Behind Those Bracelets (A Tordan AU)

Prologue

~Tom's POV~

I came into this world knowing nothing of the harm and pain it would bring, knowing nothing of how this harm and pain could ever be caused. Ever since I was born, I was loved and cared for, nurtured well, and brought up into a safe household. I had an older sister and a younger sister. My parents were quite wealthy, having received their money through the family fortune, and being the only ones to receive it as well. I didn't like the rich life as much as my family, however. I didn't mind it, I just didn't like it. The thought of having more of something than any average person had didn't appeal to me. I didn't like to be thought of as different, even in the sense that I was that 'hot rich kid' that every girl would swoon over. The only problem with having lots of girls surrounding me was that they weren't my type.

I had known for a long time that I was different than the other boys but I couldn't put my finger on it. It was only when I was about thirteen that I realized why I was different. I had developed a crush on a certain boy in my seventh grade class, named Jordan Maron. He wasn't the most popular kid, nor was he one of the most good looking boys in school. But, he was smart, kind, outgoing, and overall, a genuinely good person.

I came out to the entire school later that same year and have been openly gay ever since. All of my friends had fully supported me, despite being immature seventh grade boys, and my family did too, my sister even tried to help me get a boyfriend, even though the only boy I ever wanted in my life was Jordan.

As I grew older, however, I began to take up drawing as a hobby. I had been told I was rather good at it, so, for my fourteenth birthday, I asked for a sketchbook and an art set, which I received. Three days later, I had filled up nearly half of the 300 page sketchbook with little doodles and drawings I had made when I was bored. As my interest in drawing and art grew, so did my interest in music. I had never been one to like certain artists or bands, just songs I had heard on the radio or that my friends had showed me. However, there were a few exceptions, such as Panic! At The Disco and Owl City.

At fifteen, I had immersed myself in the world of music and art, beginning to shut out my friends and family just so I could sit in my room and listen to music and draw. It was around that time that I had taken up guitar, teaching myself how to play through the course of the internet. A few months after that, I had started writing my own songs, even performing a few of them for a local coffee shop. That didn't go as well as it was thought out though, as I had developed a case of social anxiety from being locked up in my room, by choice, for nearly a year, seemingly forgetting how to interact with other human beings like I had been on another planet for nine years.

While my interest in music and art was developing, my progress in school started getting less and less positive and more negative. I started to put my hobbies before school, putting off projects and essays to the very last minute just to sit and draw and listen to music. My grades started dropping with each low test score and missed assignment. It worried me, but I didn't really try hard enough to stop it. My parents kept trying to get me to work harder and focus more in school, when the subjects I was learning weren't anything I was interested in, so I didn't see the point of trying, let alone learning them in the first place.

It was only in my senior year of high school that I realized what was really important, what I had been searching for in the back of my mind, but hadn't quite figured it out. And that fateful year, just when I had figured it out, was even more important. Not just to me, but to everyone around me. And it was all thanks to Jordan Maron.