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The blond-haired boy flopped down on his bed.
Why was he feeling this way? He had everything he wanted. Everyone liked him, always wanted to hang out with him and talk to him. He had multiple people chasing him, and it wouldn’t be hard to find someone he liked - as more than a friend.
But he felt so empty.
Then again, had he ever felt anything other than this? He couldn’t remember. It was like he was in a bubble that was keeping him from getting closer to others.
He lay down and closed his eyes. Thought about everyone smiling at him, walking up to talk to him. Him responding with a smile that wasn’t happy, because everything was perfectly fine.
Right?
The blonde rolled over, facing his nightstand. Where a picture of him and his friends balanced precariously on the dirty surface, cups of instant ramen almost blocking their faces. Everything felt so dirty. He felt so dirty. Something had to change.
So he got up. Cleaned his small apartment. Did the dishes. Took a shower that had been pushed aside to sleep for about a month now.
When he walked back into his room, he felt like he didn’t belong there.
He should be in his own apartment. Laying among the piles of trash and grime, not here in this room smelling of cleaning alcohol, disinfectant, and disturbed-but-mostly-swept-up dust.
What came over him to try to clean himself of the filth that lingered in places he couldn’t reach?
Why, even though he should be happy, was he walking around with a heart full of emptiness?
Where were the feelings of gratitude and happiness that you were supposed to feel when you were luckier than others?
The blonde teenager trudged to his bed, collapsing onto it. He looked out the window, where the sky was bleeding its last rays of warmth and happiness before it sunk, leaving the sky to fall into darkness with nothing left but pinpricks of blind, white hope.
Yet, the sky was luckier than some.
Tomorrow, it would wake up, hope seeping into its black eyes and warming them until it can feel yellow again.
But the teen would lay there, the pinpricks fading away slowly - one by one, until he was cold and dark and empty. The only thing warm would be the blankets that were waiting for him to slip under. They would be the only thing always waiting to cover him and hug him, no matter how broken he was.
The cold, grey, alone boy watched the sun bleed until the sky died. With it went some of the stars allowing him to smile when he was supposed to.
The teen had to grow up early. He was mentally an adult by the time he was 5, even though he pretended to be dumb and carefree.
By now, he was basically an old man, right?
The blonde who had been here for longer than he should have lived, melted even farther into his bed. Two tears dripped down his face and made a soft ‘plunk’ as they hit his sheets. His face twisted into a look of pure pain, and he let out a single sob. Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, all emotion was wiped from his face and he laid there, nothing but tired now. His sunken eyes and greenish face stared with no pure intention at the peeling tape on the ceiling.
He wished he had let himself cry whenever he wanted to when he still could. If he could go back in time, that would be the one thing he would change.
As of today, the boy had been suffering for 5,475 days, or 15 years. Today wouldn’t be the last.
Sometimes, he thought of himself as more of an old man than a boy. But he drifted into a sleep filled with monsters that drove him awake, frightened, and with tears dripping down his cheeks.
You can’t really blame him though, right?
He’s really only still a child.