Her hand came across my face hard. It hadn't surprised me that she'd slapped me. She had only asked me to go out with her because I was the only guy worth sleeping with that she hadn't done already.

She glared at me with her blue eyes, her bleached blonde hair framing her face. She was the typical popular girl. Her face was her coloring book, her skirt so short I could almost see her underwear by just standing next to her, her shirt made it very obvious that she was at least a double-D, and her heels so high she nearly matched my height of five eleven.

Honestly, I hadn't even wanted to come to this stupid party with her, but she hadn't given me much choice. So I showed up and she came in, all hotty and beaming because she was at this party, where she expected to get high and drunk and then laid. By me.

She'd latched onto my arm as if we'd been dating for weeks, as if she actually cared. She got us drinks. I sat in a corner not drinking any of mine. I didn't drink. But she just got another, after another, after another, acting more and more intoxicated with each sip.

Her sixteenth. After her sixteen she came over to me, smelling very strongly of alcohol, and wrapped her arms around my neck.

She expected me to take her to a room upstairs and fuck her till she couldn't walk. But I didn't want to share something like that with her. Her 'dream' of being the biggest slut in school crashed with only four words uttered sternly from my mouth.

"I'm taking you home."

She wasn't very happy about that. She tried seducing me, taunting me, threatening me. I refused. She was a whore and I hadn't even told her I would go out with her. She just assumed. I hated people who assumed.

That's when she slapped me. "Fuck you, Alex!" She'd screamed. Then entire room which had just recently been booming with music and screams was silenced immediately; the music, the drunk teens having 'fun', everything stopped. "I'm wide open for you!" She screamed, "I want you to fuck me! So fuck me, dammit!"

I didn't reply. My cheek stung from her hand, but I didn't show any emotion. I'd expected as much from her, she was the type of girl to treat any guy as a toy, but I didn't really care. The pain was nothing to me. Nothing anymore.

"What? Am I not good enough?!" She yelled.

I didn't say anything.

"Dammit, Alex!" She raised her hand to slap me again, but I caught her by the wrist.

I looked her straight in the eye and whispered, though I knew everyone could hear me.

"You are not good enough for me."

I had said it was silent before. But now... You could hear a pin drop. Nobody moved, nobody spoke, nobody breathed.

I let go of her wrist and walked through the crowd. They cleared a path and I walked outside, got in my car and drove home.

---------------------

I opened the door and walked into the kitchen. I didn't think much about what had transpired. Then again. I didn't think much at all these days. I saw no point to it. Thinking was just a construct of a mind desperate to get by in the world. I wasn't desperate, I couldn't afford to be desperate.

Footsteps echoed down the hall and my mom came around the corner, "Honey, you're home so early," she whispered.

I shrugged and pulled a soda from the fridge, "Parties aren't my thing..."

My mom looked at me worriedly as I walked passed her and sat down in the living room. She followed me and looked at me closely as I turned on the TV.

"Sweetie..." She whispered.

"Yeah?" I asked.

She brushed my hair from my face and ran the tips of her fingers over my cheek.

"Your cheek is all red," she whispered.

I shrugged and gently pushed her hand from my face, "I got slapped."

A worried look flashed over her face. "By who!?"

"A girl," I said, keeping my eyes on the TV.

She didn't seem surprised, "Sweetie, why'd she slap you? Surely you didn't deserve it?"

"Do you really want to know?" I asked.

She nodded.

"I refused to sleep with her..."

My mom didn't respond. In fact, a small smile crossed her face. She stood up and ruffled my hair, planting a kiss on my head, "You're such a good boy. I'll make you something to eat."

I looked at the TV. My mom was a kind woman. Her eyes were a chocolatey color, her hair had been a little lighter. When I was little it was shiny and soft. My mother had been a very beautiful woman.

Then she got older.

My mom had gotten sick when I was twelve years old. Diagnosed with Lupus, a disease that caused your body's own immune system to attack itself, she'd practically been living as an unintentional suicide attempt for years. Her hair had gotten darker, her eyes dimmer, lined with constant dark circles. She'd gotten skinnier and skinnier and ate whenever her stomach would allow it. She'd stopped going out with her sister on their weekly shopping trips when I was fourteen. And when I was fifteen...

When I was fifteen my dad lost it.

My mom apparently had not been completely faithful with him. My parents had gotten engaged when they were in college, they were happy, and then about two years into their marriage my dad was deployed. He had gone to West Point immediately after he graduated high school and it had been his dream to become a General.

He never made it.

My mom got pregnant only a few months into his deployment with me and my dad came home and quit the army. My family had been quite happy. When my mom got sick my dad had taken care of her, but a cloud hung over our family. We knew at any moment my mom could die. I was diagnosed with depression at thirteen, mainly because of my mother, but also because I didn't have the best school experience as a child.

Life went on and on and I ended up classified as emo and goth for the color of my clothes. It didn't bother me, but it didn't exactly make society like me.

That's when I turned fifteen. My mother told my dad two weeks after my birthday about what had happened during his deployment. My dad wasn't my dad after all.

He'd gone over the edge at that. Screaming about how he'd given up his dream for a kid who wasn't even his. He took it out on my mom... On me. I got sent to the office far too often for having black eyes. The police never did anything about it though.

That was until he got into a bar fight and killed a man.

He was sentenced to life in jail because of what he did.

Now it was just me and my mom. Nobody but us knew about the fact that my dad wasn't my dad. The fact that he was in jail only made me that much more of an outcast. The bullying got worse and worse. No one had my back. I got suspended for punching a guy because he made a comment about my 'bitchy-ass mom'. I switched schools. But the news was there too. And that's how I ended up moving across the country. From Brooklyn to Portland. School didn't get much better from there. But I told my mom things were fine. She couldn't handle moving again.

School went on. Mom got worse. She spent most of her time in bed. But every now and again she'd get up to make me dinner. Usually I cooked for her, but I was nowhere near as good as she was.

I was sixteen now. Still as goth as ever and the biggest outcast there ever was. And completely friendless.

"Sweetie, I made you some fried chicken," my mom said in her whispery voice.

"Thanks, Mom," I gave her a small smile. My mother was the only one I ever smiled for and that was only very rarely.

She smiled at me, kissed me on the head and went to bed.

I remember that night so clearly because it was when I started having these dreams. Dreams so vivid it was hard to tell when they were dreams or reality. I dreamt that night about a girl. Maybe as cheesy as every other beginning. But it still happened.

She snapped a picture of me with her old-fashioned camera and then beamed at me with her bright, green eyes. She giggled, "Alex you're so cute when you have that look on your face!"

I felt something in me, some odd feeling I'd never felt before. A small smile crept across my face, "You're cute all the time."

She blushed deeply and I smirked at her.

She punched me in the shoulder, "You jerk!"

And then everything slowly faded away...

Hope you'll stick around for more!

-Stry

(Written; 2012)

(Barely Edited; 8/4/17)