1


I stretched, yawning, and rolled out of bed with a thud. I coughed briefly as the roiling stench of marijuana smoke hit my nose, emanating from my mother's room, and winced as I buried my face in the rough blankets. My sleepy feet slap on the rough wooden floor as I wander over to slam the door.


The smoky air vanquished, I let the blanket fall off of myself and change into regular clothes. A T-shirt, jeans, the usual cheap crap. If my mom didn't spend so much money on weed, maybe they'd be better off. Holding an arm over my face, I slid around the door and descended the rickety stairs to the ancient kitchen. Mosquitoes buzzed outside, threatening at any passerby who wished to keep his own blood.


I opened the fridge, sniffing the milk and recoiling at the scent. I'd probably starve to death before I hit 18. Might as well, anyways. my mom was useless and didn't care, my dad was dead, my grades were pretty much as low as a boiling cesspool of Hell.


After managing to scavenge a breakfast of stale bread and a lunch of dry cereal, I left. “Mom, I'm going to school!” I yelled. No response came from my mother's smoky room. With a disgusted shrug, I slammed shut the door behind me. The bus stop held but one person. The only other kid in this filthy slum of a neighborhood.


“Hey Ary.” said David dryly, sitting down on the pavement by the sign and flicking his black hair out of his face. “'Sup?”


“My mom is tripping again.” I replied sullenly, sitting down next to David with a sigh. He shrugged sadly. I glanced over at my only friend, if he could be called that. Black clothes every time, black hair, a single piercing in his left ear to go with that pale skin and those icy green-blue eyes. He was goth all the way, always had been. “What about you?”


“Dad argued with his new girlfriend. He set up a new account on eHarmony, so you can guess there that's going.” David said. I shook my head, then groaned and stood under the weight of my heavy pack as the bus arrived.


“Come on, we'd better go. My grades are bad enough without me missing a day.”


This was the second stop on the way to school, so there were only the usual three kids inside. They ignored me, shrank away from David's tall paleness. I'd never know why they were so scared of him. I took my usual seat at the back of the bus, David sitting next to my. The bus started up again with its shrieking tires and took off down the road.


An hour later, the bell rang as I hit the school doors. Spinning as I ran, I chucked my backpack into my locker and turned straight into the classroom. It was half empty, and I took a seat close to the back. David was two seats away and in front of my.


“All right, class. Today we'll be learning about ancient Greece. Now, can anyone name five terrain barriers that helped Greece to flourish?” said the teacher in his usual Southern drawl, the voice like a more accented version of David's. I had refused to speak the way my mother and friends did, saying that the voice was stupid. I still did.






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The lunch bell sounded its screeching alarm around noon, and middle-schoolers swarmed into the cafeteria like a herd of elephants. As usual, I sat straight on the table. This was of course the reject table. Most of the kids there were the goths, dressed in black with their hair flopping stupidly over their faces. David was there too.


“Ary, please don't eat that.” David said as I withdrew my packed lunch. “God knows how long it's been in that fridge of yours.”


“Better than the slop here.” I muttered as I stuffed down my lunch. “Anyways, what do you care?”


“I suppose you're right.” he said, laughing. But was that a trace of pain in his eyes? Nah. David's not one to care about others.


At school's end, the swarm begins again as thousands of kids rush out the door to go to their own sheltered homes. I has nothing like that. Why should I even get on the bus?


Because I had to, I supposed. Whatever else would I do? So I stepped onto the crowded bus, ignored and ignoring, and slid into the empty space by David.


“Sometimes I wonder why I even get on this thing at all.” David said, and I looked over in surprise. It was as if he had read my mind.


“Wh-why's that?” I spluttered. David let out a chuckle before responding, throwing his wave of black hair behind his pale ears.


“there's not much back there, is there? A single dad and a laptop. That's all. I don't know why I don't just... leave. How hard would it possibly be, to just go? Live on my own. At least I'll be away from all the cheating and the new girlfriends, and the smell of weed everywhere.” He gave I a pointed look, and I shrank back slightly. “At this point my life has no purpose. Someday I swear to God, I'm just going to leave, once and for all. I might even go to college.” he sighed heavily. I sat silently. David, at a college? Ha. He'd probably never get in anyways. Nobody wanted the people from this neighborhood. Because their souls, no matter how much they showered, still stank of suffering and wretchedness. Filled with the aura of a hopelessly poor life.


I got off the bus without another word to my friend. Tonight smoke did not waft from the window. Perhaps my mother was in one of my good moods. Those were the only happy times I knew. Then I'd get a decent dinner. A night without smoke smothering me.


The door creaked open and I slipped inside. My mother was tapping away on her ancient computer, barely paid for considering the money spent on otmy things.


“Ary, you're home. Go to your room, I'm working.” Yeah, working. Because Chatroullete was incredibly productive.


Don't call my Ary. My friends call me Ary. You're not my friend.


I crept upstairs silently and flopped on my cheap mattress. David's words didn't seem so strange anymore. I was getting sick of my mother. Of this whole life. Why should I be locked away from the world out there? Anywhere would be better than here.


Before I knew it, I fell asleep on the soft mattress.






*
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“ARY! Wake up and get down here.” my mother's voice called angrily. Groaning, I flopped out of bed and stepped down the stairs, rubbing my eyes of their sleep-dust. “What do you want?”


“I met a guy. We're goin' to the amusement park, he's payin', so get your ass into some good clothes. I don't want you makin' a mess of anything, got it? You don't talk. You don't move. And you'd better not mess me up.” my mother drawled angrily. “Got that?”


A sly smile played across my lips, after a pause of thinking. “Tell you what, Ma, I'll leave you two all alone... if you'll let me bring my own friend. I'll pay for anything we want to do, and we'll leave you two completely alone together.”


My mother raised an eyebrow. “This better not be some stupid prank of yours. Get your friend.”


I walked into my room, a slight smile spreading across my face as I flipped open my cheap phone and put in the number.


“Hey David, guess what?”