Story for a challenge but too long:

Watch. Closely. Listen. As closely as you can.

Look.

This is E. Just E. E is a young boy. On the outside, his life seems perfect. He is captain of the art team, popular, and athletic. And, he’s good looking. He has a girlfriend.

But E has a secret. He has a secret that he can’t tell anyone.

He likes boys. He loves his girlfriend, but not in the way she thinks he does. And more often than not, he finds himself looking at Kevin, the boy in his class. Kevin is often denigrated as being a loser. E doesn’t want to be a loser. But E can’t stop looking at Kevin in class.

He wonders if Kevin ever looks at him.

He decides he has to hide who he is, and he does pretty well, until...

It was the infamous Halloween party. This party was bigger than homecoming. If you asked the right people, you could always find some less-than-legal fun.

E didn’t know he had asked. He didn’t actually have to. His girlfriend asked for him.

He could smell it on her breath when she leaned in. A sick feeling loomed in his stomach.

“Stop it,” he murmurs, but her thick eyelashes are half closed, and she doesn’t hear him.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” she says. She is too close. “Aren’t you enjoying this?”

“No,” he chokes out.

“Of course you are,” she says with a sloppy smile. “I am your girlfriend. You’re mine.”

The sick feeling in his stomach doesn’t go away. It lurks in his stomach and sinks lower with every passing second. His girlfriend is grabbing his hands, guiding them to places he doesn’t want to be.

“S-stop,” he says, his voice weak with fatigue and fear. “Please.” His girlfriend ignores him, and no one else hears his quiet pleas. His body feels cold and hard and numb. He just wants the night to be over.

But as his drunk girlfriend fumbles over the buttons on his pants, he knows the night will not be over soon.

For him, a long, endless night has just begun.

“I’m sick,” says his girlfriend. “I can’t come to class today.” E shrugs. He doesn’t want to talk to her. Not now, not ever. Not after the sickening events of Halloween. He still felt numb and sick and cold. “Why aren’t you talking?” He doesn’t bother with a reply. He should have blocked her number so she could call him.

He should never have started dating her. Not with this sick sick feeling and the lingering smell of booze stuck in his nostrils.

He hears a gasp on the other end of the phone. All of a sudden, she hangs up.

The sick feeling throbs. His whole body is sore. Everywhere. He’s not sure if it is from her or the feeling of dread growing in his mental garden, or both.

He didn’t see his girlfriend the next week. But Friday, he saw her and wished he hadn’t. Wished he had protested louder that night on Halloween.

Her stomach was round, and she was flanked by two policeman.

No she couldn’t do this to him. She had raped him, not the other way around— DAMNIT!! DAMNIT!! Soon, the only thought he could summon was DAMNIT!!

He looked at Kevin and for the first time sees him looking back.

No this isn’t how I want him to see me—

The inside of a jail cell was something E never thought he would have to see. His parents didn’t bother to have a lawyer for him. He was alone.

He curled into a ball and stared at his sleeves as his tears turned the orange into dark orange. He didn’t deserve this. Did he?

.... Did he?

Angel Tourette stared at E. She stared at him and she saw the face of someone in pain. This was a man in pain. Holding the needle in her hand, she knew how to help him.

She found him in the rec yard.

“Hey kid?”

He stared at her. “I’m the same age as you. Don’t call me kid.”

“I’ve got something that will help you.” E eyed the needle in her arm warily.

“Drugs?” Angel laughed.

“No. Not that kind of help. Here, let me show you.”

And so rather than despair, E wrote his story in tattoos, drew him backed into a corner, drew his girlfriend and Halloween night. He drew death, lurking around every corner and beckoning him, offering him an escape from a life in prison. He became a living canvas.

His favorite tattoo was the one on his wrist.

From one angle, it was a tear. From another, a pearl. From still another, a yin and yang.

Angel wasn’t the only one who witnessed the pearl.

Everyone did. Everyone witnessed his beautiful art and saw the sparkle it put in his eyes.

His girlfriend saw it too. She wasn’t blind. Her memory was hazy, but she remembered enough of Halloween to know to drop the case.

So E, covered in the gift that his girl had accidentally given him, got out of jail home free.

He had changed, and he wasn’t sure yet whether or not it was for the best.

He guessed that it remained to be seen.

Inspired by this quote:

“A pearl is a beautiful thing that is produced by an injured life. It is the tear [that results] from the injury of the oyster. The treasure of our being in this world is also produced by an injured life. If we had not been wounded, if we had not been injured, then we will not produce the pearl.”

~Steven Hoeller