[BOOK 1] More Than This

-3-

BETTER OFF ALONE

[Ethan's POV]

I stretched my muscles when Ms. Martinez announces that we can now go home. I have a smile on my face. I need rest after long hours of standing behind the registry. I pushed myself into the locker room at the left wing of the building.

I open my locker and get my back. I slowly stripped my clothes off my body and folded it and put it inside my bag. I can feel my back cracked when I straighten it against the locker. Those four hours really makes me sick.

"You are going home now?"

I turned around and see Dylan, my co-worker at the front of his locker. "Yeah, I have a lot of assignments to finish." I said. Then I sling my back pack in my shoulder. "What about you?"

"Yeah, wanna go home together?" he asks with a smile.

I smiled back. Dylan knows I always walk home alone and every time he offered to walk with me I always decline. I wanted to be alone. It's rare for me to walk with the others even eat with them or even mingle with them when breaks from work come.

"Uhm," I scratched my head while shyly smiling at him.

"I know, just be careful in your way home." He said and then turned out after locking his locker.

I follow him outside.

"Bye E," he said then wave to my direction.

I just follow him with my eyes. Dylan is a closet gay, I know because he said it to me two months ago. It's not that I'm a homophobic that's why I keep on declining him every time he asks me to go home together, but, I just don't want to get closer to him. I rather go alone than having someone with me. Someone said that, if you let them be with you, you have to trust them and in my case, trust is the hardest thing I have to give.

My thought visited a familiar memory from my past that until now it makes my chest clenches.

"Come, let's go to the arcade." Jody, my best friend said with a wide smile. We have been friends since we were in Grade 6 and I trust her with all my heart.

It was my first time to go outside our house ever since my father had me locked inside my room for almost all my life. After my father died, I've got the chance to see the world in a different light and with Jody, I know I can be happy after the hardship I've been through. Jody knows it, the story of my life because I trust her.

I smiled to her and follow her out of the school premises. We walk the distance from our school to the place she called arcade. I don't know how that place looks like but then because I'm with Jody, I let my guard down and come with her to the strange place.

We enter an alley that has two buildings in each side. I look out the place, it seems like that building was abandoned since the paint has already faded, the wall was dark in color and there was a lot of vines crawling from the floor up to the top of the building. There was an empty can of drinks I always saw with my father at the kitchen of our small house. There's also an unrolled black snake like thing on the floor. Even the smell of the place was not of the decent place.

"Jody, what's this place?" I finally got courage to ask my friend walking in front of me.

"This is where we play, Ethan." She said. I never got a chance to know the face she is making since her back is on me.

"Play? What are we going to play here?" curiosity strikes and I can't take it anymore. Unless she tells me where are we going and what are we doing in that place, I won't come with her any further.