CHAPTER ONE: beauty is ugly

Beauty exists for the sake of beauty.

The world around us, filled with joy and pain and suffering. Distorted blurs of nature and images of anguish and misery. It was beautiful. All of it.

Smoke dripping from the end of a glowing cigarette, alcohol twirling in a stained glass, eyes illuminated by neon signs hanging carelessly above bars. Killing us, destroying us, beating us down to nothing. We don't wonder with wide eyes and struggle to comprehend why the things that hate us appear to be so fucking beautiful.

We just admire them.

Nothing profound or intellectual. It was to be admired, marvelled at, made to brew a storm of emotions deep within your consciousness. You're meant to feel something. But feel what exactly? The only logical answer to that question is, who cares?

Aestheticism was what mattered. Things looking pretty, words sounding beautiful, sentences that made no sense appearing to be the answer to all of humanity's problems. They never actually said anything, meant anything. They were just words and we were just people, trying to understand something impossible.

That's what Corey Winters loved about poetry.

His teacher said he had a talent. He wrote from the soul, from the depths of his mind, from somewhere inaccessible.

He disagreed. He wrote from beauty.

It didn't mean anything, it didn't say anything. To attempt to decipher his poems would be pointless. They couldn't be interpreted. They just existed within themselves, within his own head.

As his pencil scratched against the paper, his eyes grew heavy with sleep, his consciousness wearing away, losing its grip. He rubbed his glassy forest eyes, suppressing a yawn as he wrote the last line.

Corey folded the piece of frayed paper in half, pressing down onto the crease. He left it there, sat on his desk beside a wilting flower that's petals were dying with age. The pink flower was meant to bring some life into his room, Velvet had told him.

It didn't bring life, it brought death. It brought the ending. It brought everything that life was not.

Corey, with reluctance heavier than his head of contaminated thoughts, picked up the post-it note stuck onto his desk, heaving a sigh.

eat

That was all it said. It's impact was greater than any poem he'd ever written, ever read, ever studied. It meant so much more.

It was just a reminder. A simple, everyday thing. Maybe it would mean less written by someone else. A Mother, a sibling, a friend.

But it was written by him. His handwriting, his ink, his paper at his desk.

The only person he was disappointing was himself. So what did it matter? He let himself down all the time, that was nothing new.

So, he ignored it. He brushed his teeth, changed into his pyjamas, ripped up the note, threw it in the bin and crawled into bed.

The first thing he did when he woke up the next day was grab a pen and a fresh post-it note.

EAT!

This time in capitals, underlined, circled, highlighted. Everything. He poured his effort into something he already knew would be ignored.

And it was ignored. Every day.

When Dorian Price awoke that morning, his spirits were high. It was going to be a good day, a good week, a good life. He was happy.

Happiness was a temporary emotion but not to Dorian. The boy always had a smile on his face. In class, at lunch, during training. If there was ever a time when Dorian wasn't happy, then he could comfort himself with one simple concept: This isn't permanent. Tomorrow, I will wake up happy again. It worked. It always worked.

It was the day of the big game. The rugby match that was so anxiously anticipated by the student body of Hillford. They were playing their rival team and competition was thick in the air. But Dorian didn't care. Not really.

It would be amazing if they won. An accomplishment, an achievement, something he wouldn't forget any time soon. But if they lost? Well, they lost. It was just rugby, just a game, just another thing he'd forget about in time. It didn't mean anything.

"Morning, Mum." He sung happily as he stuffed a bagel into the toaster and rummaged through the drawer for a butterknife.

"Hi." She murmured flatly, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her lips. She didn't glance up at him, say something encouraging, wish him good luck. She didn't speak. The pair sat in silence.

When Dorian returned to his bedroom after breakfast, he pulled a shirt over his toned body, his taut muscles sculpted beneath the tight black fabric. He never worried about his appearance too much. So after brushing his teeth and rinsing his face, he glanced in the mirror and decided whether he was looking presentable enough. Dark, soulless eyes stared back, haunted and shadowed though glinting with that familiar glow of joy. His fluffy black hair was rugged and untamed but he didn't try and neaten it. He knew that wasn't going to happen.

So, he left the house and mounted his motorbike, pulling his shiny black helmet on, his fingers curled around the handlebars.

Miss Safar had rearranged the seating plan. Her year twelve English class was getting too loud, too wild, too susceptible to distractions. It was hard enough controlling twenty bored seventeen year olds without them being seated with their friends. So, when Corey Winters and Dorian Price arrived at first period, neither was prepared for what was to follow.

"Okay, class!" The teacher clapped her hands together to grab everyone's attention. "I've put the new seating plan on the board so find where you're sitting as quickly as possible, you're already late since assembly overran."

Corey ran his fingers through his tangled blond hair, his sparkling green eyes searching the room for his seat. He didn't want a new seating plan, he liked the old one. He was next to Rebecca Sanders who never said a word and kept to herself. It worked for him just fine — he was able to get on with his work without anyone to distract him. He feared he'd be put beside someone boisterous and loud, someone that needed 'taming'. That's always how it went. The poor shy kids stuck next to the arrogant 'confident' ones, as if they're the ones being punished.

Dorian Price. He was next to Dorian fucking Price.

Corry didn't have anything against the boy personally. He was a nice guy, that much was evident from the constant smile present on his face. Plus, he was one of the few lucky ones who were immune to rumours. All in all, no one really knew anything about the popular, well-liked athlete. He didn't sleep around, he didn't have a new girlfriend every week, he didn't pick on the younger kids and the smaller boys who who can't defend themselves.

But there was something about him that Corey didn't like. His persistent positivity unnerved him. It was impossible to be happy all the time, to not have anything to complain about. No one could do that, not even Dorian Price.

It wasn't that it was fake or artificial, because it appeared as though Dorian truly believed the lies he told himself. He really believed that he was happy all the time, that it was real and beautiful and positive. Corey was too smart to fall for the act.

The mask Dorian had been wearing for so long had begun to meld into his features. He was turning into the character he was playing. He was tricking himself, deluding himself. The face beneath would hardly be recognisable if he were to rip the facade away.

Corey wondered if he was able to see it if he looked hard enough. Maybe a small glimpse as the mask slipped ever so slightly. Just one step wrong and...

"Hey! Corey, right?" Dorian's accent was thick and Irish. He'd moved here in year four and it had barely faded.

"Yeah. Hi." Corey mumbled back, his eyes flicking to Dorian's face, then back to his notebook.

Dorian had never spoken to the boy before, but he intrigued him. It was his eyes; they held so much weight, he craved to know what they had seen. What the world looked like through them. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was the freckles that littered his pale skin, or his naturally blond hair that was so bright it almost glowed silver. Or his handwriting he had seen so many times over his years at Hillford. His work always pinned up on display boards ever since year seven, his poetry paraded around, his name read out in assemblies.

Or maybe it was the fact that he never smiled.

But it didn't mean much. Dorian was intrigued by everyone. Every single person's story, their life, their past woven into their eyes. Corey was just another person on the list. Another lost soul he wished to find.

He never expected to actually locate that soul, nor be the subject of so many beautifully fucked up poems.

Never in a million years.