I Am Who I Am

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     Asher woke up, dripping wet. He didn't remember where he was or how he got there, but he could feel large water droplets pelting his face. When his eyes finally opened he was staring straight up at the clouds. His brows furrowed in confusion, until he remembered where he was. Asher sat up with a start, he had forgotten to go home the night prior, and worse he'd slept on the dew covered grass of the football field. He still wasn't sure how he had gotten there, but he'd known he'd been practicing the prior night. 

     Asher pulled his wet hoodie up over his head, and stood up painfully. He was sore from a restless sleep on the ground, but no worse for where. The large fences of the edge of the field stretched in the distance like the farthest walk he'd ever take, and Asher groaned, knowing he shouldn't be caught on the field while he was suspended. It was early, too early for even the teachers to be at school, so he had a bit of time. What he didn't have was a change of clothes, and it had rained in the night, or the dew had covered him like the grass, at least. Asher wasn't totally sure how dew worked. Any way he looked at it though, he was wet, and he probably looked like hell. The school would be locked until 7:15, and Asher's watch read that it wasn't even 5:30 yet, so he resolved to go sit in his car until the morning. Thankfully he hadn't lost his keys, though he wished he could say the same for his mind, and he made his way out of the field. 

     His car was chilly, so he switched on the heat in bursts, trying not to waste all of his gas. Asher rummaged around his car for a dry shirt, or a power bar, but found nothing, and sighed. In the car mirror he could see deep red circles under his eyes, and untamed blonde hair that stuck up all over. Asher would have settled for a comb, and some water, but his car offered him nothing. He felt pathetic. Pathetic for not being on the team. Pathetic for sneaking onto the field. And Pathetic for having to walk into school looking like he'd gotten hit by a bus. It was difficult to have any faith in times like these. Asher was utterly alone in every sense of the word. Trying to change was proving unrewarding, as Simon still only thought of him as a friend. So why bother?

     Why should Asher change, just to be rejected by Simon as a nicer guy. The way Asher saw it, nobody in that school deserved his kindness after what they put him through. Asher thought the school was an awful place that was made of terrible creatures out to get him. Simon had melded into the mob of horror he saw when he looked into the mirror, and it was difficult for him to keep himself together. Asher was hanging on by a thread, and the thread was heavily frayed. Trying in life was exhausting, and he could see the scars of it etched in the wrinkles on his face. In his mind's eye Asher was still the same child hiding from his mother's rage, as the police dragged his father away. Asher was the boy who watched his abusive father be dragged away, and be replaced by an abusive mother. Asher watched as he tore his own family apart, and his mother punished him with the pain he'd caused her; by disappearing. 

     Asher carried hate in his heart, a bitter kind of hate, that steamed and grew as it mulled around, until it exploded out at him. Simon was wrong. He was not capable of being a good person. Asher was like a cage, that could only contain the beast within for so long. Simon was lucky Asher hadn't lost his mind and gone after Shea. Shea was lucky to be at another school because if he wasn't Asher would have much more than a cracked phone to remind him of the dangers of his fury. 

     People talk of becoming your parents, and Asher had watched himself become his father. 

     Asher couldn't change that fact, anymore than he could change the past. Or then he could change the future. Asher was to be alone. Asher was to always be alone. That was his punishment for taking his father away from his mother. He was going to spend the rest of his life away, and if he ever did find someone who could bear to be with him, he would destroy that, just like he'd destroy everything good in his life. 

     Judgement Day would come for him, as it did for everyone, and he'd be faced with all of his actions. The terrible things he did, the terrible things he was yet to do, and be forced to answer to them. And what would he say? What could he say? Was there ever going to be an answer as to why he was who he was? He could blame his parents. He could blame his father. He could blame Simon. He could blame Shea. But none of that atoned for the fire that raged within his hardened heart. 

     The day somebody would finally put an end to him and all his suffering could not come soon enough. Somebody needed to step up and vanquish the wickedness, and free Asher from his own consciousness. People can't change, Asher decided. It simply wasn't the way of things. and if Simon didn't understand that, it was on him. Shea, Liam, Garrett, and Simon were his four horsemen of the apocalypse. Liam was the sword of hatred, a protector that stands firm to kill, famine. Garret the wild beasts and representation of his life being torn apart and taken from for sport. Shea was plague an infectious anger that entrapped Asher and led him deeper from the light, something airborne, something he cold neither see, nor touch, but still something that could kill him. Then there was Simon, the horsemen of famine. The beacon of deprivation, sent to send Asher visions of beauty, and tempt him, but snatch away at the last minute. Famine was the slowest of the deaths, and the visible signs were the least scathing. Still it was the worst. The sword kills you in one clean blow. The beasts attack and the pain is over. The plague debilitates you to a delirious state. But famine, famine is a slow aware gnawing death that takes weeks to develop before finally destroying you from the inside out.  

     There was one truth that bounded round Asher mind. He was who he was. And there was going to be no changing of that.


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