Sure to Shine

Eric’s father was none the wiser to Eric’s night time wanderings. Eric had made sure he was back well before his father would wake for work, but he and Skylar had still sat in the quiet cemetery until the sun had started to appear.

Eric knew his father sensed that something was strange, however. Eric told him he had had a rough night’s sleep and was tired, which wasn’t exactly a lie. At any rate, it covered up for the fact that Eric was unusually quiet this morning. What his father didn’t know, and Eric knew he could never find out, was that he had spent the entire night running around with a teenage psychopath.

"Are you sure nothing’s bothering you, son?" Matthew Jensen asked, as Eric headed for the door, trying to push it open instead of pull it.

"I’m fine," Eric muttered. "Like I said, I’m just real tired, that’s all."

How was he going to explain to his father that, for some reason, when the sun rose that morning, Eric had seen the world in a totally different light to how he had seen it the morning before? How could he explain that now, when he looked around himself, he saw the fake persona of society, he saw the forced concern on the faces of everyone, he saw how they hid their true selves under a cloak of forced manners? How would he explain all of that?

It was quicker to not bother.

Eric, for once, didn’t have to rush to school. He walked slowly, hands shoved deep in his pockets, thinking about everything which had been said that early morning. He felt so different, almost enlightened, but not in a good way. When he looked at people, they annoyed him. He knew what they were truly like. It was an insult to his intelligence, the way they smiled at him and wished him a nice day.

He knew they didn’t mean it. They didn’t care about him. They said it because they felt they had to, because society dictated that this was the proper thing to do. They didn’t say it because they had any emotional attachment to him, nor because they cared how his day went. It was the thing which was expected of them. That was why they did it.

Eric decided he wanted none of that anymore. He wasn’t going to bullshit everyone into thinking that he actually cared about them.

He was incredibly early into school, and he wandered around the corridors slowly, peering into empty classrooms and hearing the squeaky echo of his battered Converse on the overly polished floor. He found his mind wandering over to the subject of Ben, but he no longer wanted to force the thoughts about the troubled teenager out of his mind. After speaking with Skylar, Eric felt as though he finally understood Ben. Hell, he could almost empathise with him. Eric was a smart kid, too. He had experienced what someone had to go through to succeed in high school.

After Skylar had told him so much about Ben Murdoch, Eric could almost feel him everywhere. He could almost see him skulking around the corridors, eating lunch alone, trying to avoid everyone just to get some peace, just so he could be himself. He could almost sense his anger, sense his hatred, feel his presence everywhere.

Eric found himself walking quietly upstairs to the library. The corridors were deserted, and he knew the only people who would be here now would be the kids with important projects due in first period or teachers who hadn’t completed their lesson plans for the day. Eric hadn’t realised how early it had been when he had walked out of the door. It had simply been habit.

Checking the time on his cell phone, Eric realised that, had this been a normal day, he would still be in his bed, ignoring the buzzing of his alarm.

But today was anything but a normal day. Today was special. Today seemed to be the first day of his life that Eric finally understood the world around him, how people acted, why they did what they did.

He walked down the deserted English corridor and tried the door to the library. He was in luck; it was unlocked. Letting himself in, Eric quiet went to one of the tables which was hidden in between two large shelves of books. It had always been his favourite place to sit. It was private and secluded, set apart from the other large tables in the middle of the room and the computers at the far side. Sitting down, Eric pulled his bag over to him and took out the Politics textbook, holding it with care now, instead of the disgust he had held it with previously. He placed it on the table gently and looked at it for a while, before opening it and staring at Ben’s handwriting again. The dates still looked strange.

Ben Murdoch. 1997.

Eric Jensen. 2009.

Eric looked up, turning his head to the left and looking out across the deserted library. It was quiet, even for a library. Eric wondered if it had been this quiet the last time Ben had been in here, before the gunshot would have broken the silence. He wondered what that must have been like, to know you were about to die.

Eric could almost see Ben now. It wasn’t hard to picture him, considering that they looked so alike. He pictured what Ben might have been doing in his last moments. Eric could see him pacing up and down, between the desks, perhaps pausing every so often, wondering if he was really going to go through with it. Perhaps he paused a few times, trying to psych himself up? Then he would have started pacing again, before he finally grabbed the gun, put it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. He would have died right away, Eric was sure of that. He wouldn’t have felt himself hit the floor.

And then what? Eric wondered. How long would he have lay there until he had been found? How long did it take the police to realise that there wasn’t a gunman any longer?

Eric felt slightly heavy-hearted as he thought about Ben lying there for God knows how long. For some reason, he didn’t feel the same way when he thought about the victims. Sure, it was sad that they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in Eric’s eyes, the real tragedy was Ben. Everyone had failed him; his friends, his family, his teachers. No one had been there to catch him before he hit rock-bottom, and unfortunately people had paid the price.

Eric rested his arms across the textbook and leant his head against them, yawning and closing his eyes. This room was always so warm.

He woke up with s a start, hearing the bell echoing around the school.

“Shit!” he muttered, leaping up and shoving the book into his bag. Whipping out his cell phone, he checked the time. He had managed to miss two classes.

He thought about the irony of the fact he had been one of the first in school and had still managed to clock up what was a pretty epic late. However, he tried not to panic. He knew what he had to do.

Quickly pulling out some paper from his bag, he scribbled a note saying he had been at a doctor’s appointment that morning. He and his father’s writing was incredibly similar, all Eric had to do to forge his father’s writing was slant the page at an angle so he wrote in slight italics. He had become rather expert at his father’s signature as well; however this was for pretty innocent reasons. Not innocent as in legitimate in the eyes of the law, but as in his father had taught him how to do it.

When Eric’s mother had first left them, Matthew had to take on another job to help pay for everything and had therefore missed a lot of important letters and notices which couldn’t be ignored until the next day. Therefore, as long as he was sure what they were about and knew they needed to be done, he had no problem with his teenage son signing them and sending them back. It had, after all, been the only thing keeping them with heat and light for quite some time.

Eric doubled back and came back into the school through the main entrance, acting casual as he signed in and gave his note to the receptionists. He had gotten away with it before, so he wasn’t surprised to get away with it again.

"Where were you?" Adam asked him, as Eric found him in the senior common room.

"I fell asleep in the library," Eric replied, yawning again, and Adam gave him an amused smile.

"You not get enough sleep last night?"

"I didn’t get any sleep last night," Eric said, realising just how tired he still was.

"Why?" Adam asked.

"I –" Eric began, but then he shrugged and shook his head. “Just one of those nights,” he muttered instead. He didn’t think Skylar would want him mouthing off about him. Eric was especially certain that telling people he had been held at gunpoint by a teenager was also a pretty big no.

Eric knew his friends were sensing the bristling annoyance off of him all day, but he didn’t care too much. He knew they would blame it on his tiredness. They didn’t need o know that it was because he saw them all for who they really are. The only person Eric couldn’t bring himself to glare at was Adam.

His bad temper finally began to spill over as he was walking to his first class after lunch, which happened to be Politics. He had been unfortunate enough to catch the rush between classes, where all of the pupils, nearly one thousand of them, would be making their way to class at the same time. It was one of Eric’s pet peeves at the best of times, but today he really wasn’t in the mood.

It annoyed him the most when he got to situations like the one he was currently in. The corridors were separated by large double fire doors, and Eric always managed to get to one where someone had only opened one door, and there was a complete scrum to get through it, causing a large backlog of people.

Growling under his breath, Eric shoved several freshmen out of the way and pulled open the other door.

"Look at that!" he said loudly, glaring. "If you open the other fucking door, more people can get through! Now there’s a discovery for you!"

With that, he stormed through the other door.

"Idiots," he muttered under his breath. He didn’t bother to turn and check back. The door he had opened had probably closed by now, and their brain cells would probably still be trying to understand the concept of what he had just shown them.

Eric, by now in a foul mood, walked up to his Politics class and through the classroom door, not even breaking stride. It didn’t seem to bother him that the class had already started, and he made a fair amount of noise coming in.

The teacher glared at him.

"Is it that time of the month, Jensen?" he asked, causing the class to snigger. Eric rolled his eyes as he slammed his bag down on the floor.

"It might be, sir, if I were female," he fired back. "But seems I wasn’t the last time I checked, my anatomy would make it impossible to be that time of the month."

The class collapsed into laughter, but Eric knew he would have to pay for it.

"I think we should try this again, hey, Jensen?" the teacher asked him. "Why don’t you take yourself outside and come back in how you should have done in the first place?"

Eric could have thrown the table at him, but instead he grabbed up his bag and marched out of the classroom again, letting the door slam loudly behind him. He was tempted to just walk off, but he knew that would just get him into even more trouble.

Instead, he knocked on the door and came in with an overly sweet smile on his face.

"My humble apologies, sir," he said, for some reason adopting a slightly posh accent. "One was rather caught up by imbeciles in the lower west wing of the school and could therefore not make it to this wonderful lecture at the correct time. I do hope you can understand the extent of my annoyance and accept my explanation."

The class quietly snickered while the teacher glared at him, and Eric knew he was debating whether to throw him out or not.

"Sit down, Jensen," he eventually hissed. "And if I hear another peep out of you all lesson, I’ll throw your sorry butt in detention until the New Year, all right?"

Eric gave him a thumbs-up sign and went to his seat, sitting down and allowing himself to be delighted at the fact he wouldn’t have to answer questions.

Instead, he got out his textbook and flicked through it, reading all of Ben’s small little comments.

He found one which read simply, Sometimes I wish this place would just fall down.

Eric pulled out his own pencil. Me too! He added. God, me too.