Dye and Dying

"Liquid eyeliner? What do you want with that, Shawn?" Terese looked over the shopping list. "And black hair dye--permenant? Are you sure?"

"I just want to try a new look. I think goth would suit me."

"You are not a goth."

"Look, how I dress is my own business, isn't it? And if you don't want to get it, I'll buy it myself," Shawn turned to go back up to his room, then looked over his shoulder. "Oh, and I want a lip piercing and earrings too." 

Terese protested, but, as usual, she let him have his way in the end. He had been growing his hair out ever since he watched that band, and now he could comb his hair over the left side of his face easily enough, but blond hair couldn't hide the scars, so he decided to go for the whole look. Besides, it reflected what was going on inside of him. 

In the end, he went with just the lip piercing. After all, no one would see earrings since he wore a hood all the time, and he could make up for it with a spiky dog collar and chains. Finally, he was ready to try his new look on the world. He donned his black skinny hoodie with the massive grim reaper picture on the back, combed down and gelled his newly coloured hair, and applied the eyeliner to his right eye. Clipping on his studded cuffs and collar, he stepped out of his room. Adam met him in the hall and just stared.

When he finally found his voice, Adam asked, "What have you done to yourself?" Shawn just shrugged and pushed past him into the dining room, where Terese sighed and lamented his inability to accept himself as he was. 

He stuck with the look. He still got stares, but they were more "Wow, he looks creepy" stares than the normal kids freaking out over his monstrous face. Aside from the one scar which ran from the corner of his mouth to half way down his neck and the crookedness of his nose, his deformities were completely hidden in that get up. Occasionally, he even saw girls checking him out--mostly other goths, but some not half bad looking. But then he returned home, removed his hood, washed his hair free of the gel, and remembered why he could never hope for anything resembling a normal life--why no girl would ever date him, why no boss would ever hire him, why no one would ever love him.

And so began the downward spiral. His music was already full of death and pain, but now his books and movies went the same way. He sat alone night after night in his bathroom, watching in morbid fascination as blood dripped from his newest cuts.The outward pain seemed to temporarily relieve the inner torment of his fears for the future and his anger, but, in the long run, it only made it worse. Terese began to observe that he was getting thinner, but he didn't care. Food no longer held any appeal. What was the point of staying healthy? It wasn't like he was going to do anything with his life anyways.

He had a brief high point in his life on his sixteenth birthday. Terese and Adam once again took him aside.

"Shawn, we took you in for a very specific reason," Terese began. "You see, both Adam and I were orphaned at an early age. I grew up in the foster care system, and I cannot bear to watch other children lose their families and grow up bouncing from home to home."

"What, you were both foster kids?"

"Not Adam. You see, they don't have foster care in Haiti. He was adopted when he was fifteen years old. And now we have decided to adopt you. That was our plan from when we first got married--to adopt older children who had lost their families in tragedy."

"So why am I the only one you adopted?"

"As soon as we saw your picture, we knew you were the one.You are a wonderful boy and we would be honoured to have you for our son."

Shawn took it coolly, but that night, he couldn't sleep. They wanted to keep him. They really did love him. It was all he had ever wanted. A family that accepted him as he was. He silently committed to try for their sake. For three months, he worked hard on maintaining his grades and even took and passed his learners test.

But the excitement wore off almost as soon as the adoption process was over. His grades began to slide again as he regarded them once more with bored apathy, and he stopped asking Adam to let him drive. Life kicked in again, with its endless pain and misery, and his seventeenth birthday found him in a deeper pit of depression than ever before. A thought had entered his mind and refused to be banished. He had endured this too long. It wouldn't get any better, so what was the point? Why should he keep on trying? Life held nothing for him. Why should he keeping giving to it?

He told no one what was going on in his head--after all, it was no one else's business. Only one thing held him back. He loved Adam and Terese too much, and he knew it would break their hearts.