Chapter One: Lost and Found

Why is it that the people closest to you seem to hurt you the most?  I don't know.  I never understood the logic.  I did understand this logic, however: "I stand alone."  The first I heard of that was on some movie I watched with my parents a long time ago.  I can't recall the title, but it never mattered to me.  That line is all that ever stuck in my memory from that time in my life.  That and my best friend stabbing me in the back by telling everyone I had a crush on a boy in his class.

So on my 16th birthday I was done.  I got emancipated - something my baptist parents had long awaited since the day day a year and a half before when they learned I was gay - switched schools, and moved to an apartment on the top of a hill in the middle of no where.

Because of this, nobody gets close to me anymore.  I don't let them.  It's because my own logic makes more sense than that of anyone else's, which is why my best friend, the closest person to me, knows next to nothing about me.  I know plenty about him.  His favorite color is blue, but he wears only black because he doesn't like being colorful.  He feels this way because he thinks his personality speaks for him, and he doesn't need to stick out to the eye.  He'll eat any kind of meat you put in front of him except meatloaf because when he sees meatloaf, the words that come to his mind are disgusting, rotten, and puke.  He loves fruit, but hates vegetables because he thinks vegetables have no flavor.  He has no dad because his dad left his mom when he was born.  He has no interest in dating and relationships because of the fear of becoming like his dad, but he's a real pervert nonetheless.  His only real relationship ended 2 years ago when his girlfriend died in a car accident, but rather than committing suicide he took the day to go to school for the first day and ended up meeting me.

If I wanted to hurt him I easily could, but I see no reason to.  I ask him for reasons people would do such things all the time, but he has no response.  Maybe that's why we're friends... I once heard a line in another long-forgotten movie from my childhood: "Great minds think alike."

This on my mind, I walk into the school with the same look I have all the time: Dead, tired, pissed off, and depressed.  I felt none of these things, it was just the look I carried.  Most adults called it "angsty teen," most fellow teenagers "emo," but I never cared to label myself beyond my emotions, and right then I felt...blank.

My dreams are usually nothing but black, maybe with a view voices or flashbacks from my past, but never more elaborate than that.  It was very strange that I had the crazy dream I did last night, and I could not stop wondering why.  My thoughts were racing, and my mind didn't have a good enough stopping point to let me focus on the real world.

I was lost and dazed, stuck in my own head, and it showed.  I knew this because I heard nothing for quite some time as I walked into the school.  Then, over a few short moments of me pulling the front door as just a natural movement and not a self-imposed action, I heard the blurring of voices all mashed together.  In those few short moments, the voices all found words and alliterations that made them sound like actual voices and not shouts from a distance, or underwater screams.  I heard Kuromaru's voice loudest, right next to my face, whispering "Wake up."

A heartbeat struck me like a chord and I was finally fully aware of what was happening around me.

Kuromaru smiled a teasing smile and ever so lightly knocked on my head.  "You in there?"

"I am now." I didn't feel like I was, though.  I felt distant still... I had that feeling like I'd just gotten off a ship, but my body was still flowing over the waves.

"Ok cool." He opened the door and let me through before walking though himself.  He quickly caught up and we walked to our first hour at our usual slow pace that made everyone else pass us in frustration.  "What's on your mind?" He asked me in his chill, relaxed voice.  He scanned my expression with his eyes to see if he could figure out my thoughts through my face alone.

"Nothing really.  You?" I asked back.

He faced forward, removing his coy smile and lifted his back pack slightly to get it off his hair.  "Meh, the usual.  Memories hitting me like a tsunami wave lately."

That feeling of waves hit me again, crashing into me like he'd explained.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Note

Unfinished.