Chapter One
Three Months Ago: February 8th
Monday
During the early bright peaks of the day, buzzing light bulbs shot fractured shards of light to the dark expanses of the small bathroom. All sunshine was vacant, and nothing was silent. The honks of traffic eleven floors below. The thuds of people clumsily getting ready floors above. Water slapping against the shower tiles. The rattling heat vent in the ceiling. The terror that constantly tore through a teenaged mind. The utter disappointment that was only ever conscious in the stillness of a single moment of time, that the moment itself lacked any importance, but was constantly subjected to the effects reality had thrust upon it.
Rey sunk to the floor of the shower. Out of the way Fag! The cold tiles were slick with scalding bloody water. Why don’t you just kill yourself! Water beat down upon him like fists. Your mom left you, obviously she doesn’t love you. Rey held a pocket knife shakily in his hand, pulling the blade along his arms in long diagonal streaks from the outside towards his torso. For such a loner you aren’t even smart. Each overused phrase branded a separate scar on his skin. He doesn’t do sports, he doesn’t have a girlfriend, obviously that means he’s gay! No one realizes the future impact their words will have on someone.
He left the lower portions of his arms intact in case someone were to see his scars. He would never let that happen. He would ensure that he would be dead before that would happen.
Water stung the cuts and Rey let out a pained whimper. After his bloody shower, Rey dried off and got dressed in boxers, jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, sneakers. There were only slightly variations in his outfits each day. Today was no different. The only time it’d be different would be if someone were dressing him in a suit, coating his skin in powder, and displaying him in a casket.
The hoodie agitated the gory crevices in his skin and Rey grimaced through the pain. He slid a comb through his shaggy black hair; despite just washing it, it was already slick with oil. His messy, straight hair hide his almost curtain like, letting only the shadows of his facial features show along the visible length of his nose.
Rey grabbed his book bag from outside the doorway of the bathroom while walking down the hall to the kitchen and family room type area in his small apartment. His father yelled at Rey’s mother through the phone.They always fought in such a way, which made it no wonder that his parents were getting divorced.
Rey dropped his bag to the floor, beginning to make a bowl of cereal. After pouring the cornflakes did Rey realized that he and his father were out of milk. Slowly closing the fridge door, Rey watched the light flicker out inside the appliance.
With a large bang, Rey’s father, Victor, hung up the phone. Rey picked at his corn flakes, popping a few of the dry, unappetizing pieces into his mouth.
"Mornin.'" Victor mumbled. He looked stressed, raking his hand through his receding hairline. He had sunken bloodshot eyes with purplish bags beneath, and crow’s feet lining each corner of his sun damaged skin.
“...” Rey did not respond.
Rey’s older brother, Marcus, had been born to a young father; he was one of the many mistakes that Victor made in college.
Rey looked similar to his dad. They had the same black hair, chocolate brown eyes, and beige Pacific Islander skin. Rey did not resemble his mother in the slightest. As time had claimed its toll on Victor, similarly pain etched its way onto Rey’s arms in a cruel twist of the game of life.
Rey glanced at Victor again while chewing on the gritty cereal flake. He watched as Victor picked a picture frame off from the wall piano that sat parallel from the front door of the apartment, and smashed it onto a nearby end table. The glass shattered and scratched the picture of four happy faces, a couple admiring an infant in the mother’s arms and a twelve year old Marcus widely grinning standing next to Victor.
