A/N this is a oneshot that is published as its own story on this account, but it doesn't get that much attention on its own. I entered it in a nomorescars contest in 2016(nomorescars is a profile on here that is all about trying to stop the romanticization of self harm in fiction. go check them out, they're really cool). This one shot won second place, which sound impressive but I don't think that many people entered(I don't really know), so it may or may not be impressive.

WARNING: dark thoughts, depression/mental illness, verbal self harm

*

Priceless

Stupid. Worthless. Ugly.

  Stupid. Worthless. Ugly.

  That's all you'll ever be.

  The voice repeats the familiar words over and over, as per usual around this time of the early morning hours. It wouldn't hurt so much if it was still their voices repeating it. But their voices have been gone for a long time and the voice left repeating the familiar words is my own.

  Stupid. Worthless. Ugly.

  "Hey, Jensen."

  My gaze breaks away from the skyline that I had been staring at numbly for hours and over to the out hanging roof that sits across from mine where my neighbor sits.

  "Hey," I reply.

  "You okay?"

  "No," I reply honestly. Probably the only honest answer I've given all day. But it doesn't matter if I'm honest to Gavin, it's not like we're close. It's not like he's going to tell anyone about my feelings. It's not like he cares.

  "Wanna come over for a bit? I got the new black ops."

  "Sure," I say, knowing that playing shitty video games is better than being alone with my thoughts. I get up and maneuver my way onto his roof, only having to cross about one foot of space from mine to his.

  I climb in through Gavin's window behind him, and we go over to the bean bag chairs placed in front of his small TV, each of us grabbing a controller.

  "So how's school going?" Gavin asks after we have been playing for a while.

  "It's school," I state obviously.

  "You're right, school sucks balls."

  I let out an impassive chuckle at that. "Pretty much," I state as I die once again in the game.

  "Come on, Jen, you're not even trying."

  "It's not like I'm good even if I do try."

"Not gonna argue with that."

"Thanks for that motivation," I say sarcastically.

"No problem, bud."

A loud knock comes from Gavin's bedroom door, followed by the booming voice of who I assume is his father, although I've never met him. "Gavin! It's too late to have friends over. Send whoever is with you home. Now."

"Yes, sir," Gavin says back. He looks to me after pausing our game. "Sorry, dude, you'll have to hit the road."

"It's fine," I say while standing up, Gavin follows suit. "The sun is coming up soon and I wanna see it anyway. Thanks for letting me come over."

"Maybe you should skip the sunrise and get some sleep, Jen."

"Not likely," I say as I go over to his window and step out.

"Well, see ya later," he calls after me.

"Yeah, see ya," I respond before hopping over to my roof.

I hear Gavin shut his window behind me, and before I climb through to my room, his light flicks off.

  "Stupid," I mumble to myself as I shake my head and slip back into my room.

  "Worthless," I say pathetically as I shut off the lights.

  "Ugly," I whisper as I catch a glimpse of myself in my full length mirror.

  I lay down in bed, staring at the ceiling. I mumble to myself, "Stupid. Worthless. Ugly. That's all you'll ever be."

*

  "Wake up, faggot, it's time for school," my foster brother yells while banging harshly on my bedroom door.

  I get up from bed, having not even closed my eyes last night, and walk to the door, knowing he won't stop knocking until he knows I'm up.

  I open the door, just dodging Anthony's fist as he goes to knock again. "You know I hate that word," I say to him boredly.

  "Well it is what it is, fag. Stop craving dick and maybe I'll stop calling you that. Now hurry up and get ready, or else I'll leave without you."

  Anthony walks away after a push to my shoulder. "Wow, thanks for that A+ brotherly advice," I mumble after him, but he's too far down the hall to hear me.

Stupid.

  Worthless.

  Ugly.

Faggot...

*

  It's lunch time. I lay my head down on the cafeteria table, knowing that even after a night of no sleep I won't get any rest here and I probably won't get anymore tonight either. This is how it always goes.

  "Hey, Jensen!" Someone yells obnoxiously next to my head, and I look up to see Adam Cruise, resident asshole and one of my worst nightmares. "Having a nice nap, loser?"

  Adam shoves me over, almost onto the floor as he sits down on the bench next to me. I scowl at him and try to get up and walk away, but he pulls me back down into my seat.

  "Don't leave so soon, bud, I haven't finished talking to you yet."

  I look around at the other cafeteria patrons, none of them are even paying attention to us, nobody even spares us a glance. This is how it always goes.

*

I walk home clutching my bruised eye and wiping at my bloody lip with a paper towel. Adam could have at least waited until the end of the day like usual.

I left school right after the beating, not caring about the next half of the day. The only thing I care about now, is how I'm going to get into my house without anybody noticing that I left school.

"Whoa, nice shiner, Rocky. I told you you gotta stay out of the ring."

I stop short on the side walk next to Gavin's house to see him sitting on his front porch steps.

"What are you doing home?" I ask him, while trying to limit too much pull on my healing lip.

"Lincoln had a half day. I'm guessing you're not out of school for the same reason. What happened?"

"Nothing just some guy. I'm used to it."

"So did the nurse send you home or something?"

"No..." I mumble. "Nobody knows I left."

"What about your parents?"

I shake my head. "Lisa is going to kill me when she finds out I'm skipping school."

"Do you wanna hang out here for a while?"

"No! I couldn't ask you to do that."

"You're not asking, I'm offering." I look unsure, and Gavin can see it. "Come on, street fighter, let's go," he says with an eye roll after getting up from his spot on the porch.

  He turns to his front door, gesturing me with a hand to follow.

  Gavin's house is nice. I've never really seen much more of the inside than his bedroom, but just from seeing the foyer and the living room I can tell that his house is much nicer than mine.

  "First thing's first, go in the bathroom and clean up your face," he says, pointing to the bathroom located down a small hallway. "I'll grab you some ice."

  Gavin walks off towards the kitchen, while I make my way to the bathroom. I flinch at the reflection I find in the mirror. Adam usually keeps his fists away from my face. He must've been really angry today.

Once I clean up the mess of my face the best I can, I walk out of the bathroom and meet Gavin back by the stairs. He hands me an ice pack which I gratefully press to my throbbing eye.

"Come on," he says, "we can hang out in my room until you can go home."

  I follow Gavin up the stairs and into the familiar surroundings of his room. We each have a seat on our usual bean bags. I lean back into the lumpy seat with a sigh. "My whole body hurts," I grumble.

"Did he get you anywhere else?" Gavin asks.

I lift up the hem of my shirt to reveal my bruised abdomen.

"Well, shit," Gavin mutters, "he really got you good. Does this happen a lot?"

I shrug. "Sort of..." I mumble.

"What could this dude possibly have against you to do this anyway? I don't understand people."

"It's not like it matters," I say quietly with a shrug.

"What do you mean 'it's not like it matters'?He doesn't just get to beat you up like this. You're a human being, too, and you do matter, Jensen."

This makes me stare at Gavin for a long time. Why does he seem so angry? I'm nothing. He shouldn't care about me.

  But he does...

  Without thinking I start leaning in. And...

  We're kissing. Well I'm kissing. I'm kissing Gavin Scott.

  But he's not kissing me.

  Gavin pulls back. "Jensen... I'm not gay," he says slowing.

  Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What was I thinking?!

  "Jensen!" I hear Gavin call after me, but I'm already moving and there's no way I'm turning back.

  I run straight into my house. Lisa is on the couch. She looks surprised to see me. And angry, but I don't have time to be lectured right now. I run to my room and lock the door.

  There's a knock at my window.

  "Jensen," Gavin calls out. A few more knocks. "Jensen, please open the window. We need to talk. I'm not mad, and you don't have to be embarrassed, I just want to make sure you're okay. Please, open the window."

  I hesitantly walk over to the window, pull apart the curtains and unlock the window. Gavin pulls it open himself, crawling in and I go to my bed and sit down, not making any eye contact. Gavin sits beside me, but I still don't look at him.

  "It's okay that you kissed me," he starts.

  "But you don't like me," I mutter pitifully.

  "No, I don't. Not like that anyway. But you're still my friend, I don't want to lose you over something like this."

  I scoff. "Yeah right? Like you still actually want to be my friend after this."

  "I do. You probably don't even like me like that, Jen. I'm just the only guy you're that close to."

  "How would you know?"

  "Have you ever had any other romantic feelings for me other than today?" He asks, while looking me straight in the eyes.

  I look away with a sigh. "Not really," I mumble. "You have a nice face, though."

  Gavin chuckles. "You have a pretty nice face too, buddy. For a dude, anyway."

  My lip quirks up slightly. "You really don't care that I kissed you?"

  "Nope. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was one of the bravest things I've ever seen."

  "More like one of the stupidest things you've ever seen."

  "Definitely not stupid. I would never be able to do that. Like ever. A girl would have to formally tell me she likes me before I could even think about kissing her. If you didn't know this already, you're kind of amazing, Jensen."

  I scoff once again. "No way. I'm the farthest from amazing. I'm practically worthless."

  "No you're not!" Gavin say adamantly. "I don't know what I'd do if I had to put up with everything you do everyday."

  "What do you mean?" I ask skeptically.

  "I see how your foster brother treats you, and this definitely isn't the first time you've been beaten up if I'm assuming correctly. My life is nearly perfect and I still have trouble not dying of stress every once in a while. I don't know how you do it."

  "It's not as easy as it looks. If you haven't noticed, I'm kind of majorly fucked in the head."

  "Well yeah. But it could be worse, you could be dead. I really don't know how you do it." Gavin pauses, shaking his head in amazement. "You're definitely not worthless. If anything, I'd say you're... Priceless," Gavin finishes with a small smile in my direction.

  I look away ashamed. "I've thought about it. The death thing. If you don't want me to get to that point... I might need some help."

  "Well at least you're finally admitting it!" Gavin exclaims. "You can do this, Jensen. Things don't always have to be this hard."

  I look up at him, a little surprised. And for right now, I feel like maybe I can do this.

*

1 month later...

I step out of the car. Lisa locks it and walks into the house as I walk over to the porch next to mine, where Gavin sits, waiting for me.

"How was it?" he asks after picking his head up out of the book he was reading.

"Pretty good," I answer as I take a seat on the porch step next to him.

"Good. Do you like her?"

"Yeah. So far she's nice, and not super stuffy or annoying. She's more person-y than I thought."

Gavin chuckles. "Well, she is a person."

I roll my eyes. "You know what I mean. I thought she would be all business, you know, constantly asking me how I feel and all that crap."

"TV dramatizes that stuff too much, most therapists aren't actually like that."

"Yeah, I guess not."

"That's good. It's good that you're good. I'm happy for you."

"Thanks."

"No problem, bud.

Me and Gavin sit in a comfortable silence for a while. A few weeks ago I finally talked to Lisa about wanting to see a therapist. She was cooler about it than I thought she'd be and found a good therapist for me to go to. Gavin and me have become closer, and he's basically my best friend now instead of just my cool neighbor who occasionally let me play video games with him.

"So do you know a guy from your school named Alec Marshall?" Gavin asks randomly, breaking the silence.

"Um... yeah. I think he's in my art class."

"What do you think of him?" Gavin asks, keeping with the theme of weird questions.

"I don't know. I've never really talked to him. Why do you ask?"

"He's a friend of mine."

I wait, thinking he'll continue and when he doesn't I ask, "And...?"

"I just wanted to know what you thought of him."

"But why?"

Gavin chuckles. "Just 'cause."

I squint at him suspiciously. "You know something I don't. Why are you asking about this Alec dude? Was he asking about me?"

Gavin looks hesitant. "Would you want him to be asking about you?"

"I don't know. I don't even know him. Could you just tell me what the point of this conversation is?"

"Alec may have told me that he thinks you're cute."

My jaw drops. "What?"

"He thinks you're cute, Jensen. As in he may like you, if he ever got to know you. He likes your face romantically, dude." Gavin finishes with an eye roll.

I give myself a second to digest this before finally exclaiming, "Seriously?"

"Yeah, dude, seriously. You don't have to seem so surprised."

"Well, how could I not be surprised? This has never happened before." I pause. "So... He actually thinks I'm cute?"

"Those were his exact words."

I pause. "Well, what do I do now?"

Gavin chuckles. "Whatever you want. I'm just the message man."

"Well, you have to help me. I've never done this before."

"Do you like him?"

"I don't know! I told you, I've never talked to him."

"Then start there. Talk to him."

"Okay. I can do that." I pause, unsure. "I can do that, right?"

"Just be brave, buddy," Gavin winks.

*

Be brave. Be brave, be brave. I can do that.

Maybe.

Art already started a little while ago, so everybody is getting started where they left off on their projects.

Alec Marshall is right there, only a few seats away, and the seat next to him is empty.

I can do this.

I get up from the seat I'm at and hesitantly move to the one next to him.

"Hey," I say when I sit down.

"Hey," he responds with a light smile.

Be brave.

"Wanna go get some pizza later?" I ask him.

His smile widens. "Sure," he says.

"Okay," I respond.

And the world keeps spinning.

Maybe I am brave. And maybe I'm not worthless.

"You're priceless," Gavin's words repeat in my head.

I'm priceless, I tell myself.