spider cinema || L.J Craig

_prologue

do you ever drive by a big city and wish you could live there? can you see yourself there once you finally move out of your parents house? do you imagine how your apartment will look? where you'll work? the new experiences you'll have?

you obviously haven't actually lived in a city like this, then. gunshots every night, busy every day. insensitive people that sprang from the repetition of crime and brutality. whole communities mourning the death of a kid while the rest of humanity has gone numb because it's not special for a black teenager to be shot by a police officer.

for Dean Chavez, this is just life. same thing, different day. as a 17 year old living in a world that's immune to individuality, he doesn't feel 'right' in his own skin. with a mother born in mexico who was barely allowed into the united states and a white dad that left him and his mom for some rich woman, he has many concerns. he doesn't care about how many girls are hitting his line. he remains unbothered by the newest shoes from a famous rapper. he can't even spare a glance for his fellow students that vandalize his locker with racial slurs and their constant verbal abuse.

he just wants a change in his daily struggles. rather than being busy, he just wants some time to relax. he doesn't want to worry about college - and what's after that. he just wants to live as Dean Chavez, not as the student, not as the mixed boy with no dad, not as the teenager that fears spiders more than guns. more than anything, he just wants to be him.