Slice of Life

Despair

To the ones looking from the outside, he seemed like your average jock. Even the rest of the school looked at him that way. The popular quarterback and captain on the school's football team. The one that everyone knew the name of. The guy that all the cheerleaders chased after, begging to get his attention. The guy that had slept with almost everyone in the school. Well, the last part wasn't quite true. But that's the guy. To most people, he would probably seem like a typical guy on the football team, after their game on fridays they went out and partied, and sometimes partied all weekend.

But he had a different reason. Everyone saw him smile and laugh, but his eyes didn't quite follow through. There was a hint of sadness, emptiness. Although he seemed popular, he didn't talk much. The people around him did, and he laughed along to seem like he was a part of the group. But he felt alone. They were only there because he was a precious part of their football team. No one knew his background story. No one knew what really happened when he went home from school. He had hosted the parties before, but only the days where his parents weren't home. One of them never was.

When he went home from school, he became a different guy. The quirky, bright guy at school became a dark and silent guy. His eyes were lifeless. He would unlock the door to the mansion, greeted by the emptiness inside its large walls. The big space made the loneliness within him deeper. He went to his room. Too large a room for his comfort. He knew there were people out there that would die to have his life. He wouldn't mind them having it. For although he seemed carefree, his shoulders held heavy burdens that no one else knew. No one else had tried to get close to him. His mates hung out with him because he was good at football, and the girls wanted a popular boyfriend.

He didn't love football the way others thought he did. It was his way of releasing all the energy stored inside of him. He focused on it so he didn't have to think about something else. He was a wild drinker at parties, too. It made him forget all the things he wanted to forget. The feeling he felt when he was high was great. It was like he was on cloud nine, and no one could bring him down.

Until he came home. Silence, noise, both meant almost the same. The silence meant no one was home, or they were ignoring each other. Noise could be yelling, shouting, a mixture of both, or something smashing. It all meant that they were fighting. Again. It was one or the other. They could never seem to agree. They disagreed on everything.

But in some ways, his parents were on the same page. They both worked longer hours than the time spent at home. They both hated each other with pure passion, but whenever questioned about it, would say they loved each other and would always stay together. And they had both cheated. On each other. In that house. He hated being home. He would always stay in his room, the door locked. When he was younger, he always went to say hello to his parents when he came home. That stopped, after he found his parents cheating on each other more than once. After each time, there'd be a fight. Shouting, yelling, sometimes the sound of things flying across the room. Then everything was silent. They would ignore each other completely. Sometimes it would last a few hours, other times a few days.

After experiencing this as a young boy, he had given up. Given up on love. Given up on trust. Given up on friendship. Given up on everything social. He had no real life inside him. He was like an injured animal, waiting to get killed or to die. And because no one noticed the despair building up inside him, they didn't notice when it started overflowing. But by the time they all realised it, he was no longer among them.