Sunsets Over Suicideville (BoyxBoy)

Chapter One: Public School Sucks

One Year Earlier

      My first week at Ravenview High School was, in a word, weird. Or, in two, fucked up.

      On the first day, I was the center of attention. Except, I wasn't exactly being given the kind of attention one would think. Nobody came up to me to introduce themselves. Nobody waved at me, or smiled at me, or said hello. Nobody even offered me a seat at lunch, which, by the way, took me nearly half an hour to find because nobody would show where the lunchroom was at.

      Instead, each and every student, almost exactly half of the teachers, and hell, even a handful of janitors wouldn't stop staring at me. And I had no idea why. It was not like I wore anything outlandish, and I didn't have any crazy hair colors distracting their eyes. I mean, I did have a bit of a faux hawk going on, but no one in my old town seemed to mind it, so why would it bother anyone here? Plus, it wasn't like I put myself out in the open to their judgements. I didn't raise my hand at all, even when I knew the answer to each of the questions my teachers would ask. I was just there, and for some reason, people had a hard time accepting that.

      Everywhere I went, each hallway I speed-walked through, I could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes boring into my back. With every glance I dared to take, my eyes met with several others in return. And you'd think that after getting caught ogling at someone, the person would break eye contact right away and act as if nothing had happened, right? Wrong. Everyone had just kept watching me, their eyes practically eating me alive until I was finally creeped out enough to look away. It wasn't like they were glaring daggers at me, exactly, but they each shared the same expression as the next, which was a slightly hostile gaze with a tad bit of curiosity hinted somewhere in it.

      But the whole 'staring' thing wasn't the weirdest part of it all. My second day was even freakier.

      It was like, all of a sudden, the entire student body had come to the final agreement of not wanting anything to do with me, at all. They all made it very clear that I was of zero interest to them with each turn of their heads whenever I parted my lips to smile at them, or every time I opened my mouth to greet them and they'd simply act as if I had never spoken. It wasn't bullying, I don't think, because they weren't sneering or rolling their eyes at me. I didn't think they were mocking or talking about me behind my back, either. It was just as if I were nothing but a wisp of the wind messing with a stray lock of their hair or something. I was there, but nobody really paid attention to me and just fixed their hair back into place before going back to whatever they'd been doing.

      It was very unsettling, and I'd almost found myself missing their eight-hour long gazes. Almost.

      In a matter of twenty-four hours, I went from being the person nobody could keep their eyes off of, to the person nobody could bother taking a glimpse at. It was very weird. Is every public school like this? I had asked myself on Wednesday during the last period of the day. I'd then glanced over at a girl with short black hair and poorly dyed bleached ends; she'd quickly refocused her gaze back down to her math notebook. Jesus, I hope not.

      The fourth day of school was very much like my second and third. Nobody said a word to me, teachers rarely ever picked on me to answer, and I still hadn't scored a nice table to sit at during lunch. Thankfully, it was still rather warm outside due to the oncoming arrival of the approaching summer's heat cascading over our region of Earth's surface, but I knew it would eventually start getting chilly and rainy, as spring's bipolar nature still reigned, and I didn't exactly want to eat watery ham-and-cheese sandwiches for the rest of the school year.