Luc was a night owl. His concentration peaked between six and ten in the evening, meaning his homework was near perfect most of the time. And he could happily work or hang out with people online until late in the evening. It was mornings he had a problem with.
After the argument (the vice principal accepted that Luc had a point, but he simply could not sleep during his geography class, no matter how dull it was), he’d promised to at least try and go to sleep before midnight, and he had tried. Really, he’d tried. But insomnia had stalked him now for months, and dreamless sleep was always just out of reach.
He opened his Twitter account and sent out a message in 140 characters (or less).
Sometimes when the devil has gone he sends demons back in his place.
With some reluctance Luc reached for his bottle of prescribed pills and dry swallowed one of the little things that were supposed to help him fall quickly into a deep sleep. The type of sleep where you didn’t dream. They took a while to kick in, so he went through his nighttime routine, then crawled back in between the sheets.
Turned the lamp off.
A few minutes later he tapped it once, to make the light come on to its dimmest setting. Then he tried to sleep.
“Luc! Get the fuck up!”
He was up. He just wasn’t dressed. Or out of bed.
Luc rolled over, checked the clock, groaned, and rolled out of the other side of his small bed, to the side with his clothes. Since he was the youngest he had the smallest bedroom, one which had barely enough room for a bed, let alone a proper closet. He had tried, once, to put all of his clothes away in the drawers, and they just didn’t fit. Not even when he folded up everything he owned extra neatly and stacked it all in even piles. Luc’s friend Jay affectionately referred to the mess in the room as Luc’s “floor-drobe.”
It was fairly easy to find what he wanted. Over the past year or two he’d collected eight identical pairs of Gap’s black skinny jeans, all in the same size and style. They were just long enough to tuck into his black Chucks, and he wore one of a collection of band T-shirts over the top.
Since he’d showered the night before, all he had to do was brush and style his inky black hair in a swoop over his forehead and sketch a tiny amount of black kohl over his eyelids, carefully lining them.
Luc kept his bag packed by his bedroom door so he just needed to grab it and leave the house, and there—less than fifteen minutes and he was on his way down the stairs and out the door.
“I have breakfast ready for you,” his sister called as he passed the kitchen.
“No thanks,” he mumbled and grabbed his leather jacket from the peg. Luc shrugged it on, slung the backpack over his shoulder, and let the door slam behind him.
As soon as he was outside he grabbed his packet of tobacco and rolled a cigarette with deft fingers, then lit it with hands that would tremble until the first hit of nicotine. He exhaled heavily and started toward the subway.
The kids online were usually impressed that he lived in New York City, but now that he’d lived here for a while, he was convinced it was nowhere near as cool as people thought. The morning rush hour was insane. There was never enough room on the subway, so he usually ended up smushed into some businessman’s armpit during his journey. That was what happened when you were short and good at making yourself invisible.
While many other teenagers were desperate to escape to New York City, Luc had decided when he graduated he was going to go to Seattle, the indie music capital of the United States.
His high school, Millennium High, was in the middle of Manhattan, which meant he had to catch one of the busiest trains in history to get there every day. He had gotten pretty good at daydreaming while listening to music on his iPhone at full blast. He definitely could concentrate on two things at once. Or maybe one cancelled the other out; he wasn’t sure.
Luc was still hung up on the guy he’d been online stalking the night before—the photographer. The information that he was deaf made Luc feel weird. He definitely didn’t want to feel sorry for him. He’d been on the receiving end of a stranger’s sympathy before, and it sucked.
With death metal blaring into his ears at a volume designed to make them bleed, Luc’s thoughts turned to just how precious his hearing actually was. Feeling guilty for a reason he couldn’t name, he turned the volume down a few notches.
Luc reached the school early enough to go to the cafeteria and pick up a banana before his first class. Not that he’d admit it, but he was hungry. Sometimes when the subway was particularly busy, it took him longer to get to school and there wasn’t time to get anything to eat. Then he spent the whole of his first two classes with a gnawing pain in his stomach until he had chance to go and get something.
The skinny emo goth look took work.
Luc’s butt hit the seat in his homeroom class at the same time the bell blasted through the corridors. The seat to his right was empty, not because Jay was late to school but because his friend had a habit of hanging out somewhere—anywhere—for a few minutes to make sure he was never on time. It was a rebellion thing.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, when Ms. Ware was halfway through
