A Twisted Love

Colton tapped his pen on his desk over and over, forcing words to come into his mind. They usually flowed so freely, and he would jot them down on scrap paper as soon as he thought of something. Finally he finished the final verse of his poem and tucked it into the deepest depths of his book bag. No one ever looks there anyway...

Writing Poems was like a guilty pleasure for Colton. He'd never been one to show anyone his softer side and he wasn't about to start now. He looked up blankly at his ceiling and became hypnotized by the spinning on the fan, his mind drifting off to other thoughts.

The light knocking on his door brought him out of his reverie. He glared at the closed door and mumbled an annoyed, "What?"

He heard someone sigh and then a voice that was much like his own spoke up. "Mom wanted me to tell you that dinner's ready."

"Great." Colton said unenthusiastically. He picked himself off of his bed and stuffed the bottle of alcohol that lay on the floor from last night, under his bed. He swung open the door to see Cameron standing there, his eyes wide at Colton's sudden appearance. Cameron's eyes traveled down as he realized that Colton wasn't wearing a shirt.

With a grunt Colton picked up a random blue sweatshirt and pulled it over his head before heading downstairs to the dinner table. His mom looked up at Colton, startled for a second before her eyes softened. Her look of pity disgusted him bit, but he tried not to show it. After all his mom did take care of him, and he thought that maybe she did deserve a bit of respect for that.

He sat down at the seat he had gotten accustomed to sitting in for a quite a while, and Cameron sat across from him. Their mom sat at the head of the table and Olivia, their little sister, sat next to her. As soon as dinner was on the table Colton shoved bits of food into his mouth, trying to eat as fast as he could. He never was comfortable with being around his family for long periods of time. Cameron ate slowly, his eyes traveling around the table, anxious to break the quiet tension.

"So..." Cameron started, waiting for a minute before he was sure no one would start talking. "How was your day mom?"

"Oh it was okay. The meeting we had at work today made us miss our lunch break though." She said casually. Cameron nodded, showing polite interest in such a boring subject. Colton scoffed to himself.

"How about you Olivia? How is your last week of third grade going so far?" Cameron asked next.

"It was cool! I made three new friends and today one of them even invited me over! Her name's Jessie and I'm going over her house for a sleepover in a few days!" She said excitedly. Cameron grinned.

"That's great! I"m glad you're having fun Livvy!" He exclaimed. Colton ached to say something sarcastic, but didn't want to go through another 'hell lecture' as he called it, from mom. He kept his mouth shut, as hard as it was, and threw away half the plate of food that he had left untouched. He didn't have much of an appetite that night.

Colton made an escape to his room before anyone even noticed he was gone. He thought about how his family seemed so much happier, so much brighter, without him in the picture. For a minute he contemplated his thoughts. Would they really mind if he was gone?

The thought blossomed into an idea. It was a scary thing, and he tried not to imagine himself doing anything like it. Though even as he drifted off into a dreamless sleep he couldn't help but wonder if he would go through with it,

Was he seriously considering suicide?