live. Please, let something good happen to me for once. I can't take any of this any more. I get hurt, and then in return, hurt those around me. I can't take this anymore, please, just... I wish that I had a life that was interesting, safer, but most importantly, happy."

Uncrossing his fingers, Torin crawled back into bed, beginning his crying session again, his head throbbing in pain. After about 10 minutes of crying, he eventually drifted off to sleep, not knowing he'd never be falling asleep in that bed again.