Tip of the Tongue [CMS Bk. 1 - BoyxBoy][Complete/Editing]

Chapter 21

Ren laid on his side. He stared at his bedroom door. He'd thrown off his blankets, too hot with the heater on, but still cold enough that he was getting goosebumps. He didn't want to get up. He needed to get up. He was going to be late. His mom had already taken off. She'd said her goodbyes before he was awake enough to argue with her. She knew what she was doing. She just didn't want to deal with his grumpy attitude before work.

He really couldn't blame her.

Everything had gone downhill since the night he met Ashton. Though, could he really blame it all on that? Things had been going down since the beginning. He felt like he was going in circles. He was in a rut, always thinking how much his mom was sacrificing for him. She wouldn't listen to any of his solutions. As much as he wanted to help, nothing was working.

With a heavy sigh, he sat up. He scratched his stomach. He looked around his room without really seeing it. Another day. He didn't want to think about how he would have to deal with the kids at school. For a second, he thought about skipping, but Ashton was going to meet him after. He might as well just go. At least then he wouldn't feel guilty about wasting his mom's money.

The cost of school in Reginae was fucking ridiculous. Especially when it wasn't going to get him a better job than he could already get.

He pulled himself out of his warm bed. He downed a bottle of synthetic blood and pulled out five dollars. He quickly got dress, throwing on whatever he had clean in his drawers, grabbed his bag, and ran downstairs. He tossed the bill on the couch before shrugging on his jacket.

The morning air was crisp, clear, but freezing. His eyes became itchy and dry from the harsh treatment. He ignored the pain, locking the front door, and heading down the same path that he took every day.

Nothing was different. He arrived at school, he waited in the same spot that he always did—listening to the other students joke and play around—and then went to first period. He wished that the day would go by in a blur, that he could go numb to everything, but it wasn't that easy. He was tortured by how slow the day was going. While he'll forget these pointless days in the future, it wasn't soon enough. The agonizing feeling of being gawked, mocked, and being ostracized was going to stick with him for too long.

The day wasn't going as bad as it could have been. Currently, he was jogging back and forth in the gym. He wasn't the slowest in the class, but he wasn't the fastest either. While the other boys were pushing themselves—almost passing out—he kept his breathing steady and tried to have an out of body experience.

His mind was going blank, mindlessly doing what Coach Harris was telling him. Coach Harris didn't give a fuck about Ren and Ren didn't give a fuck about him.

But things soon went to shit when Regan bumped shoulders with Ren on the way to the water fountain.

Ren had always thought that they needed to put more fountains in the gym. One for the forty teenage boys they shoved into a forty-five-minute time block wasn't enough. There was always fighting breaking out over who got to be in the front of the line.