FIVE PERCENTS

I. IMMORTALITY'S ON THE MENU TONIGHT

THIERRY FARREN is too wasted to play god.

Liquor swims in its green glass home as the boy holding it sways to the beat of the bass. It thumps and reverberates in his chest, sounds bouncing off of the bones making up his ribs.

Drink and drown. It's Thierry Farren's motto, and he has lived by it well enough in his seventeen years of living. Nearly eighteen now. He glamorizes the drowning part by reminding himself that the pain will go, it always does, doesn't it? Alcohol works like magic and floods the dreadful things out.

It'll work, it always does. It'll work, it has to.

Thierry Farren cannot comprehend his own thoughts, much less the words people toss his way. He vaguely recognizes the word drunk and the word drive, but his mind is a mess, his conscience unseen and unheard of. There is no connection between the two as long as Thierry Farren is concerned.

Thierry, a boy from the lacrosse team mocks.

This, Thierry Farren catches and understands, because who wouldn't? His name is only to be spoken in full, and it's all anyone and everyone calls him. Teachers do the same, save for the few who use Mr. Farren instead. It's tradition, an everyday ritual of respect.

As Thiery Farren knocks the lights out of the boy whose name he cannot recall in the moment, part of his brain is somewhere else. It's egotistical and illogical and narcissistic, but that's what Thierry Farren's brain is ninety five percent of the time. The other five percent is lost and often absent, wandering the bare expanse for a home.

I'm Thierry Farren, the golden boy who doesn't need sports to make a name, the boy who comes from old money and summers of trips abroad and yacht parties. The boy who gets whatever he wants effortlessly. I'm Thierry Farren. The boy with the foreign name, you know him? That's me.

Thierry Farren is wasted and wasted and wasted, nothing less, but possibly more. He's gone, long gone now, and nothing can bring him back.

The boy from the lacrosse team is sputtering now, begging for Thierry Farren's mercy and for him to stop. But the latter doesn't listen, rarely when he is sober and almost never when he is drunk. They've attracted a crowd by now, and everyone is cheering Thierry Farren on because he's Thierry Farren, he will win. He always does. And people like being on the winning team, never the losing.

Thierry Farren Thierry Farren Thierry Farren, they cheer.

There's his name again, said to be spelled in molten gold, dripping off a sliver plaque. It's never looked like it has belonged anywhere more than it does now. Do you see it too? Because everyone else does.

The boy is in tatters now, and in every sense. He is almost unconscious, but he cares more for his reputation than he does his body. His mind is running a thousand miles per hour and with every punch it stops. Then runs again. Then stops.

No one dares to pull Thierry Farren away. They have all seen first-handedly how his fists land his blows, how his teeth sinks into skin and flesh and bone. He stops of his own accord, and when he does, he wipes his bloodied knuckles on his shirt, which undoubtedly costs hundreds, but Thierry Farren wears it like armor.

Lilou Blanche, a pretty foreign exchange student from France, approaches Thierry Farren and latches onto his arm. I would tell you more about Lilou, but it's not about her. It's about Thierry Farren. It always is, and it always will be. This is him, it's him, this is about him.

The two stumble outside, leaving the lacrosse boy to lay on the floor, still curled up and bruised. He'll be bruised for a long time to come.

Lilou whispers something gilded and sweet into Thierry Farren's ear. She is the queen to his king, and together they rule their kingdom of rich families and white children. Of winding staircases and ivory marble pillars.