Song: Can't Take It, All American Rejects (don't laugh at me... it was my freshman year)
Word: Tragic Hero
The morning sun streams through the bars on Jared’s window, but his eyes are all in shadow. There is no one around to see him. There’s never anyone here to look into his eyes, to hear him groaning in his sleep, to smell his unbathed body.
Jared lays his head down on the wooden table. The desert sun is blinding him. So he closes his eyes and thinks about mom. And about her.
There’s a sound in the distance and Jared raises his head like a dog. But no – it’s just some keys rattling. He’s ashamed, but no one is there to see his cheeks burning, to feel the heat of blood rushing to his face. Now his heart is black and angry. He’s become a penned Pavlov’s dog, nothing more.
Jared takes up the bite-marked pencil and scrap of paper that are lying on the table and scribbles feverishly. The scribbles turn into question marks, which turn into words. He looks down and there’s her name. It can’t be him that wrote that.
The muscles in his hand twitch and the pencil falls out. Jared slumps against the back of his chair, covers his eyes with a calloused hand. There is no one to notice the dirt under his fingernails.
And Jared can see her now, her black long-sleeved t-shirt. She would take him by the wrist, push hair out of his eyes. They kissed once behind the pizza place.
Jared tilts his head toward the window. The sun blinds him – just like it did that morning she made him scrambled eggs in the kitchen. He had slapped her the night before. But he took the fork in his hand then and smiled at her joke. He knew how to fix what he had done wrong.
Jared pushes back his chair. He drops himself on his narrow cot and closes his eyes. There is no one to see him go back to bed.
