Tw: , bullying, gun-violence, addiction

https://pin.it/65kin9Qcj

Song: Heaven Beside You - Alice in Chains

Relationships:

Mother - "Gwenith"/ "Gwen" - Thin woman, with a warm smile despite her sickly appearance. Wears a cross necklace. Has thin brown hair with a few grey strands. Used to live a wild, reckless life. Was an active addict and alcoholic before and after moving to Pinemill. Recently, she has turned over a new leaf, got into religion and became sober. She is trying to reconnect with Robby and establish herself as his mother once more.

Ander Oakley - Robbys childhood friend. He was a funny, sarcastic and great person to be around, despite his eccentricities. Was in touch with the supernatural, and often behaved strangely because of it. Went though years worth of bullying, becoming more and more unlike himself.

Charlie - Robby's 'coworker'. College kid, works at the video-store, despite not doing anything there. Unpleasant personality and appearance. He used to hang out with Ander and Robby when he was in highschool, and they were in middleschool. Gets weed for Robby in exchange for him covering his shifts.

Vivana Moon Oakley - Ander's mother. Odd woman. Works as a fortune teller. Most people in town dislike her, think she's a lunatic or a scammer.

Katherine Salem-Mills - Used to be one of the popular girls at school. Was stalked and harassed by Ander, who had an obsession with her.

Cade Barns - father. Tall thin man with long black hair. Used to be in a band. Now, lives somewhere in NewYork and has no contact with Gwen or Robby.

Over time people change. Some change subtly, until one day you look at them and wonder if they’re even the same person. Other times, you just know that nothing has changed, no matter how different they pretend to be. Robby knew that better than anyone.

He met Ander when he and Gwen first moved to Pinemill. Even then, Robby thought it was a stupid idea, Gwen said there would be less temptations in a small town. It was the start of summer and Robby didn't know any of the kids in town. The only kid who wasn't off playing with the others was Ander. That's all it really took to become friends at that age, just be in the same place at the right time.

When you’re friends with someone, there’s a level of trust where abnormal behavior can be explained. That’s how it was with Ander. Even when they were little, they spent most of their time playing in the woods, looking for what Ander called “Angels”. Robby liked playing in the woods because it was fun. And while Ander probably enjoyed it as well, Robby had a feeling that there was something else on his mind

Ander was THE weird kid. Several things made him a target. He had frizzy hair that was too long, was a scrawny lanky kid and smelled faintly of cat-piss. Not to mention his mom was the town's lunatic. One time, during a test she ran into the class with crystals to clear Ander's aura, another time she tried to bless the school by burning sage, which triggered the fire-alarm. The boys would pick on him, the teachers turned a blind eye. Robby was sure if they weren’t teachers they’d gladly join in. In the movies Robby and Ander used to watch, the “outsider”, the "rebel", the “weird-kid”, always came out on top. They didn’t care what the others thought of them, they skipped parties, gave the finger to the principal and always got the girl in the end. Ander wasn’t a “John-Bender” type. He wanted to be cool, wanted to be popular. Ander told Robby his plan one night. All they had to do was start smoking, play the guitar and act distant. Girls loved that shit. At least that’s what Ander said. Robby thought the idea was stupid, but then again, he wasn’t picked on like Ander. Most people didn’t even notice him. Robby was sure he would've been bullied just as badly, if anyone actually paid attention to him. Unlike Ander, who stood out like a sore thumb everywhere he went, Robby was invisible.

Ander got an electric guitar for his birthday, a nice one, the latest model. Robby briefly wondered how his mother could afford it. It didn’t matter though, when they sat in Robby’s room, a movie on in the background, Ander strumming his guitar, Marlboro reds, Robby did feel cool. Over the summer Ander got really good at the guitar. He also talked Robby’s ear off about Katherine - the prettiest girl in school. Robby suspected this was all for a girl from the beginning. He didn’t think Ander would actually try asking her out. He did it in the cafeteria, said her name several times before she reluctantly turned around, her face became so red before she ran out the room, crying. The whole school wouldn’t let Ander live that down for months. After that the bullying got worse and Ander became different. He became quieter, angrier, and bitter. Spent more time in the forest. He gave away his guitar to Robby. He talked less about horror movies and rock music, and more about how much he wanted the boys in class to die. He also began hanging out with Charlie and his friends, a bunch of seniors who were held back a grade.

Now, looking back, Robby knew this was the beginning of the end. The signs were there and they were obvious. He wished he would have paid more attention, maybe helped him, tried to stand up to the bullies with him, though it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. At the end of the day, Robby could’ve at least cared more. But it was hard to care back then. It was hard to care about anything when there was no food at home, when the water and light bill wasn’t paid, when he had to wake Gwen up for work and BEG her, beg her to try and go to work, just so they wouldn't strave. Robby knew it was a stupid excuse. Other kids had it worse, hell, Ander probably had it worse. But in the moment, his own problems felt all-encompassing. It didn’t help that around that time he and Ander got into weed.

The first time Robby tried it was at work. He had gotten a job at the video-store. He wasn’t officially hired since he was only 14, but Charlie paid him to look over the store instead of him. The pay was shit, just enough to afford school lunch, but since Gwen didn’t buy groceries it was all he ate. Robby looked over the store, while Charlie and Ander stayed in the back. That day he walked into the breakroom, and saw them lighting up. Charlie let him have a hit.That was the turning point for Robby. The anxiety and stress he always felt melted away. The more he smoked the more everything got easier. Suddenly the money-problems, the boys at school, Gwen and every other issue in his life became so trivial. Suddenly he understood Gwen, on why she chose to drink all day and why she chose to mix pills instead of looking after him. He would also trade everything for this feeling. This euphoria. From that day on Robby and Ander got stoned everyday. Ninth through tenth grade Robby would wake up in time for third period, empty half of Gwens liquor, and head to school, but instead of going to class, they’d sit behind the bleachers with their makeshift pipe. Then Charlie would pick them up, grab some food along the way, and drive them to some grimy house, where they would join the rest of Charlie's friends. From there they’d spend the night drinking, getting high, and...mostly just sitting around. It was kind of lame, but what else could you expect from a bunch of college losers hanging out with middleschool losers. Robby often wished he could go back in time. He told himself he’d go back to the moment before Ander confessed to Katherine. Talk Ander out of it, get him back on the right track. But he knew that was a lie. He’d go back to this exact period. He never wanted to return to the time he was still somewhat trying at school, still somewhat making an effort to help Gwen out. Robby knew that time and time again he would choose the weeklong benders, the times where his head was empty and he felt nothing. And in these moments when all he felt was euphoria, he didn’t care about the stuff Ander was saying to him. He brushed it all off

Robby brushed off the moment the time Ander snuck into Katherine's room. The police escorted him out and her family filed a restraining order. Ander was probably wasted or stoned, He wasn’t thinking clearly. He brushed off the time he ran into the store, hyperventilating, trying to drag Robby into the woods. He was probably high that time as well. He brushed off the time Ander showed him his shotgun. He told Robby how he wanted to get his revenge, wanted everyone at school to regret ever saying a word about him. Ander was probably also high that time. Robby never thought he would actually do it. He wasn’t serious. Surely he wasn’t.

Katherine went missing. Robby, of course, knew Ander didn’t do it, but everyone else in town thought otherwise. The police even got involved again. This was just more fuel for the boys at school. If people used to turn a blind eye to the cruelty, they would outright support it. The bullying got worse, tenfold. They waited for him outside of school, outside his house. Even his mother became a target. The police did back off eventually, after other people began getting involved. Robby knew Ander had nothing to do with any of it. If his best friend was secretly a serial killer, he would've found out a while ago. But Robby’s thoughts meant nothing when the whole town wanted Ander arrested. Ander stopped coming out of his room entirely. For two weeks, no one heard a word from him. Not even Robby. His mother reported she could hear him talking to himself, day and night, until eventually there was silence. Then a gunshot.

The police reported a . Ander had blown his head off with a shotgun. He also left a note behind. Actually he left many. Stacks. Stacks and stacks of letters. From the outside the situation was nothing out of the ordinary. No one in town questioned it. A majority suspected that Ander had done something to Katherine, couldn’t live with the guilt and killed himself. Even the ones who didn’t suspect Ander weren’t surprised he did it. This was the expected outcome for a guy like that. But Robby wasn’t convinced. Something in his gut told him it wasn’t so clear cut. They had a closed-casket funeral for him. Only Robby and Ander’s mother attended. At the end of the ceremony, she handed Robby a crate full of the letters Ander wrote. Robby forced himself to look through a few, to his surprise or horror they were gibberish. Either illegible or just pure nonsense. He didn’t try to decipher them further. Robby knew Ander didn’t just randomly decide to end his life. He knew it with his soul. But he also knew that he had no way to prove it without sounding like a grieving person in denial. He had no proof, only the letters. And that, that was just too painful.

After Anders' passing, everything went to shit. It was shit before but now it was worse. It was as if the whole town decided to personally make Robby’s life as difficult as possible. Most openly celebrated Anders' death, not an ounce of sympathy in their voice. It made Robby’s blood boil. Before, Robby avoided confrontation. There was no point in it. Before no one was ever violent towards him, just jokes and comments when people thought he wasn’t listening. Not much changed, except for the fact that the spotlight turned to him. It was mostly whispers in the hallway, snickering when he entered the classroom, notes in his locker telling him to kill himself. He didn’t care. People could say whatever they wanted about him. But when they talked about Ander? Robby couldn’t handle that. If he heard someone badmouthing his friend, he would swing at their face. That’s when the teachers showed their true colors. When Robby punched a student, he was reported to the office, threatened with suspension. Now they were quick to act. Now they cared about students' health and safety. Not when Ander was being tormented for the past 6 years. It made him sick. They whole town. All of them were a bunch of hypocrites and liars.

The worst of them was Gwen. Robby never paid much attention to her since he began smoking weed with Charlie and Ander. There was an unspoken understanding between them. She chose alcohol instead of being a mother. That was fine with Robby, if that was her choice, he could even respect it. All Robby needed from her was the house, the rest he could take care of. But sometime in the chaos, when the lampposts in town were covered in missing posters, she changed. She put on a cross necklace, got rid of all the liquor in the house. Became “sober”. What a joke. If that was all that she did, Robby wouldn’t have cared. 18 years he had lived with a roommate, who didn’t give a whether he lived or died. 18 years. He had been invisible to her. All of a sudden, she listens to a couple sermons and decides she wants to be a mother again. Robby didn’t need a mother. He ate lunch at school, earned his own money, he came home when he wanted, went to school whenever he wanted. The last thing he wanted was Gwen waiting on him like a child. Yet that's exactly what she was set on doing. He wondered if she knew how stupid she looked, sitting at the kitchen counter at 4 in the morning because he hadn’t come home, or when she tried to ask him how school went. Robby just laughed in her face. The worst part was when she tried to ask him about Anders' letters. That one time, Robby entertained her attempts, he told her about the “Angels” Ander wrote about. She answered that he should stop reading those papers because they were blasphemous. That was the moment Robby knew that he needed to get to the bottom of Anders' death and move away from this hellhole. He didn’t need a mother. It was far too late for that. He didn’t need Gwen either. He didn't need anyone. He was alone now. Completley alone