Chapter One
Everyone knows how the stories go, the princess always finds her prince and they live happily ever after. Right? But what happens when your princess can't see you? What happens then. There is no happily ever after and they don't fall in love.
There is no happily ever after.
That's my problem you see. She's so beautiful, even if she doesn't realize it. Then there's me, the odd boy who walks around the parks and just sits on the benches, watching. Watching the perfect couples go by, fingers intertwined with one anothers and are oblivious to the imperfections in life or one another. They are all so happy, which makes me sadder inside. I sit on the bench until night comes and I slowly walk down the path back to my humble abode. As I walk I hear these peoples endless laughter, I see the passion in their eyes as they gaze at each other. The love so strong nothing can seem to break it. They all have their happily ever afters. Except for me, I'm left here walking these empty paths with just my thoughts and the faint image of my true love. I barely know her, but she's all I think about. She doesn't even know my name and I don't know hers and yet, she means the world to me.
How rude of me, I have been rambling on and I haven't properly introduced myself. My name is Thomas Rodgers. Some call me Tom, but most call me "That Kid." Nobody really knows me, they don't really care to find out I guess. I can't help being an introvert, I just like to watch and observe the things around me. I'm sixteen years old and I live in an old apartment building six blocks from the park. I have shaggy blonde hair and crystal blue eyes. I have a pet cat whom I adore, his name is Crook. The reason I chose such a name for this one-eyed tabby is because when I first saw him he was stealing fish from a local market. I didn't think much of him at first, but every day when I went passed the market to my apartment there was Crook taking something else and running down the alley way. So one day I decided to follow him down the damp and dark alley way. I saw his small frame crouched with his new pickings behind a creaky old dumpster. Crook was nothing more than skin and bones and I felt terrible seeing him like that. I slowly crouched down about three feet away from him and held out a handful of cat treats to him. This is when I realized how different Crook was from any other cat. Instead of being scared of an unfamiliar human he ran towards me and jumped flat on my chest and started lick my face like a dog would. Since then Crook and I have been inseparable. It sounds weird that a guy should feel so attached to a cat. Usually you see humans in the male population attached to tougher animals like dogs or snakes or something. See why people don't want to get to know me because they think I'm odd and different? God forbid us from different from one another.
As I was saying, I have a part time job as the garbage boy - the dream job eh? I can't complain too much though, it keeps food on the table. It also supplies me the money that I need to buy books. Another odd thing you've learned about ole Tom! Yes, I do enjoy reading books for fun. I know you're probably thinking, "What's wrong with this Tom guy? Is he a girl?" well something along those lines anyways. And the answer is no, I just love reading the fantasies of other people's dreams. Books are the words that people want to say but, they can't. So by reading them, people will know maybe how they truly feel. Are they mad at the world? Sad? Over Joyed? And by reading their work, you can start to see things you've never realized before. That's why I go to the park everyday precisely at 3:17 p.m.. I sit on the park bench and I can see these author's stories being reenacted right in front of me. It's amazing what the human mind can do. See it was during one of my trips to my park bench that I saw the girl that I'm madly and deeply in love with. It was only a glimpse, but since then I can't stop thinking about her. So beautiful and with a blink of an eye I had lost her. How could this have happened? I didn't even bother going to the park that day. I just turned my lowly self around and went back to my little run-down apartment.
