We Feel Like Dead Ends

Jack Bassam Barakat was lost once again. So unbelievably lost. It had been 1 year since his best friend Alex’s suicide (suicide attempt, I mean.) Alex Gaskarth, age 16 at the time, had been saved by the paramedics. After 3 months inside the hospital, the caramel haired boy was sent to a mental rehabilitation center right outside of Baltimore, his former home. Jack Barakat, age 15 at the time of his best friend’s suicide attempt, 16 now, had been forced into extensive therapy sessions that still continued after 12 months and 84 claims that he was ‘okay’. And some of the therapists believed that. Maybe he was okay, after all. But anyone who really knew Jack –which is barely anyone, to be perfectly honest; only his two friends Rian Dawson and Zack Merrick - knew that he was falling apart, starting from the unclosed wound in his heart where Alex had resided.

“I’m okay, Vinny.” Jack sighed, staring straight into the eyes of his English teacher, Mr. Vegas. Of course, Jack refused to call him by his surname, as he did with almost every teacher at Dulaney High School. “I promise, I’m okay now.”

Vinny Vegas looked the teenager up and down, eyebrows furrowed. He knew exactly what the word ‘okay’ meant, and this boy was definitely not any of those definitions. Jack Barakat, the disrespectful 16 year old that had trouble listening to anything other than music, probably thought that he could pass off as someone who simply didn’t care about how he looked. It was also a possibility that he believed he could be perceived as a trendsetter, considering how mentally ill the boy was. His black Blink 182 shirt hung loosely off of his shoulders, and his jeans were ripped up completely. And not, the middle aged teacher mused, in the current style. The dark skinny jeans appeared to be gouged out at the knees, with scratched trailing down the bottom of the pants. In fact, the rips on Jack’s jeans were caused by the countless times he’d either tripped over his own feet –and not due to clumsiness; instead, due to the complete lack of sleep the teenager was getting. That complete lack wasn’t one of staying up late online, but simply his inability to sleep– or even those few times Jack had thrown himself down the ramp at the skateboard park down the block from his house. In an attempt to feel anything that wasn’t this nothingness that clung to his soul ever since Alex was taken away from him. Jack’s dark brown hair with its distasteful, but distinctive, blond streak, was rumpled and unwashed, sitting on top of Barakat’s head like a dead animal. Jack’s face was hollowed out and empty, dark eyes and dark circles and dark looks. Dark everything. He walked around like a ghost; his eyes didn’t focus, his feet barely made a sound.
In conclusion, Vinny thought, Jack Barakat was definitely not ‘Okay’.

“Jack…” Mr. Vegas sighed, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” Jack yelled, shrugging his teacher’s hand off of him. “Look, I know you ‘want to help’, or whatever that shit is. But I DON’T NEED HELP. I’m perfectly fine on my own right now. It’s been a year. I’m OKAY.” He shuddered for a second, then grabbed his notebook off of the desk and shoved everything else into his bag. His chair scraped back against the cheap tiled classroom floors as he stood up. Shoving past the teacher and ignoring the eyes of his classmates burning into his back, he stormed out the door.
“Jack!” Vinny called. “If you skip class again-“
“I don’t care, give me as many detentions as you want. I’d love an empty classroom and time to think.” Jack slid into the hallway and slung his bag over one shoulder. This class was shit anyway.

The kids didn’t care, the lessons were the same every day. A classic high school environment, or at least here at Dulaney. He jumped down the stairs three at a time, and turned down a usually unoccupied side hallway. He had always considered himself lucky to have gotten one of the four lockers at the end of the unused corridor. Him and Ale- no. Him and Pete. Pete Wentz, quarterback on the football team. Pete Wentz, the peculiar case of a short guy with black lined eyes and straightened dyed hair who somehow made his way to the popularity charts. Pete Wentz, the boy who moved to Baltimore and then into Alex’s locker. And of course, after Pete forced himself into the space next to Jack, he found space in the other two lockers for his new found friends, Joe and Patrick.

Joe Trohman was more polite than he appeared. At least when he wasn’t hopped up on drugs (which was nearly always. Man, that dude has a problem.) He carried himself with a strange sincerity that most high school druggies don’t possess, and hid his dark circles under his eyes with Pete’s makeup. His iPod was filled with Metallica, Blink 182 and Slipknot, and a surprising amount of Katy Perry and Ke$ha. Joe always defended the sugar-spun pop music, fiercely telling anyone and everyone who asked that it was just as good as any punk.

Patrick Stump was the polar opposite of Joe. And one million times closer to Pete than Trohman could hope to be. A year younger than Jack, and positively adorable in a trucker hate and sweaters that fell over his hands. Pete and Patrick were close in height, close in music taste, close in shoe size, close in happiness. Patrick was nearly always smiling. The slightly chubby boy was as into music as Jack himself, living and breathing rock and punk and R&B. Jack had always wondered what he sounded like playing music; from what he’d overheard from Pete and Patrick’s conversations, he was fantastic.
Probably better than Jack.
Definitely better than me, Jack decided, coming to a stop at his rusting locker.
He twisted the lock quickly and grabbed the only items within it. Shoving the red notebook and navy blue hoodie into his bag, he pushed open the side door to the school at the end of the hallway and plunged into the cold snow.