Chapter One:

And it only hurts when I'm breathing
My heart only breaks when it's beating
My dreams only die when I'm dreaming
So, I hold my breath--to forget

Don't think I'm lying' 'round crying' at night
There's no need to worry, I'm really all right

Rowan stared at the clock, the boring clocks that hang on those painted brick walls you see above everything else in school. The ones that tell you how much longer you have to endure another painful day… the same clock that told him how much longer it would till he would have to go home to…him. That clock usually said the same thing every time he would bother to look up and stare at the evil face. Twenty more minutes left today.

Rowan looked back down at the desk he sat at, the high school desks one will usually see throughout a school day, the kind where the seat was attached to the desk. The gum stuck to the bottom, the broken dark blue chair he sat in, the constant chatter of the room around him where the other students went home to parents that cared for him, who wanted nothing more for them to be successful in life and be happy. He couldn’t care. He tried to be as emotionless as he possibly could.

Rowan had just turned eighteen. He was a little bit less than five feet seven inches tall. A rather mess of dark brown hair hung over his eyes in a more of a girly fashion, his hair with streaks of golden in it from the summer past. He had a pair of the most beautiful eyes one would see on the planet though. His eyes were set back gray with a bright violet color around his pupil… though since recent years they had turned duller, a color of just pitch gray.

He knew well enough what people would say of him. ‘He is to pale.’ Or ‘that Rowan is to quiet’ or even ‘He is to thin. Does he ever eat? I’ve never seen him touch a single piece of food before.’ And the only thing that kept him from responding to any of that was that it was all true and he didn’t much want to utter a word to anyone anymore. Though it was very true, Rowan was to pale, he looked almost dead. He was never a talker. Who was he to talk to? He didn’t want to talk to anyone. Rowan did eat, the only thing was when he was alone and it wasn’t much but what he could scrap up around his dirt shell of a home.

Random thoughts were cut off by the sound of that never changing, un-forgiving clock ringing. He looked up from the papers that were down in front of him. School never brought him any joy. It brought him more pain and more torments. He rose from where he sat in the back of the room. A rather small and thin simple long sleeved white shirt covering his upper body and a pair of jeans hooked around his waist and reaching down to the worn boots he had on his feet. He pulled a back pack over his shoulder and made his way out of the classroom.

He was praying that he would be lucky. That he could just leave. Have to go home. Avoid everyone. Avoid him, walk out of the school building without seeing them. Of course the young man had to suck luck. As he went to set a book in his locker it shut harshly on his hand. He didn’t move. No sign of expression on his face. The pain in his hand was immense though. It hurt. He wanted nothing but to just cry out but there was no point. No point anymore weather he even said a word. The locked opened back up- his slim pale hand even bleeding slightly. Yes, he bled, he didn’t cry, he only bled. He face was jerked over by a strong hand by another male who tormented him every day, and his accomplice and right hand man standing next to him with a sinister smile.

“Come on... not even a sound from you?” Sven was his name, and it was Sven who laughed at him, he man who held his chin roughly. He had lost sight of the other one there, whose name was Ben. He regretted it. For as soon as his face was let go he felt his wrists being grabbed and his arms pulled behind his back. He closed his eyes. It will all be over soon. He thought with no real hopes of it really coming true.

“He doesn’t cry…” Sven fake whined after he had given the boy a crucial punch to the stomach. Another one to the jaw and not a sound came from Rowan except a small whimper. Ben sighed and held his wrists tighter only to slam him against the lockers.

“The little fag won’t even make so much of a noise… but, I love to see him bleed.” He said, hitting the word ‘love’ with a hint of laughter. The two of them never let Rowan live a day without either making him bleed, or making him ask them to stop in some way. He was used to it by now, but he wished with all his being that he was completely numb. A small streak of blood seeped out from the corner of his mouth, making the boy named Ben laugh and let him go.

“Well. We got to go Sven. Come on, I’m hungry. We can get this little fag tomorrow.” Ben was bigger then Sven was. Ben was much more masculine with a mop of dirty blonde hair hanging down over his face with dark brown eyes. Ben may have been the biggest of the three, but it was Sven who called all the shots. He was slightly taller then Rowan was but much stronger and hateful and so cruelly willed to see him suffer.

The two boys laughed and left Rowan there as they laughed going down the hall. The male reached up to his lip and wiped the blood away. He walked out of the school building with out so much as looking up from the ground.

It was the middle of December and it was snowing in the small town. Outside was covered in a thick blanket of white. The temperature must have been below zero. The wind was harsh and only made it worse. He was starting to freeze as he walked. A simple shirt and jeans did him no good. He would have brought a jacket- if he had owned one of course. His house wasn’t that far away. He lived in the same house he had grown up in always, a small place on back roads surrounded by really nothing but trees. He walked, slightly wincing as large amount of slush from a car driving by quickly splashed all over him, looking up to see it had been Ben behind the wheel and Sven who laughed looking out the passenger window.

And that was his normal school day. He woke up, left the house as soon as he could and had a tormenting day. To leave and go home for things to get a hundred times worse.

It took Rowan about an hour before he stepped up to the stairs to the front door. No one was home thank goodness. At least not yet of course, his mother was due home in about a half an hour. Rowan lived with his mother and his step-father William. It was William that Rowan longed to avoid; just a day without William would make his day the best ever.

The house was warm. And Rowan could almost swear he was just a frozen thing about now. He made his way up a flight up stairs to the second floor and to his room, which was the last on the right. He opened his door and locked it behind him before kicking off his wet boots and tossing his school bag on the floor next to his desk.

His room wasn’t the biggest in the house of course but it wasn’t the smallest... it just seemed rather big because it was almost empty. His bed lined the farthest wall in the room, opposite of that was his desk. His closet wasn't that far away from his bed and a large window lining one wall. Of course this window was shut most of the time even in the summer and always had a curtain over it.

Rowan had finally made it home, and he wanted nothing but to just sleep and sleep away all the pains of the world. He had a bathroom attached to his bedroom which he did wander into to take care of the cut on his lower lip at the right corner of his mouth. He looked at himself in the mirror as he wiped the blood away with a damp cloth. He looked dead. The dark black bags hanging under his eyes never helped anyway. Maybe he was dead. He didn’t know really if he was anymore, he knew that he felt dead though.

The young male changed out of his clothes that were cold and into some new ones. Another pair of simple jeans and a long sleeved white shirt. He sat down on his bed. All was quiet for about four hours as he sat around or did his homework, till his mothers’ car pulled up. He paused over the math he was doing and rose to his feet.

She was late. He didn’t understand sometimes why she was always so late. She worked at a bar somewhere in the town; he of course had never bothered to even get a name. A bar was a bar and he wanted to know nothing more about it. It was at a bar that she met William as well. Rowan exited his room quietly heading down stairs, to find his mother in the kitchen sitting over a cup of coffee.

“Honey...” She said quietly to him slightly looking up. She was a young woman. Only fifteen when she had Rowan. His father had stayed for a few years; he had small memories of him. Well, stayed wouldn’t be the right word. He was murdered and the images of that murderer still haunted him. “Please, go up stairs and stay there for tonight. I’ll bring you up something to eat soon.” She gave Rowan a tired smile. His mother was smaller then he was, a good looking woman with bright blue eyes with a mop of bright blonde hair.

Rowan was silent for a long time, his gray eyes dulling slightly as he turned around not so much as a word as he went back up stairs. He sat down at his desk and closed his eyes. A few moments later he herd the loud truck pull up to the house with a skid, a door slamming open and shut. There was yelling. Lots of yelling downstairs till he knew his mother had went off somewhere outside to cry. He herd foot steps up the stairs and jumped up to lock his door, but it was slightly too late.

William was a tall masculine man. He was well built since he worked at the lumber mill. He was drunk; Rowan could smell the alcohol on his breath. He took a shaky step backwards. He would hope that William would just leave. Go away- but no such luck. He felt a strong hand around his neck and he before forced down on the bed, he herd pants being undone, he closed his eyes and let his silent tears fall. “This is the only thing you’ll ever be good for...” Those were the harsh words into his ear as his hair was pulled back so he cried out slightly in pain.

He had passed out at some point, and awoke to the soothing voice of his mother telling him that everything would be alright. That it would all be over soon and everything would be fine. She told him that she was sorry for him. She said she was sorry for making this mistake but she couldn’t divorce William, he helped paid the bills. She kissed her son on the cheek and left his room.

Most days turned out like this. Most days he would just be punched or slapped. It all passed. He felt dirty and soiled. William didn’t even care if Rowan bled- and Rowan could tell easy enough that he had bled plenty. He wanted a shower. He pushed himself up his aching body not wanting anymore of this.