Strong ✅

HEY ANGEL

E

verett seemed like a happy person, didn't he?

He wasn't.

All darkness that was inside always got pushed behind with a fake smile. Everett knew that holding things in didn't make you better, but he couldn't help it. He'd done this in all his seventeen years of life.

Ever since his dad left, Everett put on a fake smile, so that no one would realize that he was actually dying inside. He had to be strong for his family. That was what he did. He hid everything with a fake smile. Only Axel knew Everett's true smile. He could see right through him. Everett wished that he wasn't so readable, but he just was.

Everett walked over to his closet and grabbed his antique guitar that Morgan bought him for his fifteenth birthday. Morgan was the only one who knew that Cameron played instruments. Now of course his whole music class knew, but that was besides the point. He could remember that day like it was yesterday.

♦
M

organ had brought Everett over to her friend, Elena's, since nobody else was home and she didn't trust her brother to be home alone. Elena was always like a second sister to Everett and he loved her.

If he didn't think of her as his sister, he would've had a crush on her. She had sandy brunette hair and chocolate brown eyes. She had all the boys chasing after her. While Elena and Morgan went to said girl's room, Everett saw in the corner of his eye that there was a piano.

Nobody knew that Everett loved music. He could play just about anything. The guitar, piano, drums, trumpet, so on and on forth. You name it, he could play it. It was so tempting to play a few chords. Maybe a simple song.

With music, for Everett, it was like a drug. He needed it. He strived off of it. If he was in a room with it, he couldn't help but want to play or sing it. Everett soon found himself in front of the piano and he started to play with a few keys, causing the sound to bellow through the house.

He hummed the tune to 'How To Save A Life' and played it gracefully. As he finished, he found Morgan and Elena clapping to the riveting performance. Morgan sat next to him on the bench and smiled.

"Everett, I didn't know you could play." Elena commented.

"Nobody knows I can." he muttered. She nodded and Morgan just sat there smiling and said, "Not anymore."

Throughout the night, he played and sung for them and they just had a fun time.

♦

It seemed like that was such a sort time ago, but Everett was thirteen then and now he was seventeen. It had been a good four years since then, but now since Everett played in music class, everyone knew he could play; including Axel.

Everett played with the chords of his older guitar for a few minutes until he found the right chords.

"I can fake a smile, I can force a laugh. I can stay awake for days, if that's what you ask. Give you all I am."

"I can do it. I can do it. I can do it..."

"But I'm only human. And I bleed when I fall down. I'm only human. And I crash and I break down. Your words in my head, knives in my heart. You build me up and then I fall apart, cause I'm only human."

"I can take so much. Till I've had enough..."

The song just explained Everett's story so well and he knew that one day, unfortunately, people would realize just how broken he truly was.