Until the End of Everything

“Get your lazy ass out of bed! Time for hell…I mean school!” shouted my roommate as he threw a pillow at me, waking me from my light sleep. It’d been a miracle that I’d actually gotten sleep, usually I can never fall asleep.
“No need to fucking shout, you’ll wake up the whole house!” I yell back. It’s what we do every morning, if you listen closely you can hear the moans of the other kids who were woken from all the yelling. My roommate, Pete, sat with his legs folded underneath him on his bed as he laughed at my joke. We both knew very well that we woke up the whole house, and we took pride in it.
“What on earth are you boys shouting about!” the head of the group home came running in, still dressed in her pajamas and greying brown hair all over the place.
“Nothing, ma’am. Just waking up,” Pete said in between fits of laughter.
“Right, every damn morning,” she mumbled angrily, while walking out of the room to tend to the small children that were know crying because of our shouting. I smiled slightly and got out of my bed.
Pete and I had the room to ourselves even though it could fit about three other kids. We were the oldest ones in the home, me being 16 and Pete being 17. It’d been about two years since I was put in foster care and though I’m not at the same home I started in, I’m still here and not in a loving family like those nice ladies at the hospital had said. Ah, well I figured I wasn’t going to get adopted so…no harm done. They constantly changed my home in hopes of finding the right family to adopt me. Though after a while I stopped thinking it was the location that was the problem. It was as many previous families put it: “He’s just too broken,” “He’s too depressed to be around our much smaller children,” “he used to cut and tried to kill himself before? That’s not very family friendly,” “He’s too skinny to be considered healthy, are you sure he doesn’t have an eating disorder?” oh and my personal favorite, “He’s gay? Why didn’t the head tell us this before?” Yeah, I really don’t think it’s the location that’s the issue. Pete has it ten times easier, not in the getting adopted aspect, he practically has the same problems I do minus the suicide attempts, but in the fact he doesn’t even remember his parents. They died before he turned two. Despite that, he was my only friend in this hell-hole. Most of the kids, here and at school alike, left me alone, minus the occasional bully but I usually took care of them easily. I guess everyone knew about my mom’s death and my movement into foster care and no one wanted to find out just how messed up that whole ordeal left me.
I rushed to the showers before any of the younger kids got up and took all the hot water. I loved them to pieces but seriously you don’t need to take a 30 minute shower with the heat turned all the way up.
Ten minutes later, I had my shower and was dressed and ready for school. Waiting for Pete to finish messing with his hair (I swear, he’s like a freaking girl), I sat on the steps leading out of the house. When he finally came out, the two of us headed toward school.
“Oh hey! I almost forgot, Happy Halloween and Birthday!” Pete shouted, once we were a little ways down the street.
“Oh…right,” that’s means I’m 17, now. One more year till I can live on my own and I can stop having to try and please the petty mothers and overly set in their ways fathers that come to see if they want to adopt me.
“Hey, just think of it this way, one more year and you’re free of this hell hole,” Pete said
“That’s what I’m doing,”
* * *
I walk home by myself. Pete going out with other friends and his boyfriend for Halloween, and leaving me alone. Oh well, I’m not a big fan of his friends and would rather be alone tonight anyway.
Upon entering the group home, I hear a rather heated conversation coming from the kitchen. I hear my name mentioned, so I sneak into the dining room next door to the kitchen to snoop on the rest of the conversation.
“It’s like he doesn’t even care anymore!” I recognize this voice as the head of this home, she sounds sad and disappointed.
“Well, then why don’t we move him again, to a new town, this one only holds bad memories for the kid,” another voice says. I don’t recognize this one. For one, it’s a male and my head is a female.
“I can’t do that to him, this is where he grew up, there are good memories here too!” she counters
“What choice do we have!? All the families and couples that come in here to adopt know what happened two years ago, it’s not every day a single mother is killed leaving her teenage son an orphan! No one wants a kid that is depressed and broken! How are we supposed to find him a home, if everyone in this town knows he’s bad news?”
“You’re right,” my head says after a few minutes of silence, “Tomorrow, he’ll be transferred to your home as you wanted,”
“Thank you, we’ll find him a home, don’t worry,”
They’re transferring me again? No, no, no, I can’t leave! How else am I supposed to stay with my mom? I can’t leave her, I can’t leave Pete either. He might not think much of it but he’s the only friend I’ve got left!
I run out of the house before the two heads of different houses catch me listening in on their conversation. I can’t leave this town, it’s my town, I’ve grown up here, and my mom and dad are both buried here. What am I going to do?!
I don’t even realizing I’m crying until I sit down on a curb a few blocks down from the group home. I don’t realize it at the time, but it’s the same curb I sat at waiting for my mother, who never came. I wipe the tears from my eyes, and bury my head in my arms.
There’s all these kids walking around me. All of them laughing and smiling, all of them happy. I can’t help but hate them right now, they have a home to go back to and people waiting for them to come back home. That’s all I want…to be wanted, for someone to be waiting for me at a nice home and not the cramped and lonely group home. Is that too much to ask? I guess so because I still have no one. No one to miss me if I disappear or died. If I died everyone’s world would keep turning, none of them stopping on my account.
Without even realizing it, I’ve made up my mind. If I’m leaving behind no one, there’s no harm in leaving, is there? I get up off the street’s curb and step into the currently empty street but as soon as the light turns green a little ways away a rush of cars will zoom by not stopping for anything and then no more Frank. It feels freeing, knowing that all this spiraling depression and loneliness with be gone soon. Any second now, I hope it will be quick.
“Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed!?” Someone shouts from the sidewalk, snapping me out of my thoughts. I look to the source of the voice to see a kid that looks to be about the same age as me. Though it’s a little hard to tell. He’s got pale blonde/white hair. Obviously dyed but that’s not what stands out, it’s the face paint. I can’t even see his face under all that makeup. It’s designed like a skull and looks freaking cool but I wasn’t really worried about that at the time. He was also dressed in what looked like a Goth marching band uniform. I had honestly no idea what he was going for but it looked pretty cool.
“Yes!” I shouted back, closing my eyes again and waiting for the cars that would be coming soon to take me away.
“Come on, get out of the street. You don’t really want to kill yourself!” the boy yells again.
“Yes I do!” I sob out, “I’ve got nothing left!” I close my eyes for the final time…but then I’m pulled out of the street and back onto the sidewalk. Guess it wasn’t the last time.
“What the fuck!” I shriek, still crying. That’s when I snap and start screaming at the boy, “You don’t fucking care! You just don’t want to have seen some shitty teen kill himself right in front of you while you just kept walking like you didn’t see anything!”
The boy looks saddened at my words and for a brief second I feel guilty for yelling at him so harshly but that guilt is soon replaced with anger as the boys new words hit me.
“You’re right,” he starts, “I could never live with myself if you kill yourself in front of me and I just let it happen,”
New tears start to streak down my cheeks as I let his words sink in. I knew it, nobody gives a damn about me. I go to step out into the street again but am stopped when the pale blonde grabs onto my arm as I pass him.
“But I do care as well.” He says. That’s a load of shit, he doesn’t even know me.
“You don’t even know me!” I voice my thoughts.
“But that’s the point,” he says, I look at him confused through my tears. “You don’t know me, and if you kill yourself now you never will. Think of all the people you wouldn’t get to meet. It’s a selfish thing to kill yourself and deprive others of you. Good and bad memories, they all matter. You just have to learn to separate them and leave the bad ones behind and not worry what other people say. Someone out there loves you, you just have to find him,” He finished his little speech and I collapse into his arms sobbing, once more but this time for a different reason.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything I said, I’m just so done with everything!” I say and the boy finally gets over his shock and holds me back, moving us so that we’re situated on the ground with me in his lap.
“Shhh, it’s okay, you’re okay,” oh this brings back memories. That boy the night my mother died, he said and did the same thing.
“But it’s not okay,” I start, “I don’t know what to do anymore! I don’t have anyone and they’re moving me to a different city again and I just can’t leave my mom behind! I just don’t know what to do!” I found a strange but familiar comfort in this boys arms that I only got in a different boys.
“You’re going to be fine, you can start anew, in a new town. Your mother will still be here when you get back,” he comforts and I start to calm down. He has a point. “We have to stop meeting like this,” the boy mumbles under his breath. Probably just meant for himself. But I heard him and was confused.
“What do you mean?” I shakily ask him. My voice sounding so weak and fragile. Like I’ll break at the slightest movement.
“Don’t worry about it,” the boy says, “I knew you wouldn’t remember,”
Remember what? Should I remember? I think I would remember someone with freakin’ white hair!
“So come on, we should get off the ground,” he says moving so we’re both standing on our feet. I pick up my school bag that I left on the curb before following the silver haired boy, as we began to walk aimlessly around the streets.
“Why?” the boy asks. It’s a simple question that could mean anything. But I know what he’s asking.
“I already answered that in my mindless crying, I’m done with all this shit, I’m living in hell and they’re moving me yet again to another group home. I just can’t take it anymore.” I wipe tears from my eyes and sniffle before asking, “Where’d you steal that “don’t kill yourself, you have some much to live for!” speech from?”
“Oh, uh, believe it or not, I was suicidal once, and that’s the same speech my at the time soon to be guardian gave me,” the boy said. So he’s parentless too? The boy laughs darkly, I guess I said that out loud.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about it,” he sounds terrified and I drop the subject. “Come on, it’s Halloween, let’s go get some free candy,” The boy says looking happier already but his eyes tell a different story. What’re you hiding?
“It’s also my birthday,” I say absentmindedly, without really thinking about it.
“Wouldn’t that have been the shittiest birthday ever, then?”
“Yeah, and a cruel, ironic joke,” I said, dying on the same day you were born.
“But seriously then, let’s get the birthday boy some candy,”
We walk around for hours getting as much candy as our bags could carry. Which wasn’t much considering my bag was also my school bag and had all my books in it. Hey, it’s all I had! When the curfew for my group home comes around, the skeletal boy walks with me to the house. Once we stand just below the steps to the front door, we stop and turn to face each other.
“So, uh, Thanks…for uh, you know, saving my life?” I say it in a question. Because I’m all that sure of myself. All I know is, that in these few hours I’ve completely fallen for my savior. It might just be me latching on to the first person who’s actually cared in two years but I don’t care. I’m probably never going to get to see this guy again so I’ll do what I want.
“No problem, it’s not every day, I get to help out a fellow broken, beaten, and damned,” the taller boy chuckles, no…giggles, like what he just said is some inside joke. I don’t question it, however, and we fall silent again.
It’s the boy that moves first, stepping closer to me and bringing a hand up to my cheek, cupping it lightly. And then he does something I never expected. He kissed me, granted very lightly and only for a few seconds but a kiss none the less.
“Goodbye, and remember someone out there loves you, you’ll just have to find him” and then he’s gone. I stand there is shock for a few moments and then the shock turns to confusion. And finally confusion turns to realization:
“He said, I have to find him!” I smile for a second before the realization turns to frustration. “But I didn’t get a freakin name!” I think on this for a moment, “But he doesn’t know my name either so how’s this going to work…? Fuck.” and there’s that confusion again.

Notes

Welcome to the second chapter! I hope you enjoy and as always constructive criticism is welcomed and encouraged. I really want to know what you think so please leave and comment and all that other stuff you can do. It'll take maybe thirty seconds, but will be greatly appreciated.
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