**A/N - sorry that its been months since I updated but I hope this chapter's worth it :) . Please vote and comment and all that shizam. **
I ran out of the door and stared at the concrete housing estate I called home. We were on the top floor, 5 stories from the dingy grey entrance. It was considerably nice at a first glance up here. We had four neighbours, all elderly couples apart from the landlord who also lived up here.
There were numerous, vibrant potted plants, mostly hydrangeas and posies, that stood out next to the grey building. The large stone slabs under my feet were cracked and had weeds growing out of every crevice large enough.
I looked out at the city that lay beneath me, and breathed in the polluted air like I was about to hold my breath, before jamming my ear plugs in my ears and turning up the Fall Out Boy.
Music changes my mood entirely. Instead of living in a boring, foreseeable world - I turn into existing in an angsty, indie-rock music video shot in an old abandoned block of flats. Of course, that whole effect is kind of ruined for me when Mrs Mander says hello to me as she waters the flowers, or one of the many cats from the floor below starts rubbing against my leg in affection; still, it stops the crippling normality for just a few minutes. I don't think I could live in a world without music. Some days music is the only escape I have and instead of going to sleep I will lie awake for hours, with the music turned up so loud I'm permanently damaging my ear drums. Then of course I would drink gallons of coffee in the morning but to re-fuel myself in the morning, but I probably wouldn't have made it through the night with my sanity or dignity still attached if it wasn't for music. Music has saved my life more than any drug or counsellor could.
I walked down the discoloured flight of stairs that were littered with cigarettes and empty beer cans. At night you could hear people on these stairs almost constantly. I wouldn't normally mind, its not as though I would be asleep anyway, but there are kids living here that are probably having a hard enough time as it is. Anyone that lives here hasn't had it easy, but the kids see people around them that have had there lives ruined, and they can't see their lives being any different. They're normal kids: playing football, making daisy chains, and worrying their parents - but you can always tell the difference between a kid that grew up in this estate and a kid that grew up in the suburbs or countryside. Some estates are different, but in this one, where every playground within two miles is used as a drug dealers, and there's less kids than addicts, its hard to get off the path that had been set for you the minute you were born. I guess for me it was easier because I wasn't born here. I'm a foster child. I moved here when I was 8 and I guess over the past 10 years I've learnt how to tolerate it. It's easy to say that its awful and a place of intense crime and depression, and truth be told half the time that's exactly what it is, but not everything that comes out of it is completely awful. Just the stuff that stays in it.
At the bottom of the stairs listening to scream music no doubt, stood a boy who was the only human I could tolerate talking to for over an hour. Icarus. Tall and slim, beautiful clothes, amazing chestnut hair, your mediocre Prince Charming. We'd be the perfect couple, if not for the fact that he was gay and I had personal space issues.
"ICARUS" I shouted right next to his left ear.
He jumped out of his skin and looked annoyed, but responded by screaming "CARMENNN" in my face. "Piss off" I laughed as I pushed him into the hedge. He shoved me into the wall and we proceeded to walk to college.
"Karma" He joked. I just shook my head and laughed. I'd know Icarus ever since I started college. We'd just finished our first ever textiles lesson, and everyone was packing up there equipment, when a group of unknowing girls went over to flirt with him. When they asked about him having such an odd name, he just smiled and said, "I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high." The girls just looked even more confused. Then a girl who was really pushing her luck, asked Icarus what he found most attractive in a girl, to which he replied "Their boyfriend." The girls walked away as if they were utterly disgusted by him, and whispered to each other that they didn't want to know someone who wouldn't even talk about his name without sounding like a dick head. I shouted at them that they needed to touch up on their Greek mythology. Icarus laughed and asked me what my name was, "Carmen." I replied. He then strutted out of the room humming opera, and from that moment he became the only friend I ever really had.
