Something Beautiful.

The sun wasn't even beginning to come over the horizon when I stepped out my front door. I stretched a little more and ran my fingers through my hair, pushing a few stray strands off my forehead. My alarm had gone off at four thirty, so now, at four forty-five, I was on my front porch almost ready for my run.

The air was cool and I could feel it pierce my lungs as I breathed in deeply and stepped into the road. My running route wasn't what seasoned runners would enjoy. Ideally you want to run on roads that are never busy, preferably somewhere in the country or on a trail. However, my route was exactly what I wanted, and at four forty-five in the morning I didn't have to worry about traffic no matter where I ran.

My house was on the eastern edge of our little town of Comfort, Maine. This place, with a population of under four thousand, is the place I've called home since my birth. Small town life is something other people say grows on you, but I've always felt like I've grown on it. I don't do big cities, and people from cities are almost just as intolerable. I like knowing everyone and what everyone's doing. There's just a certain sense of security small towns offer that you'll never understand until you live in one.

My feet carry me into the town itself and I'm again thankful for the little slice of heaven I live in. Main Street is small, but there's family roots all down it. I run by the countless antique shops that line the North side of the street and then by the little coffee shop that lies at the end of the row. From inside the shop Mrs. Davis waves at me as she does every morning. I raise a hand in reply and smile at her.

Mrs. Davis is probably one of my favorite adults in Comfort. She is a grandmotherly lady who always smells like a mixture of coffee and cookies. It's well known she's the best baker in a thirty mile radius, and she likes to decorate sugar cookies for each holiday and give them to kids and teenagers alike as we pass her shop. In some towns I know parents would forbid their children to eat cookies they were handed on their way home, but here parents fight over who will get to eat one of the cookies their children bring home. Then again, I guess that's just the Comfort way of life.

After the coffee shop is a all night diner where my friends and I have spent more than enough time in over the years. That diner holds special memories for me. It was the place I first met my best friend freshman year when I was eating a Sunday dinner with my parents. I glance inside half-hoping to see him, but I know he's not working this morning. Knowing him he's at home sleeping right now, stretched across his bed with his hair in a mess, mouth half open snoring so loudly nobody in else in the house can sleep. I smile at the thought and turn to look ahead of me again.

Lights are beginning to flicker on in a few places down the street. To my left a small cottage style house has a single upstairs light on and the window is cracked open. As the breeze gently ruffles the curtains the sound of a baby crying spills across the quiet street. The Lockes' had their first child last week, and it seemed to me he was waking them up early. I can hear Lydia trying to soothe her son and the front door opens and her husband, Mike, comes out still in his pajamas. He waves to me and calls out "We're out of coffee! It's been a long night!" I smile at him and watch as he walks the block down to the doughnut shop for some caffeine.

The doughnut shop is the only place in town that is actually busy at this time of the morning. The florescent lights spill out the front windows and wash the street with yellow. Inside sit eight or ten old men, sipping their coffee and eating doughnuts as they read the morning paper and talk about the weather. As I run by they all stop and wave at me. "Put in an extra mile for me, son," an older man calls to me as he gets out of his truck and walks to the door. I smile back at them, knowing that forty-five years ago any of those guys could have easily been me. They're all white haired and some were slightly hunched over, but in their prime I could picture them being a 5'11" brunette running around town in the morning, just like me.

After passing the doughnut shop I ran up on the elementary school, a smaller building that houses all the kids from kindergarten through fifth grade. I veer off Main Street and run through the playground where I spent hours as a kid. I used to think this playground could be anything at all. Some days it was a volcano and the wood chips were lava, some days it was the surface of the moon. That's one of the beautiful things about childhood, normal things can become anything you dream them to be, and every morning as I run through the playground I miss that. Sometimes I wish I could just stop here and forget about the rest of my run. The rest of my life, really, and just stay. The slides may be too small and the monkey bars may be too short for me now, but the playground still has an air of magic to it, no matter how long I've been gone from this school.

My breathe is coming shallow now and I'm completely soaked in sweat. There's burning in the back of my calves, but I welcome the feeling. I run to release emotions and I feel more alive running than I ever have in my whole life,. The aching of my muscles is something that comes with it.

Half a mile down the road from the elementary school I passed in front of the middle school. I turn my head away from it trying to block out bad memories. Middle school was, for me, as it is for most people, hell. Middle School was a time of confusion and a general feeling of discontent. I absolutely hated the time I spent in that building, and just passing it every morning pulls out those old feelings of resent. I pass by it fast enough though, and soon I'm in a wooded area. A small breeze flows through the trees around me and I shiver a little as my sweat soaked shirt cools and blows against my skin.

I can soon see the high school ahead of me on the top of a hill, and my thoughts turn to the building. I have mixed feelings about my school. It's the same building I've been attending for nine months of every year for the past three years, and the same building I will find myself in for seven hours not too long from now. I'm not dreading it, but I'm not looking forward to it either.

Inside those walls I feel as though I'm someone different. I'm not exactly popular, but I'm well liked by most everyone. In small towns high school is just a miniature model of the town itself. I know everyone in my grade by name. I'm friends with the quarterback as well as the valedictorian, because we're all pretty much friends. I mean, yeah, there's some people that hold grudges against small things that have happened over the years, but when two thirds of the people I'll graduate with are the one's I started kindergarten with, we all find ways to get along.

Here by myself on this road is where I feel most like myself. Being inside the school I feel like I'm put into a box. Not in an exactly harsh way, but in a restrained way nonetheless. I've never been a cookie-cutter teenage boy. I'm not the football star or the skater kid. I don't stay up all night blasting my music and then sleep through class the next day, and on weekends my friends and I don't go out and get drunk in the woods north of town with most of everyone else. I don't have the perfect girlfriend at my side. Heck, I've never had a girlfriend, and let's face it, I'm never going to have one.

So although I like my grade and who I go to school with, this building holds nothing special for me. It doesn't hold the best of my school memories, or even the worst. There's two other buildings in this town for that.

When I pass the high school I turn around and make my way back through the town that is slowly waking up. I head back down Main Street and wave again at the old men in the doughnut shop. The first rays of the sunrise are beginning to wash over the town, and with few cars on the road and most everyone still asleep, it seems cozier than ever. As cliche as it may sound, Comfort is well, comfortable.

I pass the Lockes' again and the light in the nursery is off, so they must have got their son to sleep. Lights in houses around them are coming on though, and the traffic is slowly starting to pick up. I realize that while I was lost in my memories I slowed my pace down and I'm now behind schedule, which is not a good thing. Not today.

Since the main road is getting busy I take a different route on my way home and pass by the houses in the neighborhood beside where my house is. I passed by the Maher's, the Bryan's, the Mitchel's, and the empty house that has been for sale for over a year. Except the when I looked at the house it looked different. I stopped for a second and stared at it trying to figure out what it was and I realized the for sale sign was gone. My mouth drops open slightly as my feet stumble in the rocks of the driveway.

It was a beautiful house, one that could be home to any family. The only thing was, nobody ever wanted it. Nobody had even looked at it in a few months. So no, at the end of August, it seemed odd to me that the sign would be gone. I thought perhaps it had simply been taken off the market, but then I also saw the windows had apparently been washed. On closer inspection a new layer of paint had also been added. Strange. We don't get new people in Comfort very often.

A car door closed at the next house and grabbed my attention. The missing for sale sign was just a minor detail in my life, something that would never affect me. I shook my head and scolded myself for wasting even more time when I was already late and I turned back to the road to continue on my way home.

The sun was almost fully above the horizon when I arrived to my house. I stepped up onto the porch and heard scratching on the other side of the door followed by the yapping of a small dog. I opened the door and my yorkie, Tiger, ran out. Now, I know Tiger is a cat's name. Every time someone new meets her they ask why I named such a small innocent dog after a huge ferocious cat. Hyena or something is a big ferocious dog, right? I got her when I was five though, and I was a confused child to say the least. My parents tried and tried to talk me out of it, but I was also a very stubborn child, so to this day my dog is named after a cat.

Tiger comes up to me yapping and placing her two front feet onto one of my sneakers. Laughing I pick her up and she eagerly licks my face. She's the most gentle dog I've ever known and her old age causes her to spend most of her day lounging around. I hear the closing of cabinets inside so I set Tiger down so she can do her business in the yard and slip off my shoes before stepping inside. I immediately smell cooking omelets and my stomach growls loudly.

"Shane," my mom calls from the kitchen. I follow her voice and she comes out, standing on her tip toes to kiss my cheek. "Did you have a good run?"

I smile down at the little blonde in front of me. She's in her early forties with long blonde hair that is pulled back into a ponytail. She's a nurse at a hospital in a nearby city, and she's already dressed in her scrubs this morning. "It was great, Momma," I tell her as I try to avoid covering her in sweat. I kiss the top of her head and go to the fridge to grab a cold bottle of water.

My mom is one of my best friends and she was there for me in times it seemed nobody else was. Most teenagers, especially teenage boys, would shy away from their mothers knowing almost everything about them, but I find it comforting that my mom knows me so well. Being an only child, I found out when I was very young that being close to my parents was the easiest way to not be lonely around the house.

I love spending time with my mom, but with last year she got her job in the hospital and so now she works odd hours. I miss having her around as much, but when she's here she does little things for me, like making me breakfast, as she was doing now.

"Your breakfast is in the microwave when you're done with your shower," she tells me before kissing my cheek again. "I'm off to work. Have a good day, baby. I love you!"

"Love you too, mom," I reply as she grabs her keys and walks to the garage. I let Tiger back inside and head to the stairs so I can go to my bathroom and clean up. On my way to the staircase I pass my parents' room where my dad is just still in bed. I softly knock on the door before pushing it open.

My dad is sound asleep on the bed and I feel like I'm staring at myself in twenty-seven years. I'm an almost exact duplicate of my dad. Except for the fact I got my mom's hazel eyes, every detail about my dad and I are the same. We even have the same unruly curls to our brown hair, only he lets his grow enough to show the curls. I keep my trimmed short because I've never been one for curly hair. I just don't like it.

I'm close to my dad too, but not as close as I am to my mom. He works in town at an insurance agency and also serves on our district's school board. He's pretty well known around town, but then again, pretty much everyone is famous. It's a small town. Staring at my dad I try to picture myself at forty-five and as much as I love this town I don't see myself here. I don't see myself married with children. In fact, I can't picture myself that far in advance at all.

My dad turns a little in bed and I call out to him. "Dad, it's six-thirty. Mom just left for work and you might want to get up." He turns a little more and slowly opens his eyes, revealing the green that sets him apart from me.

"Whatsthatyousaid?" he asks, still half asleep. I smile, knowing I'm much the same when someone tries to wake me up.

"It's time to get ready for work, dad," I say again. He sits up and mumbles something about it being too damn early before stumbling into the master bath and slamming the door. He's not a morning person.

I sprint up the stairs and hurry to the bathroom, getting in the shower before the water heats up. I squeal a little as the cold water hits my body, but I shiver and start washing my hair. I'm thinking of the day I have ahead of me. I'm going to see the people I want to see, as well as the ones I don't really care if I see either way.

The first bell will ring at 8:05 and I'll go to lunch at 11:30 before being released at exactly 3:20. There's nothing to really pull me towards school. I mean, I want to see my friends, but I see who I want to see enough when I'm not in school that it's not a necessity for my social life. The classes definitely don't make me want to go, and the thought of a girlfriend to make me want to attend literally makes me laugh out loud.

Honestly, there's nothing great about school, but at the same time there's nothing for me to complain about. So for the past three years I've gotten up at four-thirty to run seven miles before I get ready for school. At school I make good grades and I'm almost a model student. I'm not involved with any sports or anything, but that's the way I like it. It's just how I am.

I'm rinsing my hair when the water finally gets hot. I want to stay there and let the hot water relax my muscles, but have to get out early enough that I can do my hair and pick out an outfit. I have to look absolutely perfect. It's the first day of my senior year.