to the moon and back

1

Leaning back on the couch, my head bobbing over the top, scrolling through twitter, retweeting some of the ones that interest me. Adrian walks into the room, his backpack laying over his shoulder lazily, not that I really cared how neat his uniform was. I sense him staring into me, I think its because of the tweet that just popped up, so I close the app and scroll up and down on my home screen.

"Yo Dan, how come your missing hair, your not going bald at 14 are you?"

I bring my hand up to the centre of my hair and stroke the empty, enraged skin. Memories of last night, huge balls of brown hair clumped up, uncontrollable hands and shivers running down my spine. Its not the first time either. Skipped lessons in the bathroom, flushing hair down the drains; hiding my hand behind my neck during a stressful test to pick at the shorter hairs and the bottom of my hair.

"Oh shut up Adrian, how old are you, like five? Shut up and get to preschool and stop criticizing my follicles"

He shrugged, grabbed an apple and slouched out of the front door, his footsteps echoing on the driveway. I better get going too, Louise gets annoyed when I'm late, even though she knows i physically can't be early to anything, I'd be late to my own funeral.

After a huddled journey, headphones in, world out, I headed down the corridor towards my form room, he was already 5 minutes late, but i still have 2 minutes before I get a detention. Picking up the pace I pushed on the door with my shoulder and was greeted with a wide smile from Louise and an annoyed grunt from the form teacher, Miss Wright.

It took me a while to notice the guy sat in my normal spot, he's new, wearing an oversized blazer and thick band bracelets on his wrists. He smiled up at me, I smirked back and slipped into the seat opposite him, next to PJ.

"Dan! Your late again", Louise groaned, still beaming widely at me.

"Gah, Lou, I missed you"

"Oh, this is Phil by the way, he's just moved here"

"Hi..." Phil's voice was really quiet, he was clearly nervous, and I cought onto the nerves, pulling my hand out of my blazer pocket and up to the top of my neck.

I looked down to his arms again, his left hand was slipped into the sleeve of his right arm, his index finger was bobbing up and down, I only looked for a moment, but he looked like he was tearing his skin up.

-

I was sat in my bedroom, the lighting dim from my fairy lights strung above the desk. Just scrolling through tumblr, avoiding the porn blogs at all cost, reblogging funny cat videos and doge memes. You know the usual. It was then the door handle creaked and I turned the screen onto sleep, turning to face the sad face of my mum.

"Dan darling, can I have a look at your hair for a moment?"

I roll my eyes, I'd lasted so long without her realising, then Adrian goes and blabs. She runs her fingers through the back of my hair, slowing over the shorter areas and stopping completely over last nights patch.

"What's happening, Daniel? What's going on?"

"Mu-"

"I'm booking a doctors appointment for tommorow, I'm sorry"

What? No she can't do that? The doctors going to think I'm mental if I say I pull my hair out? Thats something little kids do, not 14 year olds.

I grab my phone and type in the only number I can think of.

"Hey Dannny"

Louise's cheerful voice echoes through the phone.

"Hi Louise, you wont believe my little brother"

"Dan, are you crying? What's happened?"

"Well this morning Adrian spotted a bald patch I made on my parting, so it wasn't well hidden. Guess who he told?"

"Your mum?" Louise sound exasperated.

"Yep, I've got a doctors appointment tommorow, she sounded so disappointed about it, she ran her fingers over all of them"

"Oh Dan..."

-

I gripped the roof tiles tightly as I clambered onto the rooftop, I'm not too sure why, I was planning on jumping anyway. I looked up at the sky, maybe for a calling to stop.

I wasn't expecting one, but I got one, a shooting star. It flew across the sky spitting little golden flecks into the black night sky. I lowered myself down onto the tiles and sat for an hour watching all the little glowing signs of hope twinkle. It was overwhelming, they went on forever, its incomprehensible. Humans rely on something having an edge, a shape, an end. Maybe I'm ready to let all of this go, or maybe I'm ready to stop relying on the end.