p class="p1"Blurred lights swam in Jack's vision for a moment as he stirred awake, streaming in from the streets as it grew darker and darker outside overall. When he'd drifted off— right onto the pages of his poor textbook— the jukebox had been on, and the drone of laughing, dancing and chatter from faces he could never remember was enough to put him to sleep. Now, only a gentle clatter, the sound of running water./p
p class="p1"He shut the book after smoothing out the pages, only stopping to trace his fingers along the edges of some of the artwork. It was beautiful. He could remember a tiny, earnest voice asking him why real hearts didn't look like her cartoons, and laughing so hard he'd nearly spilt his water everywhere./p
p class="p1""Mom?" Jack called out, covering a yawn. "Where's—?" And although he was sure there'd been a name, it was fuzzy, emfuzzy./em/p
p class="p1"Someone answered, surprised though keeping the sink going. "Jack? I've been working all night, honey!" The tone quickly dipped into concern, "I thought she was with you, that you'd both gone home already!" She turned the sink off. "Are you getting sick? Did something happen…?"/p
p class="p1"Panic rose, and more so than that, emembarrassment/em. He knew that voice, it meant he'd failed, was small— that— "Nothing happened. I got a bit overwhelmed." For how many times this year? Hadn't he meant to end it the last time, and the time before that, to stop fucking shutting down like he was an alien unable to cope with any of this— emnoise?/em/p
p class="p1"He could emhear/em the buzzing, the way a person you hated could crawl up your spine like a million squirming maggots and try to eat at you because they'd found something impossible to understand, impossible to be, only real to hate and adore, only able to touch it with those filthy hands if they…/p
p class="p1"Jack didn't wait to hear his mother's response, knew she couldn't follow him like this. If she didn't stay to clean up, it'd be an easy excuse to fire her, and they were always looking for an excuse. His cheeks flushed. Guilt was a rare, fleeting, and terribly painful emotion. He pushed it away as quickly as he could, but it left him too shy to say any 'I love you's on his way out. He hadn't earned the right, didn't want to dishonor the phrase by claiming it in one ofem these /emmoods. As soon as he'd stuffed everything in his bag, he bolted./p
p class="p1"Even after yelling for his sister… emno, no, no/em… he was greeted simply by deadness, barely a cricket out that night, barely stars. Barely anything resembling a positive emotion in his chest, dipping down further than it usually went, and it usually went emfar/em. Jack dragged his fingers down his face, nails sharp. He called her emergency phone, the one he'd helped save up to get. Nothing. He scratched at his scalp aimlessly while rushing through their route home, looking in every alley. He thought about— earlier, when he'd last seen her. He thought about the faces as hard as he could, forced them to clear, forced himself to let reality spill in./p
p class="p1"He saw bad faces. Stupid, disgusting, repulsive faces of little boys who didn't know how to fucking grow up and learn not to act like their past-the-expiration-date trash fathers and grandfathers. Jack punched a concrete wall until there was faint blood over the graffiti, mouth tightly shut and muffling screaming, shaking with both a terror and anger he'd never had as such a rush./p
p class="p1"After that, he went home to get the knife he kept beneath his mattress./p
p class="p3" align="center"***/p
p class="p1"Jack unclenched his hands from his sheets. He stared upwards, then rolled to the side and reached down to gently feel for his knife. Still there. Same as ever. Safe as ever. Awful as ever. He curled up under the blankets, did a few breathing exercises, and went back to sleep./p
p class="p1"He had a lot of work ahead of him. It was time to stop being so weak. If he rebuilt himself with tools, money, loyalty and emfear,/em perhaps there'd be a day where he wasn't ruled by the long dead and gone. By his failures./p
p class="p1"He shut the book after smoothing out the pages, only stopping to trace his fingers along the edges of some of the artwork. It was beautiful. He could remember a tiny, earnest voice asking him why real hearts didn't look like her cartoons, and laughing so hard he'd nearly spilt his water everywhere./p
p class="p1""Mom?" Jack called out, covering a yawn. "Where's—?" And although he was sure there'd been a name, it was fuzzy, emfuzzy./em/p
p class="p1"Someone answered, surprised though keeping the sink going. "Jack? I've been working all night, honey!" The tone quickly dipped into concern, "I thought she was with you, that you'd both gone home already!" She turned the sink off. "Are you getting sick? Did something happen…?"/p
p class="p1"Panic rose, and more so than that, emembarrassment/em. He knew that voice, it meant he'd failed, was small— that— "Nothing happened. I got a bit overwhelmed." For how many times this year? Hadn't he meant to end it the last time, and the time before that, to stop fucking shutting down like he was an alien unable to cope with any of this— emnoise?/em/p
p class="p1"He could emhear/em the buzzing, the way a person you hated could crawl up your spine like a million squirming maggots and try to eat at you because they'd found something impossible to understand, impossible to be, only real to hate and adore, only able to touch it with those filthy hands if they…/p
p class="p1"Jack didn't wait to hear his mother's response, knew she couldn't follow him like this. If she didn't stay to clean up, it'd be an easy excuse to fire her, and they were always looking for an excuse. His cheeks flushed. Guilt was a rare, fleeting, and terribly painful emotion. He pushed it away as quickly as he could, but it left him too shy to say any 'I love you's on his way out. He hadn't earned the right, didn't want to dishonor the phrase by claiming it in one ofem these /emmoods. As soon as he'd stuffed everything in his bag, he bolted./p
p class="p1"Even after yelling for his sister… emno, no, no/em… he was greeted simply by deadness, barely a cricket out that night, barely stars. Barely anything resembling a positive emotion in his chest, dipping down further than it usually went, and it usually went emfar/em. Jack dragged his fingers down his face, nails sharp. He called her emergency phone, the one he'd helped save up to get. Nothing. He scratched at his scalp aimlessly while rushing through their route home, looking in every alley. He thought about— earlier, when he'd last seen her. He thought about the faces as hard as he could, forced them to clear, forced himself to let reality spill in./p
p class="p1"He saw bad faces. Stupid, disgusting, repulsive faces of little boys who didn't know how to fucking grow up and learn not to act like their past-the-expiration-date trash fathers and grandfathers. Jack punched a concrete wall until there was faint blood over the graffiti, mouth tightly shut and muffling screaming, shaking with both a terror and anger he'd never had as such a rush./p
p class="p1"After that, he went home to get the knife he kept beneath his mattress./p
p class="p3" align="center"***/p
p class="p1"Jack unclenched his hands from his sheets. He stared upwards, then rolled to the side and reached down to gently feel for his knife. Still there. Same as ever. Safe as ever. Awful as ever. He curled up under the blankets, did a few breathing exercises, and went back to sleep./p
p class="p1"He had a lot of work ahead of him. It was time to stop being so weak. If he rebuilt himself with tools, money, loyalty and emfear,/em perhaps there'd be a day where he wasn't ruled by the long dead and gone. By his failures./p