(no subject)
Title: Better Like This
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The first 2 sections in the prequel to "The Beautiful Boy". A look into Theo Gregori's life from then to now
A/N: New to this whole 'posting orginal stories' thing. I know this comes off as more of an outline, not really a story. But the story part comes later, in the actuall book.
Theodore Gregori… “In the midst of life, we are in death.” -The Smiths
Beautiful Boy
Anyone on campus who thought they knew him but really didn’t would call him strange. Strange because even though he was a ‘Jock’ he hung out with the preps. Strange because even though he hung out with the preps he listened to punk rock and screamo. Strange because everyone liked him and girls threw themselves at him. But Theo Gregori was normal. A perfectly normal boy who just happened to be good at swimming, liked rock music and the occasional shag, and had an odd fetish with changing his hair and eye color. Nothing was wrong with this, and nothing was wrong with him.
Born in 1986, Theo was young, happy, thriving, and beautiful. His original hair color was light brown, but then he bleached it blonde, then dyed it black, then bleached it again and dyed it light blue. His eyes are originally green, but he wears contacts that change their color from blue, to red, to brown, to silver, to black. Everyone notices when Theo changes because Theo is known by the whole school. He is popular even though he likes to sleep around, others look up to him even though they’ve all watched him make countless mistakes, and people can’t help but love him because Theo is beautiful. Theo can get away with anything because he is beautiful. He can take as many risks, screw as many chicks, get drunk, hit, kick, be smart-mouthed, talk back, not turn in homework on time, miss curfew, do drugs, get suspended and countless other things, all because he is beautiful.
Beautiful would seem like a strange word used to describe a guy, but it wasn’t a strange word to describe Theo. When the doctor held him out to his mother when he was first born and said, “You have a beautiful baby boy.” It was the truth. All his life, Theo had been called beautiful. By relatives, his mother, his father, the old couple across the street, the old Asian man and his daughter at the Chinese restaurant, even complete strangers. Not once were they lying.
Theo hates it.
After seventeen years of being called beautiful, one tends to tire of it. Perhaps this has something to do with Theo’s slight obsession with his appearance, trying to make himself look ‘less than perfect’. But, despite his avid efforts, Theo has never ceased to be beautiful.
All too Perfect
Theo lives in a three bedroom house that’s painted yellow with blue trim and a white picket fence in front. He has two brothers and one sister, all who are younger than him. Theo’s sister Silvia is fifteen, and has the third bedroom to herself. Which means that Theo has to share the second bedroom with his two brothers, Timmy (ten) and David (eleven). Theo’s parents, Bill and Sally, aren’t around a lot. Sally works full shift at the main office of Washington Mutual as manager of banks 3-5. Bill works part time down town near the old city. Because they work so hard to take care of the kids, Theo basically takes the role of parent during the day. He gets everyone up in the morning, packs lunches, cooks breakfast, helps with homework, waters all of the plants inside, and drives everyone to school. He also picks everyone up from school in the afternoon, drives them home, fixes them a snack and lets them all watch television for two hours until his dad gets home. When Bill gets home, he checks that Theo has done his homework then they both cook dinner so that it will be ready when Theo’s mother gets home at around 8:30. This is life for Theo, the same routine, every day.
When Theo was sixteen he enjoyed helping out his parents, mostly because he could drive and back then that was all that mattered. But now Theo was just sick of it all.
Theo hates having to wake up an hour early than he should to take care of his siblings. He hates having to share a room with two brats that fight over everything and talk constantly while he’s trying to sleep. He hates his parents for having so many kids, hadn‘t they learned that after him none of the other children were going to be any less of a hassle? Or maybe it was because there experience with him wasn’t much of a joy ride. He hates the fact that his sister gets a room all to herself; she should be the one sharing a room. She‘s closer to the boys than he ever was, plus she has a higher tolerance for their shit. He hates cooking them breakfast, and fixing their lunch, and helping them with stupid homework. He can’t understand why they can‘t do it themselves and get it right. He hates being stressed all of the time and not being able to eat every morning because of it. He hates those stupid kids in his car, spilling drinks and getting their greasy hands on everything. He hates listening to his sister whine and complain about friends and boys and teachers during the drive over to the elementary school. He hates listening to his brother’s screaming and yelling and telling stories about what they did that day in school. He hates helping his dad with dinner after being dad the whole day. He hates watching his mother eat it after he played mom all day. Theo hates it all, he hates his life, he wants to be left alone.
Theo’s always had problems, when he was younger he was too naïve for his own good and other kids laughed at him because of it. The only person he felt close to had moved away the summer before his seventh year in school. The year he’d finally have to do things on his own. He never saw his dad much and then it seemed like he had changed but Theo didn’t know how.
Theo was fine with his life back then when he was living it, but he doesn’t like the direction it’s heading in.
This is why Theo hurts himself.
He knows that it’s stupid and that his reasons aren’t reason enough, but he does it anyway. At night, when he can’t sleep, Theo goes downstairs an out the back door to sit in his car. Sometimes he’s depressed enough to actually cry and sometimes he’s mad enough to scream. He turns on CD’s that make him pissed off and sad at the same time, then he drives across town to the ocean, sits on the shore and hurts himself with a carving knife from the kitchen. He doesn’t care about the scars, or if anyone sees them. And he doesn’t really care about the pain. All he cares about is trying to keep himself sane. He figured it was working because he’d lasted so long.
There are a lot of things that go on inside Theo’s head, but when he sits alone on the shore at night he tries his best to forget them and focus on the sea. He always used to like the ocean, his granddad would take him down every weekend just to feed birds and look out into the sea. Sometimes, Theo feels as if he can’t deal with his problems, and whenever he feels this way he finds it nice to look out at the water and realize that he is only twenty feet away from death.
*
*
End of Parts 1 & 2
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The first 2 sections in the prequel to "The Beautiful Boy". A look into Theo Gregori's life from then to now
A/N: New to this whole 'posting orginal stories' thing. I know this comes off as more of an outline, not really a story. But the story part comes later, in the actuall book.
Theodore Gregori… “In the midst of life, we are in death.” -The Smiths
Beautiful Boy
Anyone on campus who thought they knew him but really didn’t would call him strange. Strange because even though he was a ‘Jock’ he hung out with the preps. Strange because even though he hung out with the preps he listened to punk rock and screamo. Strange because everyone liked him and girls threw themselves at him. But Theo Gregori was normal. A perfectly normal boy who just happened to be good at swimming, liked rock music and the occasional shag, and had an odd fetish with changing his hair and eye color. Nothing was wrong with this, and nothing was wrong with him.
Born in 1986, Theo was young, happy, thriving, and beautiful. His original hair color was light brown, but then he bleached it blonde, then dyed it black, then bleached it again and dyed it light blue. His eyes are originally green, but he wears contacts that change their color from blue, to red, to brown, to silver, to black. Everyone notices when Theo changes because Theo is known by the whole school. He is popular even though he likes to sleep around, others look up to him even though they’ve all watched him make countless mistakes, and people can’t help but love him because Theo is beautiful. Theo can get away with anything because he is beautiful. He can take as many risks, screw as many chicks, get drunk, hit, kick, be smart-mouthed, talk back, not turn in homework on time, miss curfew, do drugs, get suspended and countless other things, all because he is beautiful.
Beautiful would seem like a strange word used to describe a guy, but it wasn’t a strange word to describe Theo. When the doctor held him out to his mother when he was first born and said, “You have a beautiful baby boy.” It was the truth. All his life, Theo had been called beautiful. By relatives, his mother, his father, the old couple across the street, the old Asian man and his daughter at the Chinese restaurant, even complete strangers. Not once were they lying.
Theo hates it.
After seventeen years of being called beautiful, one tends to tire of it. Perhaps this has something to do with Theo’s slight obsession with his appearance, trying to make himself look ‘less than perfect’. But, despite his avid efforts, Theo has never ceased to be beautiful.
All too Perfect
Theo lives in a three bedroom house that’s painted yellow with blue trim and a white picket fence in front. He has two brothers and one sister, all who are younger than him. Theo’s sister Silvia is fifteen, and has the third bedroom to herself. Which means that Theo has to share the second bedroom with his two brothers, Timmy (ten) and David (eleven). Theo’s parents, Bill and Sally, aren’t around a lot. Sally works full shift at the main office of Washington Mutual as manager of banks 3-5. Bill works part time down town near the old city. Because they work so hard to take care of the kids, Theo basically takes the role of parent during the day. He gets everyone up in the morning, packs lunches, cooks breakfast, helps with homework, waters all of the plants inside, and drives everyone to school. He also picks everyone up from school in the afternoon, drives them home, fixes them a snack and lets them all watch television for two hours until his dad gets home. When Bill gets home, he checks that Theo has done his homework then they both cook dinner so that it will be ready when Theo’s mother gets home at around 8:30. This is life for Theo, the same routine, every day.
When Theo was sixteen he enjoyed helping out his parents, mostly because he could drive and back then that was all that mattered. But now Theo was just sick of it all.
Theo hates having to wake up an hour early than he should to take care of his siblings. He hates having to share a room with two brats that fight over everything and talk constantly while he’s trying to sleep. He hates his parents for having so many kids, hadn‘t they learned that after him none of the other children were going to be any less of a hassle? Or maybe it was because there experience with him wasn’t much of a joy ride. He hates the fact that his sister gets a room all to herself; she should be the one sharing a room. She‘s closer to the boys than he ever was, plus she has a higher tolerance for their shit. He hates cooking them breakfast, and fixing their lunch, and helping them with stupid homework. He can’t understand why they can‘t do it themselves and get it right. He hates being stressed all of the time and not being able to eat every morning because of it. He hates those stupid kids in his car, spilling drinks and getting their greasy hands on everything. He hates listening to his sister whine and complain about friends and boys and teachers during the drive over to the elementary school. He hates listening to his brother’s screaming and yelling and telling stories about what they did that day in school. He hates helping his dad with dinner after being dad the whole day. He hates watching his mother eat it after he played mom all day. Theo hates it all, he hates his life, he wants to be left alone.
Theo’s always had problems, when he was younger he was too naïve for his own good and other kids laughed at him because of it. The only person he felt close to had moved away the summer before his seventh year in school. The year he’d finally have to do things on his own. He never saw his dad much and then it seemed like he had changed but Theo didn’t know how.
Theo was fine with his life back then when he was living it, but he doesn’t like the direction it’s heading in.
This is why Theo hurts himself.
He knows that it’s stupid and that his reasons aren’t reason enough, but he does it anyway. At night, when he can’t sleep, Theo goes downstairs an out the back door to sit in his car. Sometimes he’s depressed enough to actually cry and sometimes he’s mad enough to scream. He turns on CD’s that make him pissed off and sad at the same time, then he drives across town to the ocean, sits on the shore and hurts himself with a carving knife from the kitchen. He doesn’t care about the scars, or if anyone sees them. And he doesn’t really care about the pain. All he cares about is trying to keep himself sane. He figured it was working because he’d lasted so long.
There are a lot of things that go on inside Theo’s head, but when he sits alone on the shore at night he tries his best to forget them and focus on the sea. He always used to like the ocean, his granddad would take him down every weekend just to feed birds and look out into the sea. Sometimes, Theo feels as if he can’t deal with his problems, and whenever he feels this way he finds it nice to look out at the water and realize that he is only twenty feet away from death.
*
*
End of Parts 1 & 2