Supernovas & Escapism

Chapter Ten

      In the pitiful amount of time I've walked this earth, I've known one thing above most; everyone wants to matter to someone.

     No one ever wants to feel like they have to walk the earth all on their own. No one wants to think that there's not someone out there wondering about them. It's only human nature that we try and find someone who understands us for who we are.

     For me? I've been running lone-wolf ever since the age of six, and haven't really looked back on that. Doesn't mean to say that I'm happy with that choice, just that it's a choice I was coerced into making. Given the opportunity, I like to think that I'd chose happiness over isolation. Then again, I don't necessarily know that for certain.

     I learned a long time ago that no one wanted to be friends with kids like me. In the coldest winter, I learned just how brutal life could be; how expectations could be shattered in an instant, and dreams flushed away like some rotting turd in life's toilet bowl.

     For as long as my heart has beat out of time for other people, I've known that it beats for boys. There's never really been any secret to who might know, or what might happen to me. At the same time, it's more of an open secret. The only people who seem to care about it are those who are quickly painting my face in splotches of bruised purple, green, and yellow. My own defiance to label myself in front of those only egged them on to do their worst, but it taught me how to be brave in front of people.

     Their punishment was nothing compared to the ordeal I felt at home. Nothing could quite compare to that. To know that someone who was supposed to protect you, hated you with all of their guts for just being alive. It panged me to think about how he would feel if I ever told him about me.

     And that's the thing, my reservation is not something that hinders me from making friends, but rather something that protects me from the storm. The less people know the better.

     I don't know how long after Xavier left that I had started to get up. All I knew was that the night air was so crisp and bitter, and that the sky was clouded out, the remnants of stars being whisked away by rampant light pollution. Every now and again, a stray breeze would ship up, strong enough to turn me in place.

     Eventually though, I found myself on the sidewalk, pacing towards home. I didn't even know if I could count my Aunt's place as home, but right now it felt like the closest thing to it.

     My sneakers squeaked across the empty sidewalk, as a trail of streetlights led the way home. Every breath painted itself in this fog that made it almost impossible to not want to reach out and scoop it all back. Every now and then, a car would rattle its way through the street, though never staying for long. While it wasn't a particularly bad side of town, most people knew that things could only happen if you gave it the opportunity to happen.

     The walk home was long, but it at least gave me some time to reflect on today and just how exciting it had been.

     Beat up by high school thugs? Check. Get taken home by someone who doesn't want to throw me around like a human ragdoll? Check. Go to the park to think for a while? Check.