One single, solitary day is measured in increments learnt in a Kindergarten classroom among the smells of crayons and Lysol. 24 hours in a day; 1,440 minutes, 86,400 seconds. If a year is measured in love, then what measures a day? Hope or hatred? Faith or despair?

If you were to ask Marcia Bates, she would shudder, every bone in her seventeen-year-old body shivering from the inside out. She would look you in the eye, her once hazel eyes now ice blue, frozen to a chill, and she would laugh bitterly. “Decay,” she’d tell you, grinning, “absolute destruction.” And the aides would come to steer her away, leaving you clutching a now-frostbitten flower, wondering how you got here in the first place.

000!000

“Nobody ever stays after school for anything good,” Laura Mason snapped, slamming her locker door and causing a skinny freshman three lockers down to look up at the vibrations, sighing to herself.

“Stupid sophomores.” The freshman mumbled, gathering up her geography homework and heading toward the door.

“You’ll be fine,” her boyfriend reassured her, patting her on the back. Laura jerked out of his grasp and stuck her hand to the door to the detention room. “Really!” he called out after her as Laura slammed the door. He was just another face; boyfriend number 36 in her long list, and it was only December. She gave him another week maximum: he couldn’t handle a high-maintenance girl. Unfortunately, all Laura knew how to be was a girl who maintained a constant upkeep. She hadn’t even performed any act considered wrong or immoral: her Chemistry teacher had gotten sick of Laura’s doing her hair during class day in and day out, and he’d finally given Laura the detention to try to scare her out of her selfish glaze.

There was no one in the room, and the teacher who’d been paid to sit in on the week’s detentions was sitting on his desk, grinning at Laura, who was finger-combing her hair nervously.

“Look,” he said, hopping down off of his desk. “I’ve got stuff to do, and I know why you’re here-you’re not one with problems.” He gave Laura a cool look, making her feel like he saw right through her. His large black beard almost glinted, for some strange reason, and Laura shivered.

“What do you want me to do?” she mumbled, shuffling backwards and backing up against the door.

“Just go study in the library,” he said with a wave of his fist, his signet ring glinting in the light. “I’ll tell them you worked really hard.” He winked, and Laura felt bile rise in her throat.

“Right.” She said, not waiting for him to change his mind. Laura’s hand slipped on the metallic knob doused in sweat and fear. She grappled for it a second time, and felt her knob give under her pressure. Feeling her face peel out in sweat, like an onion, Laura threw the door open and sped outside, resistance shining bright on her face.

000!000

Aidan Richards sat on the practice field, waiting for the beckoning of his coach so he could start up and pretend that he knew exactly what he should have. Truthfully, by now, baseball was about all he knew. His parents had just come out of a particularly nasty divorce, and left Aidan high and dry on the cliffs of uncertainty, with only a sepia-toned picture in his mind of the way things used to be. Well, he had an actual picture, too.

It was framed, one of the more expensive photographs in which the whole picture is black and white except for one object or person or aspect, which is in full blown, glorious color. In this picture, a tall man with a smooth cut to his beard stood on a beach, and a few feet beside him was a woman, tall and lanky, with hair a shade you could tell was red, even though it was just grey. And suspended between them, a hand in each of his parents’, was Aidan, no more than two years old and grinning cherubically in full color, breaking the Smallville effect. Nobody was looking at the camera, surprisingly. Mom was looking down at Aidan, Aidan was looking up at Dad, and Dad…was looking over Mom’s head at a girl in the background. This may have been the beginning of his downfall, but Aidan had never thought of it that way. All he thought was that it was a broken family currently held in captivity through glass and fake smiles. So Aidan carried it with him, day-in and day-out, like a security blanket for his splintered heart.

“Go to the library,” came a voice from across the field. “It’s a talking day…Coach Apperson needs to speak to the team. They’ll be there in a minute.” Aidan looked up, startled, but only saw enough to catch a black, bushy beard disappearing into the woods. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, but there were none. The rest of the team wasn’t present, so maybe Coach Apperson was right. Not Coach…this random man. Aidan stood, picked up his bag, and shakily took his steps toward the main building, wondering what was so special about the library and why it was him, always him, that got stuck in the middle.