Jarad/Jarad
Jared French Larson was born in Cleveland, Ohio at 7:13 PM on a Friday the 13th.
He supposed he was born to be unlucky.
He had an older sister of two years, and when he was eight his mother gave him a little brother named Jerome...At the cost of her own life.
He remembers little of that day...but he remembers crying and screaming at her to wake up and stop playing around. He remembers asking his daddy why mommy wouldn’t wake up and his daddy dropped onto his knees and pulled him into his arms. He can’t remember what his father said now, but he remembers crying all the harder. His sister was crying too.
He walked from school to home with his sister everyday, they only lived a few streets away after all. He remembers his sister being sick one day and staying home.
He was eleven.
When he was walking home he remembers having a weird feeling in his stomach, like he should run in the opposite direction right now.
He didn’t...
...He should have.
When he got home he froze at the door and heard crying from inside. He recognized it for his four year old baby brother.
The front door was locked, and he didn’t have a key so he ran to the back of his house and took the key that was hidden in a potted plant. He quickly unlocked the back door that led to the kitchen and wished he hadn’t.
His baby brother had a long cut over his left eye that was slowing dripping onto the already bloody floor. He was huddled in a corner of the kitchen as far away as he could get from the mess on the other side.
His sister lay on her back with knife plunged deep in her chest with her eyes wide open staring blankly at the ceiling. Her hand gripped a fork that was stuck in the left eye socket of a man that was half laying on her and half on the floor.
He nearly threw up but knew he had to grab his brother and get out of their, call his father…
He moved to get his brother but slipped and crashed next to his still sister. He opened his eyes and found himself face to face with the man on top of his sister…
He saw dark brown eyes the exact same shade as his…
...and he screamed.
The man on top of his sister was his father.
He passed out.
He later supposes his scream is what attracted his neighbors over. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a hospital with his little brother.
Later that month was the first time he cut. He thought it was freeing...and it was in a way. He loved it, it reminded him that he was alive.
He and and his brother were both adopted by a pair of young adults that found out they couldn’t have children but wanted some anyway.
He liked them...later loved him.
He met Elaine that year. They were both in fifth grade, and she just had a brightness he couldn’t understand…
...And she wanted to be his friend.
She became his best friend, and so did her friends, but they were the closest.
She introduced him to a girl named Gwen...and he fell in love. He thought she was beautiful, with her caramel skin and curly brown hair. She was tough and strong and later fit perfectly into his big arms.
He later found the courage to ask her out a couple years later, and he loved it, loved her.
Then he was a freshman with Elaine.
Then he and his friends decided to go out on a Saturday, it was April the 14th.
He always thought 13 was an unlucky number...but it had nothing on 14.
They went to get ice cream and Elaine’s family met them their, he always loved her family because they accepted him as one of their own.
Elaine and himself forgot their wallets in Derek’s car. So they went to go get them…
...and everything went to hell.
His head and upper body was in the car when he heard a big bang and a shrill scream. He saw a small bloody arm break through the window and he jerked himself out of the car and saw the smoking remains of what was just an ice cream parlor...and his whole life.
He then remembers Elaine and glances to see her staring into the broken window and at the small arm.
He grabs her in his arms and gathers her to his chest. He can hear her sobs and lets himself cry to.
Gwen...Gwen was gone. His love...his life…
He loved her, but he never told her.
He should have told her.
As he holds Elaine close he can feel his heart splinter and break apart in his chest. He can swear he heard hers shatter.
He could distantly hear sirens screeching, but he focuses only on his pain and the broken thing in his arms.
Elaine falls apart in the following years and he could only watch.
He just wants it all to end.
He thinks it fitting he goes out with metal...just like his sister.
He goes into his bathroom and cuts along old scars in his arms…he hasn’t cut since meeting Elaine. He starts with long lines from his elbow crease to his wrist then makes small crosses all around the line. He repeats on his other arm and cries at the pain.
He feels his life spilling out of him...then he hears a scream.
Elaine...that was Elaine.
He tries to open his eyes but finds he can’t. He wonders how he forgot to lock the door.
Then he is gone to the world…
But he wakes up.
And Elaine is screaming at him, telling him he couldn’t leave her and he feels guilty.
Then she hugs him and cries and he cries with her as he clutches her closer.
Things change after that. Elaine, or as she now calls herself Ella, starts living and being bright again. He is happy...he has his best friend and sister back.
She calls him brother and he feels like he must protect her from the world.
She wants to be a doctor so he will be one too...with her.
He loves her, but not like he did Gwen. She is his sister so he has to be a good brother...and this time he will be.
They move in together and get a job. They go to college. She shares her obsession over video games with him. He like the Dragon Age series best, but he doesn’t tell her this.
He also notices he likes looking at guys...when he tells Ella she smiles at him and say he is probably bi.
He thinks he is to when he kisses a football player after school.
He is happy and he has his sister. He will survive like he always has, but maybe one day he could live.