Sunsets and Silhouette Dreams

I could hear frustrated and agitated groans coming from besides me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could also see occasional hair pulling. It seemed as if Adam was having trouble and with him distracting me, I would never be able to finish my report. So I turned to him and seeing as he was so raptly looking at his paper as if, if he concentrated hard enough the problems would solve themselves. I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention and when I had it, I offered my help. He looked as if I had just saved him from drowning.

“Really, you‘d do that thank you” he said his face no longer wrinkled and angry from his frustration.

“No problem” I told him.

“Now what is it you need help with?”

“Just about everything” He groaned and threw his head down on the desk.

I took his paper and looked over the problems on it. They were simple Algebra 2 problems in which you had to figure out the slope of a pair of points on a graph. It wasn’t too hard but most people got confused due to the negative plots and the formula.

When I looked up from the paper, I found Adam staring at me with a thoughtful look on his face, which unnerved me a little but did not keep me from turning the paper so both of us could see it. I then started explaining the process, which you had to go through in order to figure out the slope, the rise and the run. Then I helped him do a couple of problems and when I was confident he could do them on his own I turned back to my own work with the promise that if he need anymore help I’d be willing to assist.

Later that day when we headed toward lunch, my eyes anxiously searching for any sign of Hayden as I entered the cafeteria, a person fell into step with me. Turning my head, I realized it was Adam and before I could open my mouth to say hello or something he started talking about how I really helped him and that if I hadn’t he probably would have failed math and had to take it over again.

“I swear without a proper teacher I can‘t get anything done and the people here don‘t really help you very much” He had finished his thank you speech by the time we had gotten our food and I headed to the table with Haley.

When I got to the table, I realized Adam was still next to and doing the polite thing, I asked Haley if it was okay of he sat with us.

“Sure, no problem. It‘s always nice to talk to new people.”

I sat down next to Mark, who was sitting next to Haley but with a big gap in-between, presumably for me. Adam sat next to me on the side Haley was on and she engaged him in friendly conversation.

When the lunch bell rang, I heard Haley telling Adam that it would be nice if he could join us again sometime.

“Yeah” I joined Haley.

“It would be nice to talk to you again sometime and not just about math,” I told him rolling my eyes a friendly smile on his face.

“Sure, I‘d love to.” he said a smile on his own face.

“Would it be okay if I sat with you guys tomorrow?”

“Absolutely” Haley answered him.

As we walked out the door, my eyes did one final swoop across the cafeteria, still no sign of Hayden.

And there was no sign of Hayden when I went to the room that night, or when I woke I woke up in the morning.

I was starting to get worried.
Where was he?
Was he all right?

I had half a mind to go catch either Evan or James alone and ask them where he was, but that could wait. It hadn’t even been a week. I was over reacting.

I left for breakfast that morning in a daze, I was still worried about Hayden’s disappearance and to make matters worse I had a feeling in my gut that I wasn’t going to see him for a while.

When I got to the cafeteria I saw everybody was already there, including Adam, maybe today wouldn’t be so bad. I went to the line a grabbed a cereal thingy and some milk. When I got to the table, I realized I had forgotten to grab a spoon. I sighed and started to stand up but a hand tapped mine and I looked beside me to see Adam offering my his spoon. I gladly took it and began eating my cereal, a slight smile on my face. Froot Loops were so good.
All too soon the bell rang for classes to start and I grumpily made my way to the trash, not ready for the day to begin.

Classes passed in a blur, all I remember is working on my pre-calculus problems and them a book report for my English class.

Lunch was the same way.

By the time I got back to my room, I was so out of it, I didn’t even go to my bed. Somehow I ended on Hayden’s. I didn’t care though a took a nap.

I woke up refreshed and fog was no longer covering my brain. I could register everything that had happened and shuddered, thinking back on how much of a zombie I had been all day.
Then I remembered, I had fallen asleep on Hayden’s bed. I quickly tried to get out of the mess of tangled sheets, but I had fallen asleep which my shoes on, making it almost impossible to do so. With a desperate sound, I tried flipping myself over, thinking maybe I’d land on the floor and the sheets would come undone from my feet.

Wrong.

I ended up on the floor alright, but I took Hayden’s mattress along with me. On the Brightside I was no longer tangled up in the sheets.

When I finally regained my bearings from the fall, I stood up and attempted to separate the mattress and sheets so it’d be easier form me to re-make the bed. When I finally did it, I looked over at the box spring to see how I’d put the mattress back, but instead of seeing rectangle mess of fabric stretched over a wood frame I saw pages. What looked like hundreds of scraps of paper, all different kinds. Some blue, some white, some with lines and some without them.

I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but my curiosity was to much. I grabbed some scraps and saw writing. A messy scrawl on every single available space. It must be Hayden’s I thought. I read a bit from one of the ones in my hand.

I hate this place, I hate everything about it. It’s immoral. Do they think we’ll actually be “Cured”. Don’t make me laugh.

It sounded like Hayden alright, Cynical and sarcastic and overall a bit of an ass. I read from another one, this one on a pink piece of paper which made me laugh a bit.

I miss Kaleb. The way he’s always blush whenever I kissed him. It was so adorable. He was my first kiss and I was his. What went wrong? Oh yeah, I know. My stupid, idiotic, closed-minded parents, that’s what. If it wasn’t for then I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in the arms of my love, my darling, Kaleb

Now that didn’t sound like Hayden, at least not the one I know.

Acting on pure instinct alone, I grabbed all the little scraps. I put them in a pile and hurriedly put them under my pillow. I then fixed up Hayden’s bed and put everything back to normal. In a way everything was normal, well except for me. My mind was racing and my hands were itching to go under my pillow. To take out those papers and read through them. To find out more about Hayden and maybe how he wasn’t always like he is now.

When night fell, and I was sure no one would come in here at least for two hours, and that was just to make sure the lights were off, I took the pieces of paper from under my pillow. I began to read. An hour later, my mind was racing. Hayden wasn’t exactly who he was. He came off as this whore, but he wasn’t.

Kaleb was my first and Chris was my second. Both boys were special to me. I loved them, but all too soon they were ripped away from me. Kaleb, by my parents and Chris, by his birthday. I was left utterly alone in this hellhole. With only memories of them to keep me company

From what I read, Hayden had only ever been with two people, and his experiences had been meaningful and it was obvious they were full of love.

He wasn’t, is not, who I thought he was, and I say that in the best way possible. I think that someoneMe could fall in love with This Hayden.

Although I hadn’t gotten through all of them, the scraps had also provided me something else; something other than an insight into his mind. They told me where he was.