Author's Opening Notes: So this story... I've been working on it since about December 2008, but I've had the character since at least 2005. Most of my characters, believe it or not, aren't human. I've developed a "rep," you could say, as a young adult writer, but this story leans more toward fantasy. :D I roleplay my characters with Drake-Pendragon, but Adrienne, I feel, deserved his own story up on FP. While I'm on that note, most of the characters Adrienne interacts with aren't mine, but hers. I'll put which ones are which in other ANs, as I don't want to ruin anything just yet. XD;;

Before I begin, the name of this story comes from Blue October's song, "Drilled A Wire Through My Cheek." The song I've adopted as Adrienne's theme song. I recommend listening to that song to get a feel for Ad's personality. :3

And, without further ado...

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“Through My Cheek”

Karasu

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Summary: (WIP, mxm, mxf, fxf, violence, language, harsh themes, and fantasy themes) Adrienne Williams sits down to write his autobiography. Join him as he recounts his life and everything in it…

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Prologue

Hello there. My name is Adrienne.

Yes, the female spelling.

I don’t know why my parents did that. Adrian, Adrien, and all of the other spellings (if there are any) would’ve done the job just fine. Instead, I’m stuck with a stupid girl name that haunts me throughout my elementary school years.

At least my middle name is somewhat more boyish: Blake. So I could just be like “hey, call my by my middle name!”

But… I happen to like my first name. It sets me apart. As if everything else in my life didn’t.

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First off, I guess, I should tell you a little bit more about me. Before I get to the really good shit, y’know.

Well, uhm, I was raised in the outskirts of Seattle, Washington. On a little road in a little town in a little two-story house with a little picket fence. Horribly cliché, but my ‘rents were into that kinda shit. I never had any other siblings (except for a half-brother and a step-sister, but that comes later), so my parents kept me occupied with animals. I had puppies, kitties, iguanas, chameleons, birds, hamsters, snakes, lizards, pigs of the guinea and potbelly variety , you name it, I had it at least once.

Looking back, it was awesome that I had animals to bond and play with. But, hindsight is 20/20, as they say. And when I think of it now… it was just my parents’ way of putting off taking care of me. They let the animals teach me about life-lessons like reproduction and death. Which, you know, could be worse… I could’ve had a baby-sitter that molested me or something.

Not that I’m sticking up for my parents or anything I just… I dunno. I guess I feel like my parents could’ve been way more terrible to me. And it sickens me when people say that I had a horrible childhood. Because it wasn’t.

And now I’m probably convincing everyone that it was by defending it this much.

Whatever.

Anyway, back to the animal-thing…

The first time I lost a pet, I was devastated, just like everyone else in the world. My mom didn’t explain to me that Sparky would go to “heaven” or anything. Just told me that Sparky was dead. He wasn’t coming back. Very callous. Very cold. Very clinical.

She’s a doctor.

That was my first taste of death. And pretty soon, all the rest of my animals died, too. But by then, I was so… disconnected with death that it was just like “okay, well, now I guess it’s time to bury it.” The end. No crying. No bitching. No “why is God so unfair?” No bullshit.

It sounds horrible, but it really helped me in my later life.

‘Specially in my grade-school years. Kids didn’t bully me… but they made it clear that they didn’t want me around. None of the girls took a fancy in me. None of the guys wanted to be my best friend. When I wasn’t accepted, I began to act out. I got into heaps of trouble each day and was finally suspended because I choked a boy until he passed out. My parents were pissed.

They usually didn’t show much emotion, but they made it clear that I had disappointed them. And that was my worst fear at the tender age of eleven. So what did I do? I drowned my fear in whatever I could find. At first it was eating. I was a chubby kid anyway, but I turned to food as a friend. Gained about fifty pounds in the course of a few months.

But that wasn’t enough. When I started middle school, the disinterest of the kids turned to bullying. Heavy bullying. Luckily, there was a guy who took me “in.” He never gave me a real name, but everyone called him “Steel.” He kept the bullies at bay, let me tag along with him whenever he went out on the weekends, and turned me on to drugs.

I know what you’re thinking. “This guy can’t be for real! Nobody does drugs at eleven years old!”

Just look around. It happens. I was just one of those unfortunate souls who believed every bit of kindness that came my way.

Over the course of middle school, I lost all the weight I had gained from emotional overeating (mostly triggered by Steel calling me fat and telling me that if I gained another ounce, I couldn’t hang out with him), I was hooked hopelessly on nicotine, getting so drunk I’d pass out, experimenting with pot. Steel was just one of those kids. One of those kids that your parents warn you about. But I was so blinded by him…

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This is where the real story starts. So if you’ve handled everything up until this point, good job. It only gets worse. I’ve had a long life. I’ll be turning 72 this September. The first notable chapter starts when I turned fourteen years old.

So if you think you can keep up…

Here we go.