I'm Not Real

Chapter One

Chapter 1: Burns and Bad Blood
All artwork in this book is drawn by me, including the cover, and is heavily inspired by Salem/Dreamalgia, or formerly known as Tearzah/Dollieguts.

"Click
Click
Click"
Cherry tapped her fingernails on the table impatiently. She'd get Keith back for this.

Keith had recently went out. He'd told Cherry he'd be home by 9. But it was now 9:06 and boy, Cherry was angry at him.
She didn't care if it was because of traffic or just a hold up, he lied to her.

After a few more seconds of waiting, Cherry began to feel her temper shorten as she stomped upstairs to the room the two of them shared. She stared at Keith's possessions and just started destroying them, leaving her own things alone.

Once she heard the door open from the front, she ran downstairs. He was only 13 minutes late but it might as well have been 13 hours given how pissed the auburn haired woman was. "WHERE WERE YOU?!" She said and started to cry. Whether it was of anger or misery, Keith didn't know.

"I was caught in traffic. Sorry babe, I really am." He said, sympathetically "YOU'RE LYING! YOU LIED!" She screamed, furious. She raised her hand to slap the shorter man, to which he flinched and back away, which only fueled Cherry's fury. She stomped away once again, this time to the table she'd been sitting at before.

Keith knew that what was next wasn't gonna be pretty. Either she's gonna hit him a lot more often, kick him out for a few days, or ignore him. None were any good.

He sat down next to her, partially to attempt to calm her down. Once he did, Cherry kicked him in the leg and shifted her chair away. He sighed and decided to go up to their room, only to see the mess his girlfriend had made. He groaned and began to clean up. This happened often.

He really couldn't do this for much longer, he just didn't know it yet.

Cherry was still sat at the table, fuming, texting her friends about Keith and how much he annoyed her. She told them he was so late and lied to her and then went upstairs when she was mad instead of communicating. How dare he.

After a few hours of cleaning, Keith passed out next to their newly organized closet. Cherry eventually got tired and walked upstairs, only to find her boyfriend slacking off!
He's just the worst.

She slapped him awake and dragged him into bed with her. He was still waking up and couldn't really fight back, especially considering he was noticably smaller and weaker than her.

She fell asleep, hugging Keith as if nothing happened. He was just... very confused at this point. Wasn't she mad at him? However he pushed these feelings and thoughts aside in favor of sleep. He never got much of it so it was pretty damn important to him that he wasn't conscious.

The next morning was mundane, if not a bit more violent than usual.

Keith was in a bad mood. It was the end of summer and start of their junior year. He was spending the summer with Cherry so he could avoid his father, but there wasn't any avoiding him now.

The fact that Cherry burnt his hand on the pan he was cooking eggs with didn't help his mood. Now he had to hide that mark on his hand, along with the fact that it hurt like all hell.

He started to get dressed. He couldn't wear his favorite T-shirt because it would just fucking show off Cherry's cuts and burns, so he got the next best thing. He put an oversized white sweater and a red tank with a white prohibition sign overtop it. He put on blue jeans and his hat, and was ready to go.

He walked out of the house with his bag while Cherry was still in the shower. He couldn't care less if he got hit over it later, he was in for much worse after school anyway.

Keith got to the front gate just as Cherry caught up with him. She held the hand that she'd burnt and squeezed it, causing him to flinch in pain. She looked at him innocently.

'Bitch.' he thought spitefully

The blue haired boy was normally a pretty obedient partner to her but today was different. Today was the first day of school and his first day in the second ring of hell.

How lovely.

"Dolly, why didn't you wait for me?" Cherry asked as she squeezed Keith's burnt hand tighter. Keith hated that name. Cherry gave him plenty of names but they all felt wrong. Her favorites were Dolly and Puppy/Puppet simply because whenever Cherry called him that, Keith knew he was hers to keep.

Keith tried to get her hand off of his but it only made it hurt more. Suddenly a boy busted through, yelling "Move it!"

Keith was frightened until he noticed that the student was his friend Pico. He was probably just trying to separate Cherry from him.
"Your friends are rude." The auburn haired student huffed and walked off to her friends, who were glaring daggers at him.

Lord knows what she had told them.

Keith took this moment to run over to his friend group. Pico, Nene, and Darnell. He dramatically sighed and slumped onto a bench they were standing next to "Woe is me! Y'all didn't come save me ONCE, 'cept Pico!" He whined sarcastically.
Nene and Darnell rolled their eyes, Darnell smiling and Nene chuckling. Pico smirked and sat next to Keith.

"Thanks for gettin' me away from Cherry by the way!" The blue haired boy smiled brightly, fiddling with his sleeve to cover the burns better. "No problem." He shrugged. He looked like he wanted to say something but kept his mouth shut.

"I'm tellin' you, you gotta leave her!" Darnell broke the silence "No, I can't."

'I don't know what she'd do to me. And even if she didn't do anything, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.' Keith thought to himself. At this point, he couldn't function without the threat of harm or being pushed to do things. It was sad, but true. He felt he would be nothing without Cherry.

Everyone decided to leave it at that upon seeing him starting to get upset. Pico patted his shoulder comfortingly as he pulled out a light blue paper. "What's y'all's schedule like? I've got math first." "Me too." "Mhm!" "Awesome!"

It was a happy coincidence that they all had the same first period, meaning they had the same homeroom! Something had to go wrong, it was going far too right.

Once they'd went through their schedules, it turned out that they had 3 classes altogether. Keith had 1 more with Nene and Darnell and 2 with Pico too.

Now something HAD to go wrong. Keith was jittery about the whole thing. He'd convinced himself that something was terribly wrong. But nothing was happening, and it was really stressin' him out!

He arrived to class early with his friend group. Suddenly Cherry and her friend Senpai walked in after us. "Hi, Dolly!" She waved at the bluenette cheerfully. She was gonna sit next to him. but Nene suddenly snatched the seat for herself. Same with the one on the other side, taken by Pico. The one in front of him, being taken by Darnell.
'I have awesome friends.' keith smiled brightly.

Maybe this year would be tolerable than he thought.