Welcome To Your Fate | • The Music Freaks

Chapter 1

He could laugh at himself, really.

Jake thought he had turned out alright. After years of bullying thorough his entire life. Getting picked on during the whole kindergarten, elementary and even middle school. Being belittled, looked down upon, verbally abused, suicide baited and emotionally traumatized. Enduring physical abuse, shoving in lockers, kicking, punching, hair-pulling and constant abusing by all the people in his school just because of a stupid hobby. Trying so hard to be better than all members of his wretched and rotten family. Having suicidal thoughts, self harm tendencies and pessimistic views on everything in his fucking miserable life.

He thought he had turned out all right, after all. Clearly, he was so, so appallingly wrong.

It's really funny. How could he even begin to think that a person who has been exposed to the harmful, unmoral and such negative environment from the second he was born would become a good person? Why did he allow himself to hope that suffering for 17 years would be able to help shape him into something nice, and not completely rotten, dare say, to the core? He can't wrap his head around it because he can't believe how absolutely fucking stupid he was.

He's not a confident bully he personates himself as. Jake Sterling, a charming, confident show-off with a perfect life. Fuck that. That's not who he is.

Jake Sterling is nothing but a daft, foolish clown. He regularly wore his perfect mask and the second Zoey leaked that audio the mask cracked. The fact that everything it took for his "perfect" life to go to hell was the sheer act of Zoey publishing the atrocious audio was pathetic. And still, he just can't find it in himself to blame her.

Was he angry? Absolutely so. She was the whole reason his life took a turn and he was now enduring everything he endured before. Was he disappointed? Yes, even a bit reluctantly admitted, but he was. But blame? Did he blame her? Such a stupid question. Everyone in their right mind would.

And yet, instead of all consuming hate he should be feeling towards her, all he felt was sad, understanding pity. Maybe he was a bit loony after all, as the whole school instigated. He can't say he's surprised she would do this but that's just a kind of person Zoey was.

He outed her so she outed him. He exposed her dirty secret so she exposed his in return. He ruined her life so she decided to do vice versa. An eye for an eye, leg for a leg, some would say. It was only fair. Yes, it was callous, cruel and petty. But it was fucking revenge, and Jake didn't blame her a bit for that.

Zoey was just acting the best way she knew. Even though she comprehended what the actions were gonna bring her, or was aware of the consequences her deeds could have, she still did what she was taught to do best. Play dirty. That's how she got on in life, how she lived and how she's going to do as much as God will allow her to.

She was just what environment she was in shaped her. Perhaps, that's why Jake felt so dumb about thinking he could turn out all right. Seeing as Zoey wasn't the best person, how could he be? The blond girl was following the footsteps of her family and was acting in the way she was raised.

They were raised in the same environment, in the identical surroundings and conditions cut from the same cloth. If she didn't turn out as a righteous person he thought himself to be, how could he? And this realization, this such unpleasant and troublesome acknowledgement brought him cathartic feeling of a weight lifted off his mind. Deep down, in both heart and mind he knew this. But to finally admit it to himself after years of running and doing anything in his power to shut out all signs of it was both a blessing and a curse.

Jake didn't know whether to cry hysterically to the point of his eyes swelling up or laugh so extremely loud until he caused his eyeballs to pop and bleed out. But one, he knew - he was exactly like his cousin. And she was exactly like him. There was no point in denying it, it didn't matter whether they liked it or not.