Tender Hearts Only Get Torn Apart

I promise this story gets better. It’s meant to be a story about real life, and it’s very plain since it’s as such. But I think that this kind of story is best, a boy meets boy type of thing.
Please review and let me know what you think so I can adjust the story accordingly.

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[Jason’s POV]


The sunlight filtered through my window, lighting my second story room with a muggy amber glow. The French windows to the small balcony were cracked open slightly, and the black lace drapes pulled back, allowing the glow to illuminate the small purple bundle of Egyptian cotton sheets and large black damask and silk comforter on the large queen bed that’s haphazardly smushed into the leftmost corner of the room. (What can I say? I have a taste for eccentric luxuries, and we can afford them.) It was directly across from the window, and I’d deliberately left my curtains drawn so it would spill over into my room from between the braches of the sprawling oak in the front lawn. The soft shine against the walls made them a lighter red than the original burgundy, leaving shadows of skeleton fingers and waving leaves, and the few vintage band posters up had a glare from the light. Black clothing and skinny jeans were strewn haphazardly across my parquet floor, the cherry wood shining with wax. I had streamers of lace and ribbon tacked up to my ceiling, masking it with black and red crisscrosses. The black fish net material I’d found at Wal-mart in the fabric section while bargain shopping was plastered on the wall across from my bed where I sat, with pictures of me and Robert (and Jessica and Jillian) along with a few of my family hung on it and smiling out at the wreckage I called my room.

I was already up, even this early. The sun had just come up a few measly minutes ago, but I found I couldn’t sleep anymore after the first birds twittered outside my window on the large oak. I guess it’s a habit, something I’ve grown into ever since starting high school. It’s almost seven in the morning, and I’ve already got my shoes on, tied and everything. I kinda feel like giving myself a hearty pat on the back for being so responsible, but instead I say fuck that and kick my door open instead, alerting the rest of the household that it’s time to get the hell out of bed and make Jason some breakfast. Like I said the other day to mom, I don’t plan on going anywhere today. Instead I’m going to stay home and torture the fam until my volunteer time arrives.

Yeah, I’m up already. So now they have to get up too.

With my trademark grin in place, I jump through the small unlit hallway, making as much racket as possible with my clunky pink converse shin-highs and hoping to any god willing to listen that Sam didn’t leave any of his toy trucks out here where I can step on them and trip to my sudden death at the bottom of the grand stairwell.

That’d be a wonderful end to a glorious day.

I’m laughing maniacally now and slamming on doors, heading for where I think the start of the stairs is. I can hear Emily screaming for me to shut up and get the fuck away from her door, and mom telling her to watch her fucking language. Sam’s whining that he wants pancakes, and I think that sounds like a marvelous idea.

“Pancakes it is!” I whoop.

Knowing that everyone’s up now, I pop my little skinny-jean covered tush up onto the nicked and crayoned banister and slide down, quickly swinging a sharp left to the kitchen when I reach the bottom. It’s spotless right now, all granite countertops and pristine stainless steel, the product of my mother’s hard work last night before bed. The scalloped lace curtains, slightly yellowed from years of my mother smoking, shudder gently when I pass by the sink in a rush. I pull one of the shiny silver pans down from the rack and slam it onto the stove, making sure to get out a large blue plastic bowl before taking a seat at the small table fitted snug in the corner. The bisquick is sitting on the countertop already, just waiting for mom to come down and fix up a good breakfast for us.

Emily and Arissa walk down the stairs first, all cotton pyjamas, lopsided frowns and hair poking in twenty directions. When they reach the bottom they glare fucking daggers at me, which doesn’t really do any good seeing as they each look hilarious with their short hair flying all over the place. Their pajamas match, one set pink and the other green with little bears all over them. Arissa’s not wearing her glasses, so she’s holding Em’s hand as a guide. I can tell that I’ll have to deal with a bit of bitching today, but right now I don’t much care. I just grin at them.

“Sam coming down?”

Em sniffs haughtily and slams herself in a chair opposite me, Arissa tagging along. “Of course, thanks to you. I think even Bill and Tin-tin are up now. You’d better hope mom’s not mad, Jacie-kins.” She says my little nickname snottily, corner of her lip twitching.

I roll my eyes at the pet name. I usually hate it when people call me by that name (it makes me sound like a fucking girl!), and yet somehow I can’t be bothered to even care about that much at the moment. I’m saved from any further complaints by Sam running down the stairs squealing, completely naked with his spider-man underwear on his head. Mom follows closely with a pair of shorts and a shirt for the little amateur nudist, and all of us laugh at her expense. The twins, Bill and Tina, rush down the stairs afterwards, not wanting to miss any of the action.

I hear a loud bang and a screech in the dining room and wince, knowing Sam’s been defeated, which means we might actually get on to breakfast before noon.

---

A few hours later and breakfast is done. It wasn’t quite uneventful- we had a batter fight halfway through and ended up having to make a whole new batch to cook. Sam kept getting too much in the pan after he insisted on cooking his own, and Emily had to take a shower break ‘ because the mix is like, so stuck in my hair, ugh’.

I’m actually regretting not being here earlier, because I can tell by the grateful looks mom keeps passing me that she’s thankful for my help. The twins are most rambunctious in the morning, and honestly? I’d hate to be a single mother with six kids. I think maybe I’d rip my hair out, which is pretty bad because my painstakingly dyed to blissful blue perfection layered cut is my most prized possession.

Anyways, we wrapped it up with out any casualties. Well, except for maybe the syrup. It was practically demolished.

And now we’re crowded around the large flat screen television, some crappy rerun of a sitcom none of us knows the name of showing on the bright screen. Mom’s perched on the huge blue couch and petting my hair in a really weird way, I’m sprawled on the floor leaning on the couch, and the twins are already back asleep on the floor somewhere. I don’t blame them, though- even breakfast in this house is pretty damn tiring.

I guess I fall asleep too, because the next thing I know mom is shaking my shoulder and passing me twenty bucks.

I sit up and rub my eyes, still groggy. “What time is it…?” I don’t know why I’m whispering, it’s just so silent. That in itself is a rarity here.

She smiles down at me and hands me my blue-black plaid hoodie and an umbrella. “It’s two, Jason. Time for you to go. It’s forty degrees outside and raining pretty hard, but it should be clear before you head off to Jillian’s. You’ll tell him I said hello, right?” She bends over, kisses the side of my head and continues. “Thank you so much for this, honey. It really means a lot to us all. I mean, the twins were the hardest, always asking where their big brother was. They look up to you so much and…”

And before I can even blink, my mother’s crying on my shoulder and hugging me, thanking me a million times. I laugh and shake her, knowing she’s not sad, just happy and overwhelmed. I blush just a bit and inconspicuously slip the twenty back into her pocket. I have my own ‘allowance’ shoved somewhere in my own jeans.

“Mom! It’s fine. Come on, I have to go.”

I feel bad for not being here before this, but it’s okay now. She smiles and nods, trying to wipe her tears quickly so that her hastily applied eyeliner doesn’t smear. I take the giant green umbrella from her and stand, stretching before I do anything else. She suddenly grips me in a final hug and we both laugh awkwardly.

“Two gallons of milk,” she reminds me. “Two percent. Oh and… some syrup too.”

We both laugh again, less awkward this time, and I tuck the hoodie around me, the immensity of it on my skinny frame making me feel safe.

“Don’t worry, mom.” I pop the dirty green umbrella open.

“I should be home before eight.”

---

The library is silent aside from the metal tinkle of bells when I waltz in, humming some obscure tune. Come to think of it, it’s that same damn tune from yesterday. ‘Three Cheers for Five Years’, I think. There’s a rickety old wooden coat stand by the swinging doors, where I rest my soggy hoodie and umbrella. The thin cotton jacket is something I‘d gotten on a whim in the city once, and the umbrella was picked up on one of my infamous Brooks bargain shopping sprees years ago, a lime green affair just washed clean by the rain. They’re not the best that I own, but they’re what mom handed me and what I took for today. It’s the middle of August here, which usually means heat. All of our summer things were packed away until winter hit us hard, but I guess there was a sudden cold front. The hoodie apparently just so happened to be lying around, probably the twins trying to play dress-up with it again.

Damn. It’s quiet. I’d say too quiet, but that’s just unbelievably cliché. We’ll just stick with quiet. And dusty.

I sneeze, loud in the deathly silence of the moldy library that I still hate. Hey, I might not hang at the arcade anymore but I still hate this fucking place. I’m not that different, it seems. This place is still a total turn-off.

I glance at the clock, as is my custom, before hauling my lazy ass over to the large oak desk where I’ll spend the next four hours of my life.

Misses Bagg comes around the corner like a bat out of hell, her glasses crooked as usual. I wave to her and tap my nose, indicating that I’m here so that she’ll get the fuck off my case. As usual, she nods in that fucking annoying way she has and walks back to her little room with her little sandwich and salad.

Me, I head over to that looming desk with an aura of anxiousness, hoping maybe Alex will come in again. I know I’m probably just being delusional. I mean, he checked out about twenty books. There’s no way he’s finished with them already.

I sigh melodramatically and plop into my stupid uncomfortable chair, grumbling. The scanner is heavy in my hand as I pick it up and pull the hulking barrel of returned books to me.

I pick the first of a million up, pop the cover, and begin a ritual that is now embedded in my mind.

Just four more hours. Four fucking goddamned hours.

---

Stepping out onto the sunlit concrete stairs of the library, I never felt so thankful for a fresh breath of air. The rain had let up and left a lingering scent of cleanliness all around the town, and it reminds me of fresh cut grass in the morning.

Thankfully, no one had come in at all for the past four hours. The tiny dusty string of bells that hung limp over the door hadn’t clattered together at all- that meant no chattering children, no old bag ladies, no halfway decent looking frazzled mothers wheeling carts of Dr. Seuss books off for toddlers, nothing for me to deal with. It was as good as it got on a day when I volunteered, a day when no one stepped a foot over that foreboding threshold. Well, foreboding in my mind at least.

So it is with high spirits that I swing my green umbrella around and take that first step into a soggy puddle- leftovers from the rain that spotted the entirety of the sidewalk and road. My converses are already drenched, so I don’t mind stepping into a few. Mom’ll have a fit when I waltz all over her clean carpets with my muddy shoes, but I just don’t care. I think half the time that was my main problem, I just never cared. I’d just take my shoes off, then- I didn’t want to add to her workload, and I felt a deep set shame for even thinking of doing so in the first place.

Stepping out from underneath the overhang that blocked patrons of our local booknest from the bright gleaming UV rays of the sun, I’m nearly blinded. After four whole dreary hours of not receiving any light except for the pitiful artificial glare from the rusty old-fashioned lamp on my oak reception desk, the sunlight comes as a slight shock. My pupils weren’t quite ready to adjust to the sudden light, and I hadn’t brought my sunglasses since I thought it’d be rainy all day, so I lift the hand not clutching my umbrella to shield my eyes. I hadn’t been outside more than ten minutes and already I was starting to sweat.

Figuring it would do me good to get into an air conditioned room as soon as possible, I let my feet carry me down the cracked cement path towards Jillian’s market. It was further into town, away from the slight bustle of this area. This part of town was littered with small shops that carried antiques, rare little trinkets that were too highly priced to really bring any customers in. The dusty windows showed my reflection as I walked past hurriedly. All of the real population did their shopping in the downtown area, where the supermarkets and banks were. My destination was a bit closer than that, just on the edge of downtown. It was just a small homely market run by a young guy close to my own age.

When my eyes finally adjust, I let my right hand fall back down to my hip. It tugs relentlessly at a loose thread on my shirt, my fingers winding around it over and over again. My thoughts drift slightly as I walked since I don’t have to cross any roads. I simply stare down at the chalky cement below my feet and listen to the soft patter my shoes make on the heated stone, waiting for them to automatically carry me to where I want to go. After living my entire life here, it isn’t too hard to get where I want without even really thinking about it. This was a very good thing, since I have a hard time keeping my thoughts centered on one subject.

I never saw the man standing in front of Phil’s hobby shop, staring wistfully in the large dusty window that hadn’t been cleaned for ages. He was in my way, of course, I realized five seconds too late. I was just thinking about dropping by the post office for the stamps mom had been wanting to get, when all of a sudden I was falling face first into a warm, soft chest. A breath of air hit my forehead and I heard a loud thud, followed by a startled sound in a high, nasally voice that sounded vaguely familiar.

I had my eyes squeezed shut, my hands bracing me from falling completely on the person, one on either side of their stomach. I didn’t even think before I started apologizing profusely for my slip-up.

“Ohmigod, I’m so fucking sorry! I wasn’t looking, and I…shit!”

My apology was cut short when I actually looked up to see who I’d run into. It was a small town, chances were I’d know who it was.

A pair of startled coffee-with-cream eyes met my own, small chunks of tawny hair falling into them. I let out a breathy sigh and my cheeks flushed. Suddenly, I wasn’t able to move to get up. I couldn’t move an inch.

“Alex.”

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So, apparently smushed isn’t even a word. Goddamnit.

Review, please. Or I might die. D: