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All Reggie could hear was the yelling and passive aggressive comments of his parents. So he ran. He didn't know where he was going but he knew it was going to be as far as he could go. At least his little brother Steve was out at a friends house today.
He kept running until his feet were sore and irritated and he couldn't see anyone for miles. He looked around and realized he had run to his safe space on the beach. It was a spot he had found not too long ago that was far away and secluded from the regular beach goers.
He sat down, practically collapsing and buried his head in his hands. His parent's words floating around in his brain and as much as he willed them to stop, they didn't. They just kept on coming down like metaphorical bullets in Reggie's brain.
"There must be something seriously wrong with you."
"We just want you to be doing your best."
"You should be paying attention to what you're doing!"
"Why can't you just listen for once?"
"If you worked harder this wouldn't be a problem."
Reggie screamed trying to rid his head of the nasty words within. Why wouldn't it just stop? He just wanted to be left alone. He was trying. He was trying so hard and no one ever seemed to believe him.
So what if he had a couple of late assignments because he couldn't sit down and focus on them? So what if he didn't always know what people were talking about? Not everything was as obvious to him as it was to other people.
He wanted to blame everything on his parents. But he just... couldn't. They weren't that bad in all honestly. He knew people had it worse. Or at least he thought it was worse than what he had. His parent's were good most of the time. Great in fact. They got him the things he wanted, the things he needed. They allowed him to participate in after school actives. They talked, they laughed, they had fun.
But then...
Sometimes they got loud. Sometimes they scared him. Their comments rained down like hell fire and their passive aggressiveness stuck like honey. They expected him to be perfect and got angry when he wasn't.
Things used to be so easy for him. He breezed through Elementary School, never needing help to complete homework. Middle School was just as easy. But as soon as he reached High School it all collapsed. The energy he had going for him. Gone. Assignments got harder to complete and focusing on anything seemed like an impossible task. He moved constantly, never focusing enough on one thing until he found his passion for music. That became his one thing. The one thing he could always count on.
Until his parents took away and broke his bass in rage because it was "keeping him from reaching his full potential" even though it was the only thing keeping him from falling into his mind and drowning in the words within.
He stayed overthinking his life and staring into the ocean until it was morning, opting to go to the studio instead of his parent's house. Besides, hopefully he would never have to go back again after they played the Orpheum and got rich and famous. Good thing he kept a back up bass in the studio just in case.
So when he was laying in the ambulance and dying, he was almost happy. It meant he never had to deal with the uncertainty of his parents again. Never had to deal with the words in his head or lack of focus in his life.
But then he realized that Steve would be left alone and his parents would likely become more bitter and increasingly negative. His last interaction with them was a fight. He wanted to be free but he never wanted this. In truth, all he really wanted was to be loved unconditionally, exactly the way he was, without feeling the constant need to be perfect.
He couldn't stop the single tear that slid down his face as the world faded to black and he disappeared from the land of the living.