Part One

Jack held his guitar tightly, tighter than a baby holds his teddy bear. He was on the verge of crying.

People shouted at him to play another song. They mocked him with their money, bribing him with the promise of one more dollar if he does. 

Sighing he started playing grenade. At first you could barely hear his delicate strums, but the sound grew like his anger grew. 

"Easy come, easy go, that's just how you live, oh, take, take, take, but you never give" his sweet velvet voice rang out over the cheering crowd on the concrete side walk next to a take-out chinese store.

Grenade. It summed up how he felt. He would catch a grenade, for anyone of these losers, but would they save him if he was in trouble? Jack doubted it.

"Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash, you tossed it in the trash you did" he meant every word, even putting meaning into the 'and' and the 'it'.

The crowd cheered even louder. It was fake, Jack knew it. They didn't care about him, they only cared about the cheep entertainment he was forced to give. If he died he wouldn't have a funeral. If he did, no one would come. No one would come, cause no one cared what happened to him, cause no one really knows him.

"I'd catch a grenade for ya! Throw my hand on a blade for ya! I'd jump in front of a train for ya! You know I'd do anything for ya! But you won't do the same!" He cried out against the roar of the crowd.

Tears fell from his eyes, to his cheek, to his guitar, yet no one noticed. They were too caught up in his music to notice if he was crying or not. They were just happy for his singing. He always played this song in hoped that maybe there was one good soul out there that would understand him for who he was. No one ever did, no one ever loved him.

Jack spotted money being dropped in his bag. $20, the average, enough to survive off of.

Suddenly he stopped playing, the crowd stopped cheering. Lunging forward he grabbed his bag, griped his guitar even tighter and raced darted off. He could hear the angered cries of the crowd as a single tear fell to the cold, hard concrete only to be washed away by the wind.

Jack ran to the only place where he felt safe, not loved, but safe, his home. It wasn't much, a shack, a hut, the type of place people thought kids like him belonged in. The dirty homeless kids.

Jack was handsome, no doubt, but his once gleaming blonde hair was now covered in dirt and bits of tree bark. His only shirt- a grey long sleeved v-neck was tattered, dirty under his black and blue windbreaker. The only beautiful thing left was his shocking blue eyes under a mess of naturally wild hair.

Spotting his house he took out the $20 and put it into a broken jar that was hidden under a trap door. 

It was empty, he knew it would be. He had built the trap door this morning to stop people from stealing his hard earned money. Hoping his plan worked he set the jar with the money down and shut the door.

He slumped down onto his bed, it was the one good thing in his house. It was low to the ground made from the strongest wood he could find and a blanket a kind homeless women gave him. He had pitied her, after she lost her only child, but he could say no to a blanket, even if it was he only possession. 

Laying on his face he let a wave of sadness wash over. He couldn't bare the pressure anymore. He wasn't gonna fight back the tears anymore. No, not anymore. After a year he was done with the fighting.

This had started a year ago when his family died in a fire.

They had died one by one, one after another.... all in his arms. The last, his little sister, was too much for him to take, too much to think of. Anna was different than the rest of his family, she was special.

Anna had fought through her life from day one. She had fought through seizures, her slight autism, bullies, even a heart attack. For her to fight for so long and die just like that was unreal to Jack. Nature couldn't be that cruel could it?

Jack struggled to focus, his mind drifting off into nightmares, fists clenched tightly until his knuckles turned purple. 

-Why me!- He shouted silently, he didn't deserve this life... did he?

He had stayed there, still, too confused and unfocused to get up, lost in anger and grief. He was lost in a state he couldn't get out of until a twig snapped and he jumped.

Habits, he had grown them too, the habit to jump at every unknown noise that sounded.

When Jack used to borrow food from the customers at McDonald the police would misunderstand and send their dogs out to get him. He had been beaten until he remained still or the police came up running. They would apologize, but he knew they were lying. Everyone faked love with him.

Holding onto reality by a thread he stared out into the forest. Then again when nightmare turns into reality you never quite know where you stand.

Nightmares. Sometimes they turn into reality, but as for Jack sometimes Nightmares are actually BETTER than reality and when that happens you never know what is the end of the tunnel and what is yet again another endless nightmare.

Jack however knows to fight against that confusion and strive forward doing what feels right. Jack knows what its like to be misunderstood.