Sanctuary

The weeks following Alex's first day were the longest weeks of his lifetime. They were spent in constant anxiety, constant worry, and constant depression.

He realized not too far into the month that he didn't belong at St. Raphael's. He was a fruit loop in a bowl of Cheerios, a flamingo in a flock of pigeons. The girls, like he'd witnessed on the first day, were all made of plastic. The guys weren't much different. He felt like he was trapped inside an episode of one of those bad after school specials.

Every time he spoke, not a soul listened, as if he had never said a word. When the teacher called on him, he always panicked and said the wrong thing, causing everyone to give him dirty looks. 'I knew the answer to that! Alex, you dumb fuck.' Everywhere he went and everything he did, he just felt hardcore judged. It felt like swimming in arctic waters.

The stress was too much. He soon found himself hitting rock bottom and relapsing once again. It was another overwhelming wave of self-blame and self-loathing, another chain of nights spent curled up in his tear-soaked sheets. All he wanted was to fit in somewhere and to be complacent.

Several times his panic subsided into rage. He was furious at his mother for sending him to this dumb prison cell of a school. 'What the hell were you thinking?! As if Jesus being shoved down my throat would help things. I'm sick of this dumb religion, I'm sick of these dumb, spoiled kids, I'm sick of it all!'

Alex's mind also played tricks on him. Every night, during his bouts of heart-wrenching sobbing, he thought about how utterly alone he was, when in reality, the Brit had a handful of friends. In fact, he probably had almost as many friends here as he did at Towson. But his friends at Towson were different. His best friends were true and loyal to him; from the moment Alex had met those boys, he felt a connection with them and knew that they'd walk ten hundred miles for him. Even those whom he only claimed acquaintance with were genuine to him.

At St. Raphael's, not even the kids who were nice to him seemed sincere. Their smiles and sympathy were only masks, hiding the rotten people they all were. For example, two girls in his English class had mentioned a lyric from one of his favorite songs, which he would have never expected girls from this place to know. When he confronted them about it, however, they looked at him as if he had just dropped in from the ceiling.

As for PE, he had lucked out and managed to get a locker in the corner, where, if he changed quickly, no one would be able to see any of his scars. He had a feeling that his secret wouldn't remain hidden all year, though. Plus each and every day he had little choice but to hover around Caleb's group of friends, listening to him go on and on and on. Talk about a terrible way to start your mornings.

Presently, he sat in second period biology, his mind focused entirely on the game of Flow Colors he had going on his laptop. He found that if he distracted himself with games, the anxiety was not nearly as bad. A few times he had been scolded, and very slowly the school was becoming aware of these websites and blocking them from the network. But for now he was content with Flow Colors.

"I ran into the woods out back! I totally called my mom like, 'Mom! I'm running!' and she was like, 'Oh no you don't, you better stay there!'" Just one of the hundreds of bleach blonde, acne-free cheerleaders at this school was blabbering away behind him. He chose to listen in on the conversation.

"Did you get caught?" the nicer brunette beside her asked. "Yeah! The cops questioned me forevaaar. They were like, 'Did you come in your car?' and I was like, 'yeah,' and they were like, 'did you bring alcohol?', and I was like, 'yeah,' then they were like, 'did you consume any alcohol?' and I said no." The girl giggled a bit, tossing her hair behind her.

"So how many kids got arrested?" the football player a few seats over asked. The girl stopped pretending to take notes. "Likeeee… four got /actually/ arrested. 75 of us got caught, though." She giggled once more. The sound drove Alex up a wall. "Not bad considering there were 105 kids there."

The story continued in his third period religion class. A volleyball-player-slash-cheerleader with dark hair and an olive complexion was going on about how she was in the bathroom when the cops had invaded the house party.

This was the last straw for Alex. He hated this school, he hated it with a fiery passion. He hated the bratty, fake kids. He hated the endless list of stupid rules like males couldn't have long hair, males and females weren't allowed to hug, only black or gold St. Raphael sweatshirts were allowed, and many more.

There were two ways out, Alex finally realized. And his mother was definitely not going to allow him to switch back to Towson so early in the year, not with such an outstanding tuition fee.

His only way out was by committing the heinous act his brother had committed not even a year ago. He'd been thinking about it quite often lately, ever since school began, in fact. But tonight, it was bound to happen.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By the time the bell rang and it was time for lunch, Alex had created his plan. He would arrive at home on the bus, about half an hour before his parents, and would swallow a fistful of pills. Then all he'd have to do was wait. It would be quick, painless, and would allow him to be free at last. No more would he have to deal with this hell hole.

All he had to do was survive the next four hours.

The boy plopped down at the stone table, his body feeling weighed down by the world. 'Just four more hours.' Soon enough, Rian, Cassadee, Brian, and John arrived and began talking about some kind of upcoming music festival. They paid little attention to the moping boy with no food. He had no interest in irrelevant things like music festivals or eating. Not right now.

After only ten minutes, he grew agitated by their talking and made his way to the library, claiming that he had work to finish up.

At last, he was alone among the bookshelves, curled up in the same chair he had sat in on the first day of school. Very few people ventured here this early in the lunch period, so he was enveloped in peaceful silence. He chose to log onto YouTube and watch some vine compilations to calm his nerves just a bit.

'If I can find just one reason to stay before school lets out, I won't do it,' he compromised himself as he switched on the computer. But the odds of someone saying or doing something nice to him and making him smile in this environment were one in a million. Especially on a depressing day like today.

As Alex's luck had it, about halfway into the period, his computer suddenly froze up. He tried turning it off and back on as he had been taught in the computer training session he had to go to over the summer. Still nothing. 'Just my luck,' he groaned to himself, placing it back in its case so that he could take it to the help desk, a small room not far from the library where a team of teachers and qualified students fixed broken laptops.

It seemed that as the day progressed, karma took one swing after another at poor Alex, and at this point he could feel tears of anger and frustration stinging the back of his eyes as he made his way down the staircase and toward the door on the other end of the library. 'That's it. Even if something good happens I'm still going to fucking do it.'

Alex tugged the door open and approached the glass window on the other side of the small room. Behind the window was a slightly larger room, with wires and broken laptops and other electronic devices scattered across various tables.

A tall and thin-as-a-rail upperclassman peered up at him from where he sat doodling in a notebook at a table in the middle of the room, then stood and made his way over to the window. "Can I help you?" he asked with a somewhat dorky half-grin as Alex removed his laptop from the case.

"It's… uh. It's frozen," Alex said, scratching his head. The lanky boy nodded a bit, then took his laptop, plopped down into a nearby chair, and began typing and clicking away. Alex could only imagine what on earth he was doing. He was clueless when it came to computers.

As the brunette worked away, Alex examined him carefully. His hair just barely passed the hair rules, which meant that he more than likely kept it much longer in the summer months. His eyes were a deep brown, much like his own. His arms seemed too long for his body, and his nose, too big. And on his wrist… was a blink-182 bracelet?

The upperclassman glanced up, causing Alex to look away quickly. The boy chuckled, ceasing to type or click as if he were waiting for something to load. In the meantime, the two boys made eye contact again. 'Damn, this kid grins a lot. I wonder if I should say something about the bracelet… no, what if he's like the other kids?'

In the end, Alex chose to say nothing and made his way back to the leather chair, never knowing the older boy's name. Oh, but he sure did want to.

And that was enough incentive to keep Alex Gaskarth alive one more day.